What would happen if…? I'm a person to always ask that question.
I love testing and tracking to see what factors can improve or worsen a situation.
So, it was only natural for me to track the moves of a little experiment I did
involving Search Engine Optimisation(SEO) copywriting recently. I'll gladly
share my findings with you. These are our little SEO tips
Before I do, however,
I want to make a couple of things very clear. The outcome of this experiment will
not be the same for every keyphrase on every page of every site. There are too
many unknown factors at play in the overall Search Engine Optimisation equation.
Not to mention, all keyphrases are not the same, and all websites are not the
same. In addition, this experiment takes no account of link popularity, which
is a huge factor in achieving high rankings. With that said, let me show you how
I took the home page of one of my sites – that didn't even rank in the
top 50 — and caused it to rank in the top 10.
First of all, I'm
not a big fan of checking rankings (website position) on a regular basis. I don't
run ranking reports for all my sites to be sure they are all in the positions
I want them in for every given keyphrase. I'll do it from time to time just
to satisfy my own occasional curiosity. This experiment began when I noticed the
home page of one of my sites was ranking highly for a keyphrase that didn't
seem to appear anywhere in the text. Upon further investigation, I saw that the
keyphrase was included in the image attribute tags (a.k.a. alt tags) and that
it was also included in the title tag.
I knew alt attributes previously
carried a lot of weight with the engines but had been downgraded in importance
because site owners had badly abused the tag. Had alt attributes been reinstated
in their level of importance? I decided to find out.
Keyword #1 was currently
in the alt attributes and the title tag, so I decided to eliminate the keyword
in the title tag. This would let me see if the alt attributes alone could hold
the position in the search engine results pages (SERPs). To make things more interesting,
I also decided to research and find a keyword that was a little more competitive
and insert it into the title tag. On the same day I removed Keyword #1 from the
title tag, I inserted Keyword #2. My home page was not ranked in the top 50 at
that time for Keyword #2.
A few days later, the Googlebot came by and boosted
my home page to position #18 for Keyword #2. Not bad! The page fell one spot (from
#17 to #18) for Keyword #1 since the removal of the phrase from the title tag.
Keep
in mind that these are not the most competitive keywords ever known. They each
got between 100 and 200 searches a day. Also, the home page of this particular
site had been (and still is) well ranked for years for other keyphrases and had
a positive legacy with Google.
Five days later, Keyword #2 was moved up
three notches to a ranking of #14 while Keyword #1 stayed the same. Things remained
in their status quo for roughly 10 days and then began to shift again. Keyword
#1, the original that was previously in both the alt attributes and the title
tag, vanished completely. It was not found in the top 50. Keyword #2, which was
found only in the title tag and nowhere else, dropped to position #25.
Four
days later, Keyword #2 was back up in the rankings and was now at #16. To see
if I could improve rankings further, I began to make small tweaks to the page
attributes. I added Keyword #2 to the alt attributes (wherever Keyword #1 had
once been), and I also added Keyword #2 to the body copy. The keyphrase was added
to one bold sub-headline and in three places within the body copy, none of which
were above the fold. It was not added to any primary headlines that used tags,
and no keyword-density formula was followed for the body copy. No other pages
on my site used this term as anchor text in links pointing to the home page. That
gave the page keyword placement in the:
* Title tag
* Alt attributes
* Body copy
Seven days later, the home page hit the top 10 for Keyword #2!
So,
what does all this mean? Simple. There is no single primary factor in search engine
rankings. It takes balance, testing and tracking to find out what works for your
particular pages. Your best bet is to do exactly what I did… begin one step
at a time and track your progress. Did something cause a positive movement? Keep
it. If something causes a negative shift, take it out.
I'm not finished
with this page yet. I'll keep trying different things from time to time just
to see what happens. Maybe I'll add anchor text links from the internal pages
to the home page. I might try writing articles with keyword-rich anchor text links
to help boost the rankings more. There are many acceptable practices I can implement
for this page (or any page) that will allow me to observe the shifts in ranking.
As the old saying goes, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
A diversified approach to SEO copywriting that includes tags, copy and links is
always a wise start down the road to top 10 rankings.
Tags: title tag, link popularity, keyphrase, copywriting, curiosity, attribute, search engine optimisation