SEOmoz:
Rand has released the results of version 2.0 of his search engine ranking factor survey. The number of people inputing opinions has increased, but the focus has been limited to Google (rather than trying to address a number of search engines).

Once again, the title tag tops the list, although they thoughtfully added the fact that it is keywords in the title tag that matter, not its very existence.

It’s no secret that I’m a link bigot. My reflexive response to this survey is that links are much more important than any on-page factor. In a way, this is correct, but it’s also a wrong-headed approach.

Of any on-page factor, the title tag is clearly the most important with Google. Substantial ranking improvements can be achieved by simply putting your keyword (or keywords) in the title tag on a page by page basis. While as a whole, links are a much larger piece of the ranking calculation, the title tag is almost certainly worth any single link. And, frankly, changing the title tag is probably easier than building any single external link.

So, be sure to use your keywords in your title tags.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 3:33 pm by admin and is filed under Google, Natural Search (SEO). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.