How do you measure success when optimizing a website, well we took this question straight to the polls. We ran an online survey for period of one month to gain an outside perspective on what other people deemed relevant in terms of optimizing a website.
This in turn allows our readers to gauge for themselves some applicable changes they may need to make when optimizing their websites in order to stay competitive.
| 1) Which top level domains did you have the most success with? |
| .com |
57 |
 (82.61%) |
| .net |
7 |
 (10.14%) |
| .biz |
2 |
 (2.90%) |
| .org |
8 |
 (11.59%) |
| Other |
12 |
(17.39%) |
| |
| 2) What is the total number of web pages per website have you had the most success with? |
| 1 |
3 |
(4.35%) |
| 1-5 |
12 |
(17.39%) |
| 5-10 |
11 |
(15.94%) |
| 10-20 |
13 |
(18.84%) |
| 20-30 |
13 |
(18.84%) |
| 30-50 |
4 |
(5.80%) |
| 50-100 |
5 |
(7.25%) |
| 100 or More |
18 |
(26.09%) |
| |
| 3) What % of keyword density has been most effective for you in the Body text? |
| Less than .5% |
2 |
(2.90%) |
| Between .5% to 1% |
3 |
(4.35%) |
| Between 1% to 2% |
4 |
(5.80%) |
| Between 2% to 3% |
9 |
(13.04%) |
| Between 4%to 5% |
16 |
(23.19%) |
| Between 5% to 6% |
10 |
(14.49%) |
| Between 6% to 7% |
6 |
(8.70%) |
| Between 7% to 8% |
5 |
(7.25%) |
| Between 9% to 10% |
6 |
(8.70%) |
| More than 10% |
8 |
(11.59%) |
| |
| 6) How many words per page have you had the most success with? |
| Less than 10 |
7 |
(10.14%) |
| Between 10 to 100 |
16 |
(23.19%) |
| Between 100 to 200 |
6 |
(8.70%) |
| Between 200 to 300 |
12 |
(17.39%) |
| Between 300 to 400 |
14 |
(20.29%) |
| Between 400 to 500 |
8 |
(11.59%) |
| Between 500 to 1,000 |
5 |
(7.25%) |
| More than 1,000 |
1 |
(1.45%) |
| |
| 7) What % of keyword density has been most effective for you in the Title tag? |
| Less than 10% |
13 |
(18.84%) |
| Between 10% to 20% |
14 |
(20.29%) |
| Between 20% to 30% |
12 |
(17.39%) |
| Between 30% to 40% |
6 |
(8.70%) |
| Between 40% to 50% |
4 |
(5.80%) |
| Between 50% to 60% |
7 |
(10.14%) |
| Between 60% to 70% |
4 |
(5.80%) |
| Between 70% to 80% |
1 |
(1.45%) |
| Between 80% to 90% |
3 |
(4.35%) |
| Between 90% to 100% |
5 |
(7.25%) |
| |
| 8) Does a keyword rich domain name guarantee better ranking? |
| Yes |
41 |
(59.42%) |
| No |
28 |
(40.58%) |
| |
| 9) Do you place your keywords in your folder/directory names? |
| Yes |
38 |
(55.07%) |
| No |
31 |
(44.93%) |
| |
| 10) Do you name your web pages with your keywords? |
| Yes |
53 |
(76.81%) |
| No |
16 |
(23.19%) |
| |
| 11) Do you name your image files with your keywords? |
| Yes |
46 |
(66.67%) |
| No |
23 |
(33.33%) |
| |
| 12) Do you use hyphens or underscores when naming your directories and web pages? |
| Hyphens |
36 |
(52.17%) |
| Underscores |
32 |
(46.38%) |
| |
| 13) Have you created a search engine friendly site map? |
| Yes |
47 |
(68.12%) |
| No |
22 |
(31.88%) |
| |
| 14) Do you optimize text-based navigation of the site with an optimized inter-linking structure? |
| Yes |
45 |
(65.22%) |
| No |
24 |
(34.78%) |
| |
| 15) Do you control the web page content headings through optimized CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)? |
| Yes |
44 |
(63.77%) |
| No |
25 |
(36.23%) |
| |
| 16) Do you add keyword rich H1-H6 tags to your web pages? |
| Yes |
48 |
(69.57%) |
| No |
21 |
(30.43%) |
| |
| 17) Do you create an optimized robots.txt file to control indexing of your website by the search engines? |
| Yes |
32 |
(46.38%) |
| No |
37 |
(53.62%) |
| |
| 18) Do you add a visible keyword rich text to the anchor text with the Title tag attribute? |
| Yes |
35 |
(50.72%) |
| No |
34 |
(49.28%) |
| |
| 19) Do you add a visible keyword rich text to most of the images with the Alt tag attribute? |
| Yes |
51 |
(73.91%) |
| No |
18 |
(26.09%) |
| |
| 20) Do you use Bold, Strong, Italic and other font attributes to emphasize keywords? |
| Yes |
49 |
(71.01%) |
| No |
20 |
(28.99%) |
| |
| 21) Do you include and optimize the META keyword and description tags? |
| Yes |
65 |
(94.20%) |
| No |
4 |
(5.80%) |
| |
| 22) Do you place your domain name in the Title and META tags? |
| Yes |
30 |
(43.48%) |
| No |
39 |
(56.52%) |
| |
| 23) Do you engage in reciprocal linking and maintain a resource or link page? |
| Yes |
44 |
(63.77%) |
| No |
25 |
(36.23%) |
| |
| 24) Do you solicit or buy one way inbound links? |
| Yes |
17 |
(24.64%) |
| No |
52 |
(75.36%) |
| |
| 25) Is a link a link, or do you look for quality authority websites to get links from within the same business as yours? |
| Yes |
44 |
(63.77%) |
| No |
25 |
(36.23%) |
| |
| 26) Do you specify to your link partners which internal page(s) you want their links to point to or most of your inbound links point to your home page? |
| Yes |
38 |
(55.07%) |
| No |
31 |
(44.93%) |
| |
| 27) Do you submit your website(s) to DMOZ? |
| Yes |
50 |
(72.46%) |
| No |
19 |
(27.54%) |
| |
| 28) Do you submit your website(s) to the Yahoo! directory? |
| Yes |
50 |
(72.46%) |
| No |
19 |
(27.54%) |
| |
| 29) Do you agree creating a community on your website(s) with a forum or web blog will help your ranking? |
| Yes |
54 |
(78.26%) |
| No |
15 |
(21.74%) |
| |
| 30) Is high Page Rank as effective as it used to be to get high ranking? |
| Yes |
33 |
(47.83%) |
| No |
36 |
(52.17%) |
| |
After reviewing the results of this survey it is clear on page optimization is key to ranking well.
At the beginning of February the word out was Google danced again and called it "Allegra". The weighting of back links appears to have been reduced while the weighting of on page factors has increased.
We would like to thank all of those who had participated in our survey and congratulations to those 10 lucky winners of SEO Studio Professional.
