Top SEO Ranking Factors

by SEO Expert on 08/24/09 at 5:37 pm

This year, two amazing things happened in the Search Marketing industry, which opened the doors to knowledge webmasters and website owners have had to pay thousands of dollars to SEO Experts for. These two studies, created by icons in Search, can be called the Fundamentals of Local and Organic Search for 2009 and should be shared by anyone seeking to get higher ranking in the immediate version of the search engine results.

Local SEO Ranking Factors

The first study was by Local Search Expert David Mihm, appropriately entitled Local Search Ranking Factors. 26 Search Engine Optimization Experts participated in this study.

For those who aren’t familiar with the fastest-moving phenomenon in Search, we’re referring to the local/maps section of the search results; typically A-J. In 2009, Google not only put this local/regional feature into non-geographical searches, but they also allowed business owners to view statistics about their listings, including impressions and clicks. Below is a review of Mihm’s study:

Top Local SEO Ranking Factors

1. LBL Address in City of Search
2. Citations from Major Data Providers
3. Association of Proper LBL Categories
4. General Importance of Claiming LBL
5. Product/Service Keywords in LBL Title
6. General Importance of Off-Page Criteria
7. Volume of Customer Reviews
8. General Importance of Customer Reviews
9. General Importance of On-Page Criteria
10. Full Address on Contact Page
11. Proximity to Centroid
12. Quality of Inbound Links
13. HyperLocal/Web Crawl Citations
14. Product/Service Keywords in LBL Description
15. Location Keywords in Inbound Anchor Text
16. Customer Reviews at Search Engine
17. Location Keywords in LBL Title
18. Product/Service Keywords in Inbound Anchor Text
19. Inclusion of City, State in Title Tags
20. Customer Reviews at 3rd-Party Websites
21. Location Keywords in LBL Description
22. Quantity of Inbound Links
23. City, State in Contact Page Title Tags
24. Product/Service Keywords in URL
25. Product/Service Keywords in LBL Custom Fields
26. Association of Marginal LBL Categories
27. Location Keywords in URL
28. LBL Phone Number with Local Area Code
29. Association of LBL Videos
30. Local Phone Number on Contact Page
31. MyMaps/User Generated Content
32. High PageRank Homepage
33. Association of LBL Photos
34. Creation of KML File
35. Positive Customer Ratings
36. Location Keywords in LBL Custom Fields
37. Address in hCard Microformat on Website
38. High PageRank LBC Landing Page
39. Age of LBL
40. Association of Coupon with LBL
41. Participation in Local PPC

Negative Local SEO Factors

1. Use of (800) # in LBL (most benign)
2. Multiple Addresses on Contact Page
3. Negative Customer Ratings
4. Exclusive Use of (800) # on Contact Page
5. Multiple LBLs with Same Business Name
6. Exclusive Use of PO Box
7. Multiple LBLs with Same Phone Number
8. Multiple LBLs with Same Address (most harmful)

Organic SEO Ranking Factors

The second study, released 8/24/2009 by SEOMoz.org was simply entitled Search Engine Ranking Factors. 72 Search Engine Optimization Experts participated in this study, which also produced positive and negative factors for webmasters and site owners to pay attention to. Below are the results:

Top 5 SEO Ranking Factors

1. Anchor Text from External Links
2. Keyword Use in Title Tag
3. Raw Link Popularity
4. Diversity of Linking Domains
5. Keyword Use in Root Domain

Top 5 Negative Ranking Factors

1. Cloaking with Malicious Intent
2. Link Acquisition from Link Brokers
3. Cloaking by User Agent
4. Frequent Server Downtime
5. Linking Out to Spam

Number One SEO Ranking Factor

Now you have what all the industry experts believe to be the top SEO ranking factors. What are you going to do about it? You can hire myself or my team at Local Splash, a local SEO services company, we’d be happy to help. Or you can study and implement all of these fundamental SEO best practices yourself. Or better yet, both. Either way, there is no doubt in my mind that the number one SEO ranking factor is taking action. That being said, how will you spend the rest of your week?