Posted by Steve Nyhof on 12 December 2009 | 200 Comments
After doing a lot of searching for top positions on google ads, and top of first page placement in the organic listings, I have found some consistent themes within the source code of the sites that are holding these positions. However, I have also come to find something else of interest as well.
First of all are the Header tags, or H1, H2 and H3 tags specifically.
In many cases with top placing ads for common short tail keywords like "internet marketing" and "home based business" and others; the header tags could not even be found in the source code of the landing pages or even within the style sheets (CSS). On the other hand, when the header tags were there, I found the higher placement of these sites came from sites that had header tags in a specific order.
Make sure to use only one H1 header tag per page. Our landing page system uses the H1 tag (like Heading 1) for the page name by default. You can also decide not to use the page name. However, if you do not use it, I would advise that your first words on the page use the H1 tag. The other thing that I found is that there is a hierarchy...
H1 should always be first, and should be followed by H2. H2 can be followed by either H2 or H3, but do not jump directly from an H1 tag to an H3 tag...
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Good:
H1
H2
H3
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Good:
H1
H2
H2
H3
H2
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Bad:
H1
H1
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Bad:
H1
H3
|
Bad:
H2
H3
|
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So, what do we write for our header tags then? Add your keyword phrase and synonyms.
- H1 tag: Your Main Keyword Phrase
- H2 tag: Synonyms (Other Related Keywords)*
- H3 tag: Main Keyword Phrase AND Your Synonyms (Other Related Keywords)
synonym
one of two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses
*Important: Use the Google Adwords Tool to find related words according to Google. These are related Synonyms according to your main keyword phrase.
Please try to use some common sense here. Google is about relative and commonsensical content. If a person is not getting what they want, it may be because people are trying too hard and writing very specific keyword rich articles that have been very carefully written to include only the main keyword phrase. Google doesn't like that. Think about it! I believe google is looking for the synonyms after the main title keyword because it is more with natural speech and communication. No one talks or writes with such specific focus to one phrase, but splits it up into several common related keyword phrases. Learn this!
This can help Google AdWords identify what your content is about for organic search rankings, but it also helps the quality score bot (spider) understand that your landing page is in fact related to the keywords and phrases you are bidding on and/or using in your page content. I used one of my landing page sites for this example: http://homebasedbusinessccp.com/
Showing keywords grouped by these terms:
This list and quantities show how many times the keywords show up in the page or (optional site).
home based business (14), work from home (6), work at home (5), home based (5), home business (14), business opportunity (9), network marketing (11), small business (8), business opportunities (6), opportunity seekers (5), mlm companies (5), business (20), mlm (44), home (5), opportunity (5), leads (7), international (5), money (5), Miscellaneous keywords (21)
In the google keyword tool, use the left tab "Website content" after you have setup your page with your keywords to check how relevant your keywords are. Enter the URL of your landing page.
Bottom line, make sure you have most of your keywords on your page relating to your main keyword phrase.
I have setup a sample landing page in which you can follow these guidelines. I will continue to setup sample pages for your use, but may change them when and if rules change or new information becomes available.
What Is Google Really Looking For?
Many sites today use style sheets and div tag ids to make up the architecture of the page. However, I have also found pages that were placing high that were built on the tabulated structure of standard HTML of early sites. The reason sites moved to div tags and css was to help improve slow Internet connection speeds. This is really not an issue today. I have used the tabulated structure for years and get good results on websites that are meant to target a niche market. Our current system uses both of these styles within the same structure.
My thought is that Google knows there are perhaps billions of early structured websites on the Internet, and therefore will not rate a site higher or lower based on the architecture. That would put millions of people out of the game. I also believe Google looks at tabulated structured sites with a little more compassion than newer div/css sites, because the techy gurus out there are continually trying to beat Google, and are in fact what I believe on Google's most watched list. (Or watch out for, be careful of them list.)
Listen, once a person is caught doing a crime, they are typically marked for life, they have a history now. Google is all too aware of these people or these people types. Yes, I am sure they understand that there are plenty of white hat div/css developers, I am just saying that the likelihood of a highly intelligent website developer/guru using older methods to boost their site ranking will most likely use modern methods to do it. I may be wrong.
See Google Webmaster Guidelines for more information
