Source: seoresearcher.com

This group includes a large number of parameters, which determine how the page is presented to search engine spiders. Since webmasters have more control over these features than over any other ranking parameter, page-related factors are often used for SEO abuse. This is why search engine algorithms now assign a relatively low weight to them while concentrating more on off-page ranking factors. Nevertheless having a properly optimized page can still provide considerable benefits. The page-related factors are:

Validity of HTML mark-up

A valid page mark-up ensures that search engine indexer will parse the page content without errors and correctly classify specific areas, such as page title, meta-description, headings, etc., assigning keyword weights correspondingly.

TITLE tag

This tag is the most important one in a page. In eyes of search engine indexers the content of the TITLE tag is essentially a short description of a page. TITLE tag is also displayed in SERPs and is the first thing a user sees before following the link to your page.

Page URL

Having keywords in the filename of a page is also considered important since page URL is shown in SERPs. If your URL contains the search query keywords, they will be put in bold or highlighted in the search results page thus increasing chances of catching the attraction of a user. There is also strong evidence that ranking algorithms put considerable weight to keywords in page URL.

META Description tag

In the past this tag used to have a lot of weight in algorithms. But since its content is usually not seen by human users, webmasters used to stuff this tag with irrelevant but frequently searched terms trying to manipulate search results. Now major search engines do not consider this tag as a ranking factor, but use its content in SERPs listings. Therefore a motivating text targeting web users would do better as META Description tag content than a meaningless keyword repetition.

Headings

The keywords between H1, H2 and H3 receive weight arguably second to that of the TITLE tag. Headings emphasize or introduce new topics and can also serve as a summary description of the page content. Overuse of headings tags can be harmful, and it is usually advised to have 1 H1 tag introducing the page topic, two or three H2 tags opening sub topics, and several H3s wherever it is necessary to emphasize a paragraph.

Link text

Text of outgoing links is another important parameter, which helps search engines determine the topic of a page. Target keywords in the text of outgoing links will get more weight if the pages that your links point to are relevant to those keywords. Otherwise search engine indexer might consider this as a spam. It is also important to keep in mind that this factor serves more to increase rankings of the referred pages than the authority of the given page itself. Nevertheless webmasters are able to benefit from this factor by using optimized link text in the internal site navigation.

BODY text

The actual page copy – the words between BODY tags with the exception of ALT, COMMENT, and LINK tags content. To battle the tendency of many webmasters overusing keywords in BODY text, search engines have developed algorithms which are quite effective in defining ‘natural’ patterns of words in the page copy. Text which does not comply with those patterns would be suspected in keywords stuffing and get less or zero weight as a ranking factor. Therefore as search engine algorithms improve it is necessary to consider keyword placement in BODY text even to more carefully.

Text size of the page copy

This is simply the number of words between BODY tags with the exception of words in ALT, A and COMMENT tags. This parameter used to have a higher weight in the past than today. Some search engines still consider this factor and expect quality pages to have between 300 and 800 words. Starting from 2005 Google no longer uses this parameter.

ALT tags

Very few engines now actually consider this factor, unless it is used in the specific ‘Image’ search, where this parameter has a considerable weight. Using this tag improves usability increasing users’ satisfaction.

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