Keywords, Competition and Being Number One- Uncovering the Algorithm

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Keywords, Competition and Being Number One- Uncovering the
Algorithm

By following these steps you will see that most closely guarded
secret– the search algorithm. Remember the movie “the Matrix?”
The Matrix is there, you just can’t see it. So is the search
algorithm.

It’s easy to pay a Search Engine Optimizer to give your pages
some ranking power. Unfortunately, given the inherent time
factor involved in climbing the ranks, your money may be long
gone before you know if you’ve spent your money well.

THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL

Forget any advertisement you see for instant number one search
results or automated this or that. Most are scams, and the ones
that aren’t might get you positioned, but it will be very short
lived.

Search engine optimization is an ongoing process. Achieving and
maintaining a high rank, especially on highly competitive
keywords, requires constant maintenance. If you do find a
legitimate SEO firm, it is well worth the money to pay their
monthly maintenance fee and let them continue to help you after
the initial project. At least for 6 months or a year as you
establish yourself.

In this article we’ll look at some of the intricate and complex
tasks of optimizing a page for long term ranking power. You will
learn how to read between the code and the content to find what
is necessary to bring you to the top. Being number one is easy
to say, but is quickly overwhelming when you stare at tens of
thousands of pages you want to out rank. So how do you begin?
The starting line on the road to that first page SERP (search
engine results page) ranking is not as blurry as you might
think. In fact, you can uncover the starting line, the route,
and all the scenery along the way to the finish line without
knowing the search engine algorithm.

STEP 1- YOUR KEYWORDS ARE THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF GRUELLING
DAYS OF WORK

If you have investments in the stock market you know how much
research and thought goes into choosing those securities. Now
take that same effort and multiply it by three. That’s how much
planning and revision your keywords should take.

A simple, broad key phrase like “shoes” could hypothetically
bring you up in a countless stream of different searches.
Women’s shoes, baby shoes, sneakers, high heels, etc. If somehow
you manage to settle into a good ranking (which would be
difficult) you would have more traffic on your site than you
could handle. But traffic is worthless is it doesn’t get to it’s
destination. Chances are, you weren’t that destination.

Your keywords must be focused and precise, specific to what you
are selling. Using a key phrase like “Gucci mens black leather
loafer” will bring a targeted lead to your site. You may not
reach as many people as the more generalized keyword, but the
people that do come to you have a much deeper interest in the
specific product you are selling.

Therefore you have much greater chance of converting that
targeted lead to a sale. Your keywords are your magic beans,
your winning lotto numbers, your energizer bunnies, your sales
force, whatever you want to call them. They must be perfect.

STEP 2- WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE? LOOK AT WHO ALREADY IS

Competition Analysis- no SEO book can give you this information.

Now take your keyword list and type them into a search engine.
Who comes up in the first ten results? That company that is
number one is because they have most closely matched what the
search engine algorithm says should be number one. You can learn
a great deal from them.

A. INTERNAL FACTORS

Take that number one page, and the other top 9 pages and study
them, look at the code, break them down. You are looking at the
first half of what is needed to rank in the top 10 pages for
your key phrases on that particular search engine. The list of
what to look for is enormous.

Studying the Internal Factors on a page is taking it apart to
see how it’s put together. Not how it works, but statistical
research into the precise construct and layout of keywords and
phrases in relation to each other within the page.

Start with these areas:

URL address, Page Title, Meta description, Meta Keywords, First
sentence on the page, Body copy, Bold or Emphasized Phrases, H1
or other tags, Alt Tags, Navigation system

In each of those sections, look at:

Keyword densities- the number of times your phrase and each word
in your phrase appears compared to the text around it

Where and in how many times the same phrase and words appear in
different sections

The word and character position of each phrase in each

The total number of characters

The total number of words

The quality and thought of the content

Beginning with these comparisons should keep you quite busy for
a while. A spreadsheet is quite useful. Some commercial products
are also available that can make this daunting task much more
feasible. Keep looking for other patterns and differences. You
want to duplicate them in your own page. NOT copy and steal. You
want to mimic the patterns that are bringing that page to the
position it is. Then move onto to examining the external factors
of these pages.

B. EXTERNAL FACTORS

External factors of a web page deal with the links to, from and
within a web page, both inside the same site, and out into the
web. This analysis usually takes more time because it involves
more dissection of pages beyond the one you’re trying to
optimize. In this analysis as with Internal Factors, you want to
compare and contrast your page versus the top 10 competitors,
find similarities and differences. Here is a list of criteria to
get you started.

Number of internal (to the same site) on that page

Number of external links

Number of links pointing TO that page* (see below for details)

The link/anchor text- which keywords are used and where

Google Page Rank value of incoming links

Alexa Rank of incoming links

*To get a listing of the links that point to a site, type the
following into Google, MSN and Yahoo searches:
“link:www.domainname.com”. Google tends to only show a small
portion of the links back, but MSN and Yahoo will give you much
more pertinent data.

Now you want to compare the content on each of these pages to
the one they point to. Is it of similar theme, in what context
does the link back appear and where. Subject of much debate, the
consensus is that Google Page Rank does not mean what it used
to. However, if it is in some fashion a measure of how
significant or “important” a site is, it is worth looking more
closely at the sites that link back that are of high page rank.

EVEN A SURGEON USES TOOLS

Now, this is definitely a ton of work to do all by hand. There
are software programs that can help do some of the digging and
mathematical computations for you, figuring out densities and
organizing information.

Tools like this are definitely ones a professional SEO will have
in their arsenal. But remember, these are tools, not miracle
workers. It takes a human being to evaluate and realize
connections, similarities, draw conclusions and interpret the
data. Then, you have to extrapolate this data.

Remember, you want to do one better than every site you just
examined. To do that you have to draw some conclusions and make
some educated guesses and link to even better sites.

FINAL THOUGHTS

You have access to the inner workings of every page that you
want to beat. Learn from them and do one better. This process is
not a one-time shot. It is ongoing. Check your key phrases every
week. Do the same people still rank in the top ten?

Some have probably moved. Remember too that they’re going to
adapt to maintain their positions too. If you want the ranks,
you have to spend the time, and not just once, or pay someone to
do it for you.

Don’t ever believe anyone who says they can guarantee any kind
of results. And ask them how they will optimize your pages. If
they explain to you something like the above, then you’ve
probably got yourself someone experienced and honest. You money
will be well spent and you’ll quickly recover it

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