Moz.com has released a list of factors that can affect and influence your search engine optimization results for 2013. While we generally agree with the list, there are a couple that we think so otherwise with our SEO services.
In this Video:
00:13 – Moz.com’s Study
00:33 – Factor#1 Page Authority
01:17 – Factor#2 Anchor Texts
01:25 – Our Take on Anchor Texts
01:56 – Factor#3 On Page SEO
02:21 – Factor#4 Social Signals
02:48 – Google Plus Strongly Affecting SEO?
03:05 – Factor#5 Exact Match Domains
03:21 – Our Tests on This Factor Show…
03:48 – To Sum It All
04:21 – Get Ranking, Get Us
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In this week’s SEO training, we look at what factors affect search engine rank in 2013.
Moz.com, formerly SEO Moz has come out and done a study this week looking at the correlation between certain page factors and search engine rank and they’ve also taken a look about what the SEO’s in the industries say about page ranking factors in 2013. In this week’s news, we look at those top five attributes.
The number one factor according to Moz.com and the SEOs that they surveyed is page authority. This is SEO Moz’s speak which kind of describes page rank. It’s essentially influenced by the number and quality of sites linking to a web property and is influenced by the quality of the site, the number of links and therefore the amount of quality passed to that page. So no real news here, page rank and linking sites. It has always been a strong indicating factor of rank, and it still is in 2013.
Their number two attribute is in fact an interesting one because it’s anchor text and according to Moz.com exact match anchor text still has a heavy influence on sites ranking towards the top of search engines. Contrary to that, our own research shows that yes, okay, exact match anchor text may influence rank but only in the presence of a good link ratio with lots of branding related links too. So I’m going to summarize this and say, yes get exact match anchor text but only if you’ve got a good anchor text ratio already, make sure it’s diversified with branding signals and random type links such as click here or visit our website. That will stand you in good stead.
Number three on their list was having the keyword on page on your site. This really just honestly is standard SEO practice; you want to get your keyword on the page title, get it on the content, and you want to, if possible, work it in the H1, H2 tags and the meta description. But by far the most prominent of those was page title, and then secondary page content.
Number four on Moz.com’s list is social signals. That’s the correlation between the amount of shares from the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ and where your website will appear in the search engine ranks. This was the type of correlation as they reported on in 2011 so we know that social signals are still equally as important. Top of the list of those particular channels was funnily enough, Google+, now I wonder why Google+ is influencing Google rank, there’s a funny one for you. Make sure again that your social signals are strong, you’re getting your website shared across those channels and that will have an influence over where your site will rank.
Number five on their list is exact match domains; now this one is highly contested. According to Moz.com, with all things being equal, an exact match domain will outrank against a general or brand able domain. I don’t know, our testing shows that it’s still pretty equal and I think that still the benefits of having a branded domain far outweigh having a keyword domain. Yes ranking is good, but having a brand able domain that people remember and recall and will support your general brand image to me is far more important than the keyword stuffed in there. So, follow there advise or not, but my recommendation is go for the brand able.
Let’s summarize that in five steps, here they are:
- First of all, get good, high quality, authority sites linking to you.
- Make sure that your anchor text is varied and includes just some exact match anchor text in there but not all.
- Then you want to make sure your on-page SEO is good; keyword in the title and in the content.
- Announce your content on social media
- If you can get a good domain, possibly a .com, potentially with the keyword in it, you’ll fare very well.
So there you have it, that’s the state of SEO in 2013. If you want to get your website ranking this year, please look us up here at SEOSherpa.com. I’ll see you back here next week.
