Less than 10 years ago, it was “on-page” elements that were the major contributing factor to top Search Engine (SE) rankings. These included keyword density (how often did your keywords appear in the page’s text, anchor text and critical <TITLE> and <META> tags, etc) as well as keyword prominence (i.e., where on the page your keywords appears), and numerous other factors.
Then, thanks to a new SE upstart called “Google”, things began to change. Instead of copying everyone else, Google implemented a new and what turned out to be a brilliant strategy; it placed major importance on in-pointing links and used them as a critical element of its ranking algorithms (see this article for a full discussion on the fundamentals of links).
Now, you rarely see on-page factors mentioned anymore. It’s all about building links.
But frankly, on-page factors HAVE to play a factor in determining rankings. If not, every SE runs the risk of delivering its visitors with non-relevant results. In the case of Google, the most famous “Google Bomb” occurred when a search for “miserable failure” brought up George Bush’s biography from the White House.
Now, I can appreciate the humor in this, and some others might argue that Google DID accurately deliver the most relevant results for this term. Nonetheless, this demonstrates the risks you run if you place too much emphasis on in-pointing links. Obviously, some emphasis must be placed upon “on page” factors or two problems occur…
- You deliver non-relevant results to your visitors; an SE lives and breathes on the strength of its results, so this is never a good thing.
- You make it possible for people to easily manipulate your database (in the case of the example above, enough people linked to George W’s biography with the keywords “miserable failure” in the link text, that Google actually “saw” this as the most relevant result for this term).
So… back to on-page ranking factors. How important are they?
That’s an interesting question, and one I’ve been interested in determining. You see, for the last several years I haven’t done any major optimizing of the pages created on UltimateFatBurner.com.
All pages are based upon a popular, targeted keyword (usually a product name), and all the important elements of the page contain this keyword. Articles are written naturally, with the relevant keyword “peppered” throughout. Other than that, I don’t do much, mostly because the majority of pages rank well without any major optimization efforts (a large number of in-pointing links and significant “domain age” help this considerably).
That doesn’t mean, of course, that all the pages on UltimateFatBurner.com rank in the top 10 at Google for their respective search terms. Many don’t. It was in reviewing some of these pages the other day that I figured perhaps I had made a mistake. Why leave any “traffic on the table?”
Yes, an “optimization” experiment was in order.
So I downloaded the free trial of WebPosition 4 – SEO ranking software that has been around for ages (I used to own a copy of WebPosition Gold back in the early 2000’s) and put it to work, playing with a series of pages over the 30-day software trial. How did the Webposition optimization software fare?
Let’s take a look. First, however, a little background information…
1) On the fat burner review section of UltimateFatBurner.com, my main keywords are almost always “the name of the product”, or “the name of the product” plus the word “review” (my searches are not performed in quotations). I don’t get too bent out of shape about not having a top 10 ranking position for “the name of the product”, because most people now know that they need to make their search queries a little more targeted to yield relevant results.
However, “the name of the product” plus the word “review” IS an important keyword for me, and I need to be able to deliver a top 10 ranking if I expect to see ANY traffic from the page. So for all examples illustrated here, I’ll be using these two keyword variations.
2) For this experiment, I will focus on results yielded at Google only. Two reasons for this; one-Google delivers the vast majority of my SE-driven traffic, and two-there’s no efficient way to properly optimize your pages for more than one SE at a time, short of creating numerous “gateway pages”, and that’s not a road I intend to go down.
3) Remember, the results noted are relevant to the time of this writing only (August 25th, 2009). Search Engines are always messing with algorithms, so things may have changed by the time you read this.
Moving right along to the results (testing began July 28th, and ran for the course of the 30-day Webposition free trial)…
1) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/accomplix-review.html
Search Term #1: Accomplix (no searches were performed in quotes)
Ranking: Not in top 40
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #20
Search Term #2: Accomplix review
Ranking: Not in top 40
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #4
2) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/anoretix-review.html
Search Term #1: Anoretix
Ranking: Not in top 40
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #6
Search Term #2: Anoretix review
Ranking: #7
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #5
3) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/gaspari-mitotropin-review.html
Search Term #1: Mitotropin
Ranking: #33
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #65
Search Term #2: Mitotropin review
Ranking: #5
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #7
Since Webposition indicated one of the problems with this page was that it contained too much material, I split the article up into two parts, and tried again. The keyword “mitotropin review” immediately dropped to #7, and “mitotropin” no longer ranked in the top 60. Hastily, I recombined the articles and re-uploaded. Now, “mitotropin review” is back to #6. Mitotropin, unfortunately, no longer ranks in the top 60.
4) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/lipofuze-extreme-weight-loss.html
Search Term #1: Lipofuze
Ranking: Not in top 40
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40
Search Term #2: Lipofuze review
Ranking: Not in top 40
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40
Again, the Webposition software indicated this page was extremely lengthy, so I split it up into 3 sections. This did not help matters however; this page still does not rank. It’s infuriating, since none of my competitors are actually providing a real “review” of the product; they either grossly exaggerate its effects to earn commissions, or they are putting it down to promote a product of their own. Ugh.
5) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/fenphedra-fat-burner-review.html
Search Term #1: Fenphedra
Ranking: Not in top 40
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40
Search Term #2: Fenphedra review
Ranking: Not in top 40
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40
6) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/leptovox-review.html
Search Term #1: Leptovox
Ranking: Not in top 40
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40
Search Term #2: Leptovox review
Ranking: #2
Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #1
Comments: Obviously, this is a pretty small test. There’s no way I can come to dramatic and long reaching conclusions from an experiment conducted on 6 pages over the course of a month. Nonetheless, there is some valuable data here, so let’s have a closer look at the results and see what we can come up with…
1) In half the cases here, using Webposition’s Page Critic SEO module had a positive effect on the rankings of the selected keywords, and in two cases (the Anoretix and Accomplix pages), a fairly dramatic one.
2) In two cases (the Lipofuze and Fenphedra pages), Webposition’s suggested modifications had no perceptible impact on the rankings for my two most important keywords. However, Google’s Analytics software indicates something different; a 50% increase in traffic to the Lipofuze page from the previous weeks.
The Fenphedra page, which hadn’t been drawing any traffic to speak of, showed an even more dramatic increase in traffic (from 0 to high of almost 30 referred visitors a day), starting right at the beginning of this experiment. Check out the verifying screen shot from the Google Analytics software (click here for a larger version of the graphic)…
And while 30 visitors per day may not seem like a lot, this is a pretty major improvement; especially if you can expect similar results from other optimized pages. Implement WebPosition’s recommendations on 100 pages, for instance, and all of a sudden, the numbers become a lot more impressive.
3) In one case (the Mitotropin page), Webposition’s recommendations actually made things worse (most of the damage was reversed when the original page was re-uploaded). Again, however, Google’s Analytics software revealed something different; despite the disastrous changes in rankings, traffic to this page was not negatively affected. In fact, short of a few blips, traffic to this page also increased, post July 27 (click here for a larger image)…
Bottom line?
From my small test, it certainly appears that on-page factors still do play an important role in Search Engine rankings, and it’s well worthwhile to optimize your pages.
And WebPosition’s SEO software?
Well, it certainly seems to be help. And even if the rankings for your specific keyword do not improve, the modifications to the page itself seem to make it more likely to rank well for related keyword searches. There’s very little downside here. For myself, I will be upgrading to the full version of the software.
What should you do?
It’s a no-brainer. Download the 30-day free trial of WebPosition, and try it for yourself. Make sure you have Google Analytics (or some other fairly comprehensive software) implemented on your site, so you can track the performance of your pages, regardless of rankings.
Give it a shot, and let me know what you think.
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