Every two years SEOMoz, one of the leading voices for the SEO industry, produces a report that outlines what the leaders of the SEO industry have observed are the contributing factors to general search engine algorithms. No surprise the study below indicates Content is Still King and Links Are a Strong Queen.
Content is Still King
Content accounts for about 26% of the current search algorithm. This is leveraging your target keyword in the various parts of the page content and having good keyword density, prominence and proximity.
Even with only 26% of the algorithm being based on focusing on this factor, it is where a search engine gets relevance for a search. Of crucial importance to understand is if this is ignored, or not given the attention it needs, your site can miss being ranked for your target keyword even with the other factors in line.
Producing quality content when developing your site does more than simply getting you listed well on the search engines, it is also one of the keys to converting the traffic you’ll receive.
This is also important because of the prediction of the future of search. Most people in the Search Marketing industry agree that a page/site’s perceived value to a user is going to become more important to the ranking algorithm. We’ve actually starting seeing this with the implementation of social search integration like Bing’s Facebook Like integration and Google’s +1.
Links Are a Strong Queen
Links account for about 42% of the ranking algorithm, which is still one of the leading factors. Again, the content must be in place to demonstrate relevance, but a great linking strategy, both internal and external, are what the on-going SEO efforts of a site need to be focused on.
When we look at the breakdown of what’s important with links, we find that it’s split pretty evenly over general root domain level links and specific page links. This means as you engage a link building strategy, taking focus and building links to other parts of your website aside from your homepage is important.
Search Engine Optimization is both a science and an art. Understanding what will impact your site’s placement on a search engine is the science. Being able to effectively impact that placement through exceptional website development and strategic on and off-site search optimization is the art.
If your head is spinning with what will make your site both perform well in search engines as well as give you the bottom-line impact on your business you desire, contact the DirectiveGroup team. We can explore those items you need to push forward to increase your online effectiveness.
