SEO Ranking Part 1
by Michey
SEO Ranking rules and facts are changing so frequently. I try to share light on less known new facts especially for Blogs.
New SEO Rules For Ranking Blogs
SEO Ranking rules and facts are changing so frequently it is hard to keep up, create and maintain a good Blog site ranking wise. This is the reason why we always must keep an eye on changes, additions, new factors/parameters of ranking.
I know, I hear you, it is hard because Ranking is a deep secret, or partially deep, and when we finally conquer the darkness, the rules are changing again.
So, even I hate to talk about volatile subjects, I am here again trying to make sense, but I cannot promise you that what I discuss now will last in time.
Let's get busy.
You already are familiar with:
- Content is the king
- Use keywords optimized tags in title and in first paragraph
- Quality Backlinks to your site
All those will stay but I want to talk about some ranking parameters for Blogs which are relatively new.
Bounce Rate Parameter
Google Analytics teaches us that "Bounce Rate" is the percentage of single-page visitors or visits in which the visitor left our site from the first entrance page.
This parameter is used to establish "visit quality" - with other words, people arrive on your site, decide that it is not interesting enough to stay and browse more post/pages.
So, the content is not relevant for visitors and if you have a higher bounce rate you must find why and do something about it.
I suggest:
1) To put in place the mechanism to show related posts with the subject of main post at the end of each post. This can be done with a specific plug-in or tuning Simple Tag plug-in. This is a great incentive to show that your post is not stand alone and there are many around the same topic, so some visitors will be more tempted to continue browsing.
Examples:
In my post called "How to Choose a Good Product to Sell Online", the first picture in right shows the related posts for this article.
In other post called "Tools You Need for Affiliate Marketing", the second picture in right shows the related posts for this article.
2) There is a plug-in which show the number of visitors per each post. It is a good idea to have it. In is an incentive to click and also you will see where is the interest of your visitors, so write more about it.
In the third picture you have an example (look at sidebar) and if the numbers are high, this can make visitors curious.
Examples
 How to Choose a Good Product to Sell ... Screen shot from my Blog |
 Tools You Need For Affialiate Marketing Screen shot from my Blog |
 Number of Visitors Screen shot from my Blog |
Site Loading Speed.
Even though Google is talking for years about the "site speed" only in the last changes of ranking algorithm, site loading speed become a parameter.
Google tests show that when a site is loading real quickly, the vsitors are more tempted to stay in the site and explore:
- other posts
- your pages, and
- pay attention to site bar advertising
I think it is a psychological factor, but the bottom line is we like to see visitor staying longer as this has been proof to increase sales.
To increase loading speed we need to do really a suite of small changes only the geeks really know. But testing and re-testing can make you a geek as well, if you do just one change at a time
The next video will show you some specifics Google ideas about SEO new parameters.
Google Matt Cutts Video
Explaining some parameters
SEO for 2011
The Best SEO Tips And Practices For 2011
Any website that implements the best SEO practices will stand out, compared to those who don’t, so as hard as it looks, it is really something we should be concerned about to help us succeed in any online business.
Five Useful SEO Tips March 2011
Just 5 Useful SEO Tips in March 2011 to keep yourself up to date with recent changes in Google Algorithm.
How Google's Panda Update Changed SEO Best Practices Forever
Notes after Google has released Panda update 2.2
SEO for 2011
Don't just throwing money at it “to see what sticks” - each keyword, understand your market and your competition must be part of a business decision.
Summary
Usually I pick up just a couple of little nuggets to talk in each post, but I want you to know that in the Web 2.0 and even more in Web 3.0 all the factors/parameters count.
The new Google ranking Algorithm has now around 300 parameters. So if you implement just 1-2 of them nothing or almost nothing will happen. You must try to implement as many as you can. All of the will be imposible, we don't even know them, we discover them in time... but what we already know must be implemented.
To your success
Michey
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Hi Michey, thank you for the tips! I believe that the one on bounce rate is very important to keep in mind. I paid attention to it as I built another site of mine. Somehow I rather overlooked it here. So thank you for mentioning it! Look forward to more of your articles!
@hamshi5433 It is true, the success is starting with choosing good keywords, but it is not the single element involved, contend is the king, and always will be, but also backlinks, social activity, and loading speed are part of the Google's 400 parameters.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my post.
Regards
My SEO study for today is partially complete by reading this article. Thank you very much Michey for writing these articles.Many people just use keywords to attract visitors but fail to offer what they`re looking for and I think they must learn more about content relevancy and site loading speed too.
Thank you, Michey. I will check out your website to learn more.
You're a wealth of information about SEO. Thank you!
YES, YES, and YES, SEO is a never-ending learning curve, also the Ranking algorithm rules must be follow.
Following Google is hard because they are a very strong, prolific, open minded company which, in general, creates the trends of this industry... so following them has many positive ramifications for us, it is not a waist of time.
Important Note:
For a couple of years we had a pattern on changing Ranking Algorithm, it used to happen on a cycle of 2 - 2 1/2 years. Now it is almost an on-going process. The team is taking one piece at a time, it is working around the clock and is implementing changes when they are ready... so no pattern anymore. This is making our life more complicated, but on long term it is for the better... the spammers don't have time now to create robot software which produce more harm then good...
Thanks nightbear and selecteddee
Just my opinion.
Great article and very helpful. Sometimes it is difficult to try and keep up with Google, but as you quite rightly stated, we must implement as many seo factors as we can in order to compete successfully with other sites. It seems to me that SEO is a never-ending learning curve.
As always excellent information. You really have a bead on this. Thanks!
Can be, even though honesty is hard to measure and it is subjective.
I really cannot imagine 300 parameters... and I am almost sure that more then 1 or 2 have a subjective nuance attached to them. But it is hard to make humans act like robots without subjectivity or at least hot spots.
I agree with your analysis, I can see the web design background talking...
@antjecobbett , great comment.
We will never know all 300 parameters, but not all of the have equal power, so if we work hard on the first 10 - 15 of them in order of importance it will be enough to be in a good shape. I am always against spreading to thin on anything, as we will kill the creation time.
About the loading speed, my feeling is that we don't really have a recipe for it, each site is different, but as Matt suggested, there are small actions which we have to do and test for improvements.
Sure to have a de-cluttered site is a great idea and also have short-medium posts. I am guilty of having long posts in blogs, and I have to start to work to correct this.
Thanks for stopping by and read my post.
I like your comments as you always contribute with good ideas.