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…

1. 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.
2. 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.

This “mouse-over” action “peels back” or “peels away” the page to reveal a completely new message below, as if on a different sheet of paper (if you haven’t seen a page peel ad yet, you can do so here! You’ll need to use the Explorer browser though… this ad doesn’t appear to work in the FireFox browser).

As you can see, it’s a pretty funky effect!

Normally, page peel or peel away ads are displayed on splash pages and single page sales sites as an alternative to the more commonly used “popover” message. Based on Flash software, they can promote discounts, free special reports, free trials – anything and everything commonly used to obtain a visitor’s e-mail address so you can follow up with them after they have left your web site. The retailers of the page peel scripts, not surprisingly, claim they outperform typical “popover” ads.

I was interested in using page peel ads on UltimateFatBurner.com, to see if I couldn’t boost the number of subscribers to my newsletter. I was also curious to see how the page peel ads really measured up against the more common popovers.

I was already using Matt Callen’s Instant PopOVER software to create a slick “slide in” popover on the index page of UltimateFatBurner.com. However, I have a large number of pages that rank well with the Search Engines and serve as entry pages to the site. I figured I could use the page peel software on these pages. I’d offer my newly released free e-book, “Dirty Rotten Tricks; Supplement Company Lies That Cost You Money” as an incentive to subscribe to the newsletter.

I decided on PeelAwayAds Version 3.0 as the software I’d use to create these ads, made my purchase, and got to work.

The first thing I needed to do was have some custom page peel ads made (the software comes with a ton of them, but none of them were relevant to what I was doing). Once that was done, I implemented the page peel ads on 10 high-performing gateway pages (you can view one here with the Explorer browser), and tracked the results.

And how were they? How did the page peel ads compare to the regular pop over ads?

Well, see for yourself. For the three month period of Jan-Mar ‘09 Google’s Analytics software reports traffic as the following…

1) Index page (where the slide in popover was displayed): 128, 501 page impressions

2) 10 top performing gateway pages (where the page peel ads were implemented): 290,796 page impressions

At the same, time, Aweber reports 359 new subscribers to the account associated with the index page and the popover, and only 331 subscribers from the peel away ads displayed on ALL 10 page peel pages.

This works out to about a .2% conversion for the popover, and a .1% conversion for the page peel ads (this includes a generous 20% handicap for possible FireFox browsers). So the page peel ads obtained half the results of the popover ad, despite being displayed almost twice as many times.

Not too impressive, huh?

True. But consider this…

The value of the tyical popover ad is that it cannot be ignored. It has to be addressed. The visitor absolutely, positively, unequivocally must act when that window slides in. She will see your marketing message, and she will make a conscious decision on whether to close that window off, or enter her e-mail address to receive whatever offer you are promoting.

That is not the case with the peel away ads. You are free to ignore them if you like. I thought they might receive a higher conversion rate because they still aren’t that common. I figured the curiosity factor alone would contribute to that.

Looks like I figured wrong.

Additionally, if a visitor doesn’t move her mouse to the flickering page in the corner, she doesn’t get exposed to your marketing message – which appears below the page that “peels back.”

Does that mean peel away ads are of little value?

No, I don’t think so. Obviously, any single page site with a mandate of making an immediate sale is probably going to stick with popovers messages (of the “unblockable” sort, like those generated by Matt Callen’s Instant PopOVER software, which I do recommend). I would be surprised if these don’t outperform the peel away ads in almost every situation.

But what if you have a large content site like I do?

Although I recognize the value of popovers, I find them annoying and intrusive, especially if the webmaster opts to have them display on all pages, over and over (I set a cookie, so my visitors only see my popover once every 30 days). So I only display one popover, on the UltimateFatBurner.com index page. But many of my visitors arrive to top performing content pages, and a great many of them never see the index page. Page peel ads offer me a non-intrusive manner to entice them to become newsletter subscribers.

Is it incredibly effective? Hardly. But considering I don’t want to irritate the heck out of them, it’s a worthwhile one.

Bottom line?

I will continue to run page peel ads on top performing content pages, regardless of their miserable conversion rate.

Before I depart, I would be remiss to leave without making a few comments on the PeelAwayAds Version 3.0 software I used for this test. First the good…

Thumbs Up: Instructions and installation guide are well-written and easy to follow. I’m not incredible technically-minded, but it was a breeze to install and get working. In Explorer.

Thumbs down: I couldn’t get the peel away ads to display in the FireFox browser, so I sent in a support ticket about a week before Christmas ‘08 (I know they work in FireFox, because I can view them with it on  the PeelAwayAds sales page.) I didn’t receive a response of any sort until about 6 weeks later, when a staff member sent me a note and asked if the issue had been resolved. I explained it had not, and would like it so. I’ve never heard from anyone again. On top of that, I immediately began to receive fairly aggressive marketing messages for products of dubious credibility and ethics (i.e., “scraping” software). I unsubscribed from the customer mailing list immediately.

All in all, my experience wasn’t stellar – but who knows, one experience is not necessarily indicative of everyone’s. Nonetheless, I would not recommend this product if you think you’re going to require some technical support.

After a quick couple of searches on Google, I found this much cheaper option for page peel ads, but can’t comment on the software personally, as I have no experience with the product.