It has become more and more apparent recently that google has become over reliant on inbound links for determining its natural search engine listings. Analysing the websites which appear in the top positions for some of the most competitive keywords around (notably car insurance) will see that the one thing they have in common is an abundance of inbound links.

Through working with a companies trying to break into this elite it has pretty much become a case of, if you cant beat them join them. After trying every which way to do it through effective on page work it has become obvious this isnt enough. Without spending a small fortune on inbound links it just isnt going to be achieved.

Surely this cannot be the best way for a search engine to provide the most relevant results for a user query? Obviously within this the sites will be ordered by the traditional on page factors, but by placing so much emphasis on the links google is creating tiers within the search results:

Tier 1: those with a substantial link building programme (and large budgets)
Tier 2: those with less budget but well optimised sites
Tier 3: the remainder

Without a change in strategy or finances a company will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible to break into the top tier.

a useful little list of top factors for consideration in SEO.

Top Factors Affecting Positive Search Engine Rankings

The jury of search engine experts over at SEOMoz has weighed in, and here are the top factors affecting search engine placement, according to them, with my comments.

1. Keyword Use in Title TagI have said for many years that if I had a gun to my head, and could do only one thing to a web page to optimize it, my choice would be the title tag. Put your keyphrases in your title tag, and remember to optimize each page individually (i.e. don’t overstuff your title tag, and have different title tags for each page that reflect the content of that particular page - otherwise, you may suffer from a duplicative content exclusion and find yourself in the supplemental results).

2. Keyword Use in Body TextDuh. If your keyword or keyphrase isn’t mentioned at least once in the body text of the web page, then it does not seem your page is very relevant to that keyphrase, now does it? But don’t get all caught up in the keyphrase density myth - there is no magic number of times it should appear. Make sense to readers, and it will make sense to the search engines.

3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis)Google is smarter than you give them credit for, and just stuffing a keyphrase into a completely unrelated page won’t do you much, if any good. Your page should be on a topic which is semantically related to the keyphrase which you are targeting in your title tag.

4. Keyword Use in H1 TagOh, for years the naysayers have been telling me that H1 tag keyphrase use meant nothing and that I was an idiot for thinking otherwise. Well the verdict is in and this is the fourth most important factor according to the SEOMoz article. At this point, therefore, we have learned to put your keyphrase in your title tag, include it in your body text, which body text is topically or semantically related to the keyphrase, and head up the body text with an H1 containing the keyphrase.

5. Keyword Use in Domain NameThis is one that I disagree with. I have seen absolutely no evidence of this at all. Do a simple search on the internet for most any search term, and chances are the top results do not have the search query in the domain name. I believe this may have minor importance, but don’t go and change your domain because of it. Seriously, you have much more to lose (such as age of domain, inbound linkage, site reputation, etc.) I regularly see clients at the top of Google with domain names containing nothing near the relevant search terms.

6. Keyword Use in Page URLThis is what I have called “descriptive file naming” for a number of years. I believe it is of some importance, again, however, is more of a factor when setting up a new domain than would be for an existing domain with high pagerank and inbound linkage. Changing your internal url’s for the sole purpose of meeting this criterion again is very risky, for the same reasons mentioned above.

7. Keyword Use in H2, H3, H… TagsWell if it works for H1, why not for H2 et al.?

8. Keyword Use in ALT Attributes and Image TitlesSEOMoz incorrectly calls them an ALT tag, but it is not a tag, the ALT is an attribute of the IMG tag. Semantics aside, I believe this to be highly important, I would have ranked this above the URL and domain name items. Experience has shown me that image optimization (image file name, alt attribute, and title) is a wonderful way to make a page more relevant to a desired search query.

9. Keyword Use in Bold/Strong TagsI always use this method, as well as keyword use within the EM (italics) tag. I believe this to be a moderately important factor as it helps emphasize to Google what your page is about, and what you consider important. Definitely on my short list of things to do for “on page” search engine optimization.

10. Keyword Use in Meta Description TagAgain, one of my “big 4″ for on page optimization. The “big 4″ being: title tag, meta description, h1, and image ALT attributes. (I don’t include body text in my big 4 as I believe that is self evident). Definitely important, and again, each page should have custom title and meta description tags.

Excellent articel highlighted the impact of personalisation of search on the SEO market place. Come interesting observations I had not before considered.

The Impact ofPersonalization on SEO
By Claudia Bruemmer

Personalization of search has been a growing topic of interest for a while, but has stayed under the radar for most people until now. With Google’s widespread integration of personalization into standard search results, search marketers’ attention has finally been firmly riveted on the issue. Up until recently, Google provided two personalization options:
You could customize your Google Personalized Homepage for quick access to information of your choice (email messages, news headlines, etc.).
You could get automatic personalization from your search history.
Major Changes at SiteProNews: The SiteProNews website no longer reflects the content of the SiteProNews newsletter. The website has a completely new look, provides keyword and category search and offers more article content as well as dynamically changing webmaster blog and news feeds. New features and sections will be added in the coming weeks. Be sure to visit and bookmark the new SiteProNews website.
Recently, Google started combining the above two options for users who sign up for services through their Google accounts. When you sign in, you get access to tailored results utilizing information from your search history and your Google home page. If you don’t wish to see results based on your past searches, you simply sign out of your Google Account or turn the option to track your history off in your Account settings.
To quote Danny Sullivan, “…anyone who signs-up for any Google service using a Google Account (such as Gmail, AdSense, Google Analytics among others) will automatically be enrolled into three additional Google products: Search History — Personalized Search — Personalized Homepage.” In the past, Google Accounts required you to manually enable Search History. However, with the recent change, personalized search has been enabled for all accounts, new and old alike. All accounts also automatically get home pages generated based on account information.
Widespread Personalization
We don’t know for sure how rapidly search personalization will take hold. However, a 2006 Choice Stream Personalization Survey shows that consumer interest in the issue is strong, with 79 percent of respondents indicating a willingness to receive personalized content and more than half of the 18-24 year olds asked expressing an interest. The study also saw an íncrease in the number of people who would be willing to trade privacy for increasingly tailored results.
These findings can likely be generalized to search users because the information required for search personalization is less intrusive than the content participants were questioned about in the survey.
Benefits and Drawbacks for Users and Site Owners
Personalization benefits users because it can help make their searches more relevant based on past search behavior. It also can help Web site owners who have excellent content and well-written Titles, since the Web sites with the “stickiest” content will be weighted more favorably. However, in both cases there is also the possibility of closing out potentially useful resources because they do not fit a user’s previous history.

In addition to good content, Web pages need good Title and Description Meta tags. Because these are displayed on the search results page, they represent the way human users will judge the site and decide whether or not to clíck through.
You can also gain by getting yourself on the Google personalized homepage of many search users. One way to do this is to offër users a feed, a Google gadget, or Add To Google buttons on your pages so users can subscribe to your content. Another tip is to put Google Bookmark buttons on your pages, such as those provided by AddThis. The more a visitor relies on your site, the better ranking it will receive when that user performs searches related to your keywords. The winners in personalized search are those who make a connection to their users because the results reward loyalty.
Implications for SEO
Increased personalization in search results has obvious implications for anyone performing search engine optimization since search results will now differ from user to user based on search history and user profile. Naturally, all queries will show a change in ranking positions between personalized and non-personalized results. Practitioners have analyzed this effect and found that results for personalized vs. non-personalized search can vary as much as 90 percent. Clearly, on page elements, particularly in the content and Meta data, will become extremely important again.
Rank Checking
The area most affected in the search optimization process is rank checking. An article by Mike Moran in Revenue January/February 2007 states, “Widespread personalization will doom traditional rank checking”. Moran also asserts, “It’s the biggest change in search marketing since paid search.”
Extensive personalization will affect the traditional rank checking process because site rankings will differ based on users’ idiosyncratic search habits. SEO analysts will be looking at average rankings rather than absolute rankings. This will force a change in search engine optimization techniques. Currently, SEO requires decision-making based partly on researching targeted keyword phrases used by leading competitors. With personalization, it becomes difficult to identify the leading competitors because all search results will differ.

Therefore, new methodologies for making search engine optimization decisions will have to be devised. Traditional SEO and on page optimization will still be very important and SEOs will need to continue to improve pages, making them superior to other pages for specific targeted keyword phrases. This will require more thorough analyses of competitor on-page and off-page factors.
The process of SEO competitor analysis will require data collection, quantitative and qualitative analyses, as well as multivariate analysis. Multivariate analyses can help determine the relative importance and influence of multiple factors compared to each other, yielding the competitive landscape for your targeted key terms. The strengths and weaknesses of this landscape will help practitioners make the SEO decisions needed for targeting the right terms for optimization.
In-depth competitor intelligence will give SEO practitioners more accurate readings of how their client’s Web pages compare to their competitors’ pages, and the result will be more accurate information than we currently get with rank checking.

The Challenge of Competitor Intelligence
In-depth competitor intelligence can reveal what’s working and what’s not for a site’s strongest competitors. It can reveal which sites are competitively strong (or weak) compared to the client’s site, regardless of what the respective ranking numbers would show with rank checking.
New age competitor intelligence will tell you what optimization factors are most important for specific competitive landscapes. Technicians will learn the true competitive nature of a keyword phrase rather that just the number of results returned for a specific query. They will know exactly what SEO factors to work in order to strengthen their client’s position rather than guesstimate based on general guidelines.
In-depth competitor intelligence will tell practitioners how to prioritize the SEO factors to be optimized, revealing semantic relationships between the client’s content, the competitors’ content, and the semantic nuances of a keyword phrase related to search personalization of user results. Optimization in the era of personalization requires robust competitive intelligence, and this will pay big dividends to those who master analyzing the competitive landscape.
It is undoubtedly true that search will change dramatically once personalization is widely adopted. However, SEO is an art that is extremely flexible and will adapt with widespread use of search history to affect rankings. SEO practitioners have always been creative, and we will develop new techniques to achieve search visibility for our clients as personalized search becomes more prevalent.

Not rocket science but puts forward some interesting points. This is what I have believed and have told clients for a while. There is no sense in managing PPC and SEO as seperate entities when they are formed from the same model. Also this becomes even more prevelant as the paid search engines all revert to a qulity scoring system which accounts for landing pages in the same way as the natural search algorithms.

Yes, Co-managed PPC And SEO Campaigns Work

by Rob Garner, Wednesday, March 28, 2007
IN LATE February we released our Search Synergy Report, which demonstrates that there is indeed a lift in search campaigns that have both a paid and natural search component. These findings support similar studies presented by SEO-PR and Yahoo/Nielsen ReelResearch on the exponential benefits of and lift from holistically managed search campaigns.
The study sought to answer the following question: “Does running a natural search campaign and a paid search campaign together create more value than running them in a non-integrated manner?” In the end, the evidence revealed that the answer to this question is an overwhelming yes.
Among the findings, the report shows:
A causal relationship between paid and natural was confirmed, and the results were significantly positive. These happy results came when running paid and natural search in a cohesive, integrated manner, particularly when visibility was maximized for a particular keyword in both the paid and natural sections of a search engine results page. We also confirmed other eye-tracking and holistic research studies that reveal the dynamic interplay between paid and natural results on the search engine results pages, and that search is not an either/or proposition.
One plus one equals three. Not only did the research show that positive results increased (to the effect of appearing twice) but there was also extra lift from the additional visibility.
Running natural and paid search together (versus running them alone) in an integrated manner will drive superior results for branding and lead generation. When appearing in both natural and paid search for the same keyword impression, clicks lifted 92 percent, actions lifted 45percent, orders lifted 45 percent, page views lifted 44 percent, visitors increased by 41 percent, and time on site increased by 40 percent.
Natural search optimization is one of the strongest tactics for increasing paid search performance. Imagine that your paid copy is so tweaked so that it can be tweaked no more; your call-to-action has been massaged to entice clicks that exceed industry standards; and your sophisticated ROI measurement tools show that position 2.4 is the sweet spot for the highest conversion rate. So where do you go from there? The research indicates that while natural presence creates overall click lift, it can also create overall paid search lift. If your paid terms are converting, then a tactic for increasing those high converting clicks is increasing natural search visibility.
So how do these findings impact holistic search strategies?
Look to high performance keywords in paid search, and begin optimizing for these terms in natural search. If all copy and paid rank optimization has been maxed out for conversion performance, the next logical step is to increase visibility on the natural SERP for that keyword to attain additional click share. Impressions are relatively finite, so increasing page visibility in natural search is a sensible way to maximize the potential for high-converting terms.
Look for high performance keywords in your natural results, and ensure that these terms are added to paid campaigns. If you want to get more of a good thing, maximize your visibility on the page for that term, including adding the term to paid results. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to bid aggressively to maximize visibility and conversions. Get in the paid game for high converting terms, and find your ROI comfort zone, whether it’s at no.1, no.3 or no.6.
Increase natural presence; decrease paid spend. For certain types of ROI goals, particularly those running on leaner margins, it may be very sensible to reduce PPC bids once high natural visibility is achieved. If you are bottoming out in paid search every month, and lack a significant natural presence, it would be worthwhile to add a significant natural search component, and then tweak positions in PPC accordingly to effectively increase ROI.
Consider defensive brand term strategies. Note that neglecting holistic strategies could let high-performance clicks go somewhere else. In other words, being exclusively in paid search or natural search means that there is some click attrition. The best way to reduce click attrition is to be as highly visible in the SERP as possible, and your two basic choices are paid and natural placements.
Consider addressing multiple search intentions between paid and natural listings: If you find that paid search generates more ROI at the point of conversion and is generally more commercial in presentation, this could be countered with more informational content ranking highly in natural results. Brand visibility is attained in both areas of the page, but the discerning searcher would have two content options from the same query that meets multiple intentions at varying stages of the “funnel” process.

Mark Simon reported in Medis Posts Search Insider (12/02/2007) that the search engines would be the death of SEO. The logic behind this arguement being that as the search engines advance even futher in the way they read and index web pages the more the tactis used by SEO companies will become irrelevant. They will eventually be so advance in their algorithm that they will pull the website which is most useful to the user regardless of the sites tactics, and maybe even content.

Im not sure I agree with this arguement but I do agree to some degree that search engine optimisers will need to become experts in usability and functionality of a website rather than content. Navigation will become increasingly important (even more so than today) as will display and ease of use. Elements such as download speed become more prevelant and the basic rules of SEO as we know today change. This nothing ground breaking but is something to consider when making recommendations for websites. In the future the basic premise will be, make the site user friendly and you will make it search engine friendly.