Blogging Tips

The Latest Word On Search Rankings

For those of you that are tying their best to keep ahead of the ever changing panorama that are the Google requirements for seo rankings, here are some of the latest items that I’ve been able to find. As we all know the world of what’s acceptable and not in the world of search engine optimization needs constant tweaking so that the blogger can stay on top of what will get them the exposure they need.

Domains

First of all here are a few words to the business owner that’s just starting out and is wondering what to do about the question of keywords in the domain name. The experts suggest that while having a keyword located in your domain name does work somewhat for ranking, it’s not that big of an issue one way or the other so there’s no need to try to swap domain names to get one with a relevant keyword in it if you don’t have one in the available domains. Remember too that you’ll not want to get a domain name with more than a single hyphen as they are common in the more spammy websites that quickly draw Google’s wrath.

Inline Links

When you stop to consider their placement in the middle of sentence and/or paragraphs, it’s easy to see why these are favored over the ones that appear off to the side in a menu. The inline links are more valuable since it is easier for both the reader and the spiders to see the relationship to the page the link is referring to. Another small point here that’s more relevant to the website rather than the blog. The use of flash in site navigation will preclude the spiders from even looking at any internal pages that you have. It might look ‘flashy’ but you’re not going to get the traffic you’re after using it.

URL

The thing that you need to remember about URLs is to keep them as simple as possible. The more simple they are the easier people looking for you will find them and that goes for the search engines as well.

Finally a word about keyword density. It seems that I was no sooner giving some advice on the subject on one of the more recent posts than some other information shed a different light. It seems that the ideal density is different depending on the circumstances and its best to look at search results and then go from there.

Written by Rob Starr from Rob Starr
Posted on May 3rd, 2009 and filed under Promote your blog
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6 Responses to “The Latest Word On Search Rankings”

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PV Reymond says:

May 3, 2009 at 3:18 pm

Hi Rob,

Good points about Search Engine Ranking.

Having a keyword in your domain name is okay but I don’t think it is that important. Some times it is better to have a short and memorable domain name.

The point with Search Engine Ranking is that Search Engines are always changing the way they rank websites. It’s really important to stay updated.

Thanks,
^PV Reymond
Caden Grant says:

May 3, 2009 at 7:47 pm

I agree with Rob that having a keyword in your domain isn’t really that important. But great post!
Ecommerce Help - Tyrone Shum says:

May 4, 2009 at 4:55 am

True enough, internal linking structures are part of the factors that can affect your SEO rankings. Eventhough in a fashion like external links, to people, if your page is referred to in many other pages, it is deemed valuable.

For me the age of the page is also deemed important, although it depends on what your site is focusing on. Another plus is that if you always keep your website up to date, your site will be one of those with a ‘high relevancy score.’ Updating regularly as we all know will always attract traffic which will definitely help you in your SEO ranking.

This posts really does contrast with whatever you need to do to improve your SEO ranking. I can’t help but agree with the things you have stated.
basicsofseo.com says:

May 4, 2009 at 11:29 pm

I would avoid any domain with a hyphen, people just don’t remember to use them and never come back to your site.
Mark@TopQualityCheapBacklinks says:

May 11, 2009 at 2:40 pm

I agree, trying to keep your URL as simple as possible is tremendous. Hyphen or no hypphen, it will not affect your ranking, only peoples memories. But the goal is to RANK higher, thereby getting more natural targeted traffic, which in turn, increases your bottom line.

By all means, keep your site content relevant, but your backlinks, where your site is going to gain that extra boost needed to gain rank, does not have to be relevant. SERPS, like google, give you the luv anyway from the PR of the link sites. And the more luv, the higher your ranking.

Keyword density is a good thing too. I never try to focus on more than 3-5%….anything more does look spammy to google, but keep it natural lokking, and you will be fine.
kim says:

May 19, 2009 at 6:06 am

Thanks for sharing these points. Rob I wanted to ask does google rank our sites every 3 months. I am new to blogging and still trying to learn.