There’s nothing like witnessing the transformation of a site that starts at the bottom of a niche ranking for a few sparsely related terms then systematically expands their keywords to encompass several thousand traffic-bearing key phrases through embracing SEO.
This occurs as a result of balancing the ratios that determine relevance which are (allinanchor, allintitle, allintext). Each ratio when adjusted can provide your pages with a gradual increase in organic traffic.
Having developed dozens of websites from a few hundred hits or visitors a month to thousands of visitors a day, one fundamental still remains the same. Keep it simple when addressing how relevance and ranking apply through SEO basics.
Content, Intelligent use of Keywords and Theming Relevant Subject Matter
Instead of putting the cart before the horse, basic SEO implies paying attention to the subtle details such as how your content is composed, if you use keywords strategically in your text (and how frequently) as well as how relevant your pages are the the main topic of the site. These basic fundamentals have a respective impact on rankings. But more importantly let’s look at the factors that contribute to the ranking equation.
Aside from the title tag, (the main tag you use to describe the content of the page) and the links that endorse your content through back links (links from other sites) and the copy (which is completely under your control). There are fundamental guidelines you can adhere to that will assist you in keeping your content on topic to elevate topical relevance.
Tagging your content as well as having strong internal site architecture to support your main keywords is often all that is required to create a top 10 position. If you want to rank for multiple terms, then make sure your scale your content and links to accommodate that premise or you can create a very specific blog and add content consistently about that topic vs. trying to cover everything in one site to increase your relevance for those terms.
Before we address the variables that impact search algorithms, let’s look at the medium, the function of search engines themselves.
What are Search Engines?
Search engines are a cataloging system that are essentially transparent in their composition. Search engines are expected to glean information and organize data from thousands of unique industries, compile that data (based on the search command or respective keywords entered in the boolean query) and retrieve the most relevant result.
Understanding the premise of how search engines function (rather than struggling to adapt) is an ideal method for creating a relevant search result instead of clashing with the competition or using brute force. The only competition is between your content and the algorithm, let the others fight it out for positions lower than the top 10.
Yet, in order to appease search engines, you have to speak their language and in this case they speak in digital packets of data which either consolidate and attract or repel to distinguish the content using ratios and ranking benchmarks.
Through appeasing the laws that govern their functions (the mathematical algorithm), search engine spiders use a a contextual artificial-intelligence known as the phrase rank algorithm (virtual intelligence).
As a result, search engine spiders have the ability interpret the context of your pages through bridging other known phrases and contextual modifiers to rank your content. When two or more related words are presented, it uses such phrases to extract the gist of your page.
Your focal point (as a writer) blogger or webmaster, is simply to provide the ideal (relevant) result according to their ranking criteria, which falls into three distinct categories. The three variables used to measure relevance in search engines aside from the semantic synonyms and related phrases are called allinanchor, allintitle and allintext, each has a respective ratio that produce indicators regarding the popularity or strength of your pages.
Talk about green widgets enough on your page, they know your page is about green widgets (allintext), placing it in the title is also a great way to signal the plane (allintitle) or get enough links from other pages that say your site is about green widgets and even if it is or not, it can potentially rank for that or related phrases (allinanchor).
That in a nutshell is how SEO basics play out according the the search engine spiders (the little programs that scour the web looking for new or exciting information to report back to the index).
The next part of SEO basics will cover how to ensure that your content is spider friendly or how to invite search engine spiders to skim, index and rank your content.
In closing, the gist is (1) make your titles unique (2) keep your writing style focused and use key words (words containing the phrases you want to rank for) as well as develop as many on topic links from other sites to cement your position in the search engine result pages.
Just writing about it on your site is not enough, unless your sites has hundreds of authority links pointing at in, in which case it can rank on the title tag alone. That is a by-product of having an authority website and is yet another topic we will be covering in the future.
The most relevant search result is the one that makes it to the top 10. There are no secrets involved, just topical relevance and popularity counts as well, so don’t just write dry content.
The whole exercise of SEO is to get traffic from people. Since people pay the bills and not spiders, make sure you have something worth saying and they will take notice and pass it along.
Otherwise, you are only helping your competition by leaving your guests hungry or thirsty for more topical information about your subject. In which case, they will simply return to the search engine and click the next result in the list.
For other useful tips or to gain further insight regarding search engine fundamentals, visit Learning SEO Basics for other SEO tips.
Also, check out our new SEO tool the Ultimate SEO Toolkit, which features the ability to check out your competitors allinanchor, allintitle or allinanchor rankings.
Very useful info here on the basics of SEO. Great for newbies and a good review (and reminder) for intermediate types like me.
Also clicked through on the link for an excellent rundown of allinanchor etc. Thanks for that.
Hi Mark:
Great to hear from you, can’t wait to do a guest post. You’ve gotta love SEO basics like allintext, allinanchor and allintitle ratios.
Another good one for on page SEO is.
1. Use the keyword in the title along with 2 modifiers
2. Then alone in the h1 & h2 tag (gets a modifier, company, services, etc.)
3. Add the main keywords a few times with anchor text / links in the body of the page.
and (4) having the phrase proximity in the beginning (first 20 words), the middle (a few times) and again at the end of the document creates continuity.
The final ingredient just get 5-10 links to the page and wait till it gets indexed.
Depending on the competition, the site’s authority and the content, you should be in the top 20’s in no time and finesse your way through fine tuning in the top 10.
Great article! Thanks
Anna
I just want to say thank you.
Thank you
Thank you for these out class information.
Thank you for this great article.
i am not good at English, otherwise i want to thank in more efficient way.
But Thank you so so much.
Thank you for these out class information.
Thank you for this great article.
Thanks for the helpful information
allintext：
Mark, by the way how much time does it take for a new site to crawl up to the top 10 with a competition of 45000000 and a search volume of 56000 per month?
Thanks,
Gameboy.
wow.. nice articles, i am new in SEO that’s why everything is not clear to me..
great article i love this article i m going to use a snippet of this article on my website.
he can change the world! spread the influence :-) lets spread peace on blogsphere. agree?
Very useful info here on the basics of SEO. Great for newbies and a good review (and reminder) for intermediate types like me.
Also clicked through on the link for an excellent rundown of allinanchor etc. Thanks for that.
thaneastrologer.blogspot.com
mmmmm… bookmarked :)