Analyzing Ranking Factors | Search Engine Optimization

SEOmoz periodically conducts surveys of leading search engine optimizers what they think are the most important factors.

Here is a high level summary of the top nine results.

·????????Page level Link Metrics

·????????Domain Level Authority Features

·????????Page Level Keyword Usage

·????????Page level Social Metrics

·????????Domain Level Bran Metrics

·????????Page Level Keyword Agnostic Features

·????????Page Level Traffic/Query Data

·????????Domain Level Keyword Agnostic Features

Here is the brief look at each of these.

Page Level Link Metrics :

This refers to the links as related to the specific page, such as the number of links, the relevance of the links, and the trust and authority of the links received by the page. ?

Domain Level Link authority Features:

Domain level link authority is based on cumulative link analysis of all the links to the domain. Factors considered include the number of different domains linking to the site, the trust/authority of the links received by the page.

Page Level Keyword Usage:

This describe use of the keyword term/phrase in particular parts of the HTML, code on the page (title element, <h1>s, alt attributes, etc)

SEO perspective:

·????????The <h1> tag is an HTML heading that’s most commonly used to mark up a web page title. Most websites use CSS to make the H1 stand out on the page compared to lesser headings like <h2>, <h3>,?etc.

·????????<h1> tags are HTML headings used to Mark up pages language.

·????????<h1> tags help search engines Google to understand the structure of a page.

·????????If you are using <h1> as Google recommends for your page title content heading, your <h1> tag is effectively telling search engine “here’s what my page is about” ?

·????????<h1> tags improve user experience in the sense that they are part of web page’s hierarchical structure. The <h1> is the most prominent heading on the page, then <h2>, then <h3>, etc.

·????????Headings [including <h1> tags], Improve ?User Experience by Creating Hierarchy

·????????Millions of visually-impaired people use screen readers to convert web page copy and images to audio. According to this this study [https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/#heading] by WebAIM, 60% of screen recorder users prefer that only the page title be an <h1> tag. ???

·????????How Does Alt Text Impact SEO?

o??Setting alt text for images is very important for SEO and is a key contributing search engine ranking factor. Alt tags provide context to what an image is displaying, informing search engine crawlers and allowing them to index an image correctly.

·????????Alt text provides better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index and rank an image properly in image search. It also provides search engines with contextual information about the content on the page.

?

Domain Level Keyword Usage:

This refers to how keywords are used in the root or subdomain name, and how impactful that might be on search engine rankings.

Page Level Social Metrics:

Social Metrics considered include mentions, links, share, likes, and other social media site-based metrics. At the time of survey, the considered sites were Facebook and Twitter. Since then Google has Launched Google+, and Search, plus Your World, which would also be included in this definition.

Domain Level Brand Metrics:

This factor includes search volume on the website’s brand name, mentions, whether it has a presence in social media, and other brand-related metrics. ?

Page Level Keyword Agnostic Features:

Factors included here are on-page elements such as the number of links on the page, number of internal links, number of followed links, number of Nofollowed links, and other similar factors.

Page Level Traffic/Query Data:

Elements of this facto include the click-through rate (CTR) to the page in the search results, the bounce rate visitors to the page, and other similar measurements.

Domain Level Keyword Agnostic Features:

Major elements of this factor in the survey included the number of hyphens in the domain name, numeric characters in the domain name, and domain name length. ?