So what IS important?

I'm a bit of newbie to SEO and thought I was getting somewhere learning all about PR and studying the various calculations etc until I noticed in various posts people saying that PR really isn't important for improving your SERP.

So what IS important?

I've read a few times that PR isn't the key to good SERP but can't find anyone telling me what is the key. Is it keyword frequency? relevancy? IBL? OBL? (I might be newbie but I'm picking up the jargon )

 

Well, if you read a bit more you will find that Incoming Back Links from external sources (best to be authority on the subject) are THE dogs bollocks, provided it has the correct anchor text (with those words you want to be found on and relevant to the page linked to).

That is your answer.

 

And would you say that IBL are more important than actual keyword frequency and page relevance or is it a combination of the both?

 

IBL's with correct anchor text are more important then keyword frequency / prominience / density... by 1 million percent.

 

Best practice is to cover all grounds but there are many real life examples out there where an empty page is #1 because of hundreds of BLs. I think it was bbq grill or something. But also remember (no pun intended) the miserable failure project. It shows the power of anchor text and BL count. They got Bush #1 and the phrase didn't even appear on the page.

There simply is no doubt about it that anchor text/BL are THE most important for high SERPs. But yuo probably want more than high SERPs because when they click on your #1 spot they want some useful content where they recognise they found what they were looking for. That is where on page SEO comes in. They will see their search term in the H1 tag, title tag and a few times in the body text. Now convert the punter.

Do realize though that on page SEO might well become more important when computers get better at understanding human language. MSN has hinted their new search will be pretty good at it so make sure every page is about one subject only and optimized for just 2 or 3 keyphrases on that subject.

But for now nothing can beat the brute force of BLs with the right anchor text.

 

Here is an article I wrote a while back for Beginning SEO
http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/seo/wpn-4-20040706SEOBasicTutorial.html

 

Hey schlottke only 10 to go to the 1000!!!!

As tops says "Do realize though that on page SEO might well become more important when computers get better at understanding human language. MSN has hinted their new search will be pretty good at it so make sure every page is about one subject only and optimized for just 2 or 3 keyphrases on that subject."

This is very important for the future if not now as when you are competing one on one and all other factors are equal these are the ones that will make the difference

 

The smart marketers are doing exactly that which Topso says, I call it futureproofing your site. If you cover all the bases, then when the axe falls, it will not fall on you. Make sure your on page stuff is right, as theat makes the offpage stuff easier.

 

Well now...if it were only so easy as figuring out a single 'key' - I guess there would be no need for a forum such as this, would there? Remember... I'm here because I too am just beginning to learn about a few of the 'keys'. Digital Point Forums is a great place with tons of good information and very helpful people.

 

just a stupid comment (you all know this already)

But how many sales is a blank page going to get when you search for BBQ whatever?

Once you get people to your site they need to find what they are looking for fast, how else do you get a sale??

--- done with my 1/2 cent worth ---

 

They stopped doing business, took off the content and all the incoming links didn't get updated by their webmasters so the links are still live.

He should do a 301 to Foxy's BBQ site since he got screwed over by DP

 

In google, absolutely.

 

Great article Schlottke! Some useful ideas here for me. Thanks for all the feedback everyone.