3 minute read
The PageRank Equatio n
KeywordPlacement
This measures where on the page keywords are located. Google looks for keywords in the page title, in headings, in body text, in links, in image ALT text, in drop-down boxes, in file names, and in domain names.
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KeywordProminence
A measure of how early or high up on a page the keywords are found. Having keywords in the first heading and in the first paragraph (first 20 words or so) on a page are best.
KeywordDensity
Also known as keyword weight , the number of times a keyword is used on a page divided by the total number of words on the page. There is some confusion over keyword density. Part of this stems from the fact that different software programs look at different parts of the page and calculate this differently.
There doesn’t seem to be an ideal density value for Google – from 6 - 20% is good. Just don’t spam. In other words, don’t fill your pages up needlessly with your keywords - not only will customers think your site is amateurish, but Google may penalize you. It is not clear however whether Google measures keyword density per page, across the entire site - or both, in their ranking algorithm.
Keyword density used to be more important in the past for search engines, and you may still find books and other literature that stress the importance of this factor. For Google (at least currently), it is not that important. This can change however.
A good online tool for calculating keyword density for a web page is locate
KeywordFormat
A measure of whether keywords are bolded or italicized on the page. The best place to do this is in the first paragraph of the page. This isn’t a real important factor, but every little bit helps.
The Importance of the <TITLE>
There is one place on a web page where your keywords MUST be present, and that is in the page title, which is everything between the <TITLE> tags in the <HEAD> section of a page. The page title (not to be confused with the heading for a page) is what is displayed in the title bar of your browser window, and is also what is displayed when you bookmark a page or add it to your browser Favorites.
Correct use of keywords in the title of every page of your website is extremely important to Google – particularly for the home page. If you do nothing else to optimize your site, remember to do this! Also note that the "Keywords" META tag is ignored by Google. Concentrate your efforts on the title for each page, making sure they contain the best keywords for the content of each page.
The title shouldn’t consist of much more than about 9 words or 60 characters, with your keywords used at the very beginning of the title. Since Google is looking for relevant keywords in the title, this means you should NOT include your company name in the title unless your company name is so well known as to be a keyword in it’s own right with instant name recognition – like Disney, Nike, or Yahoo. If you must include your company name in the title, put it at the end. In addition, each page title should be unique – don’t duplicate titles on pages.
If you remember only one sentence in this entire book – commit this one to memory:
Improperornonexistentuseof titlesinwebpageswillkeepmore websitesoutof top rankings on Google than any other factor except perhaps for a lack ofrelevant content on a page or a lack of quality links from other websites thatpointtoyour site.
The following table shows both the improper and proper use of titles on an example website that sells house plans . You undoubtedly have seen numerous websites that use “Home” as the title of their home page. Google may think these sites are about homes!
Web page Improper Title Proper Title
Home page “Home” “Unique house plans, home plans &
