2 Days - 1 Title - Great Rankings: Here's What We Did
2 Days - 1 Title - Great Rankings: Here's What We DidYesterday morning I started a little experiment (I wrote about it a few blogs down "How Do Web Page Rankings Work?").
A huge part of achieving good rankings is developing a web page that is informative, useful and relevant for the searcher. And part of that is ensuring good titles for the page.
In my little experiment I created a new article. I took the wording from an old post on this web site (the post was over 2 1/2 years old). I gave the article the title of the key phrase I was targeting - I was trying to get ranked for "up the creek".
Less Than 48 Hours Later This Is The Result
Less than 48 hours later these are the rankings:
On Google.com.au
up the creek restaurant ------ Position # 1 & 2
up the creek ------ Position # 8
On Google.com
up the creek restaurant ------ Position # 5
up the creek ------ Position # 48
If you do a search for my rankings for those terms don't be surprised if they're a little different. The results will shuffle around for a little while.
Links Are A Factor Too
The other main factor that comes into play here is the value of the links over to the "up the creek" page. I linked to the page from this Home Page - but the relevance of that will drop quickly as this post gets pushed into the archives). That link will no doubt be part of the reason for the high rankings so quickly achieved.
And then, of course, there are 2 links to the article from the Articles page. They'll stay consistent and should help the page keep a decent ranking for our key phrase "up the creek".
Conclusion
Whilst it's impossible to rate the importance of each of the factors mentioned (links and page titles) it's obvious that page title plays a large role in the ranking of your web page.
So, make your page title include the key word or phrase you are targeting. ik.e. if you want to rank high for the term "up the creek" have the phrase "up the creek" in your page title.
Cheers
Brendon
[ comments ]
your results are very impressive. I was thinking that at least a week was necessary to be listed (and not top ranking). I agree with you that the page title is very important, especially for the CTR you obtain (as you pointed out in your post at http://www.tailored.com.au/2006/01/why-ive-changed-title-of-my-web-pages.htm ), but since you are testing… why don’t "we" try with another article, links from homepage and article section, but with a no-meaningful title. It could be interesting.
Anyway, Thank You very much for all the suggestion and advice you are providing us.
Luca
You have done an interesting experiment for ranking of an *exact* phrase.
I posted a bit on my blog on the benefits of blogging and discovering related keywords that you can turn into a static web page: http://www.tigergreenproductions.com/wordpress/?p=59
Luca, I might try that in a week or so once the ranking settles down and the blog drops off the home page.
Chris, I mean't for it to be searched without the "" - I just put them in so people could see what phrase I was referring to.
For up the creek on Google.com I'm # 48 (fluctuating a bit)
On Google.com.au I'm # 5
We always target exact phrases when doing search engine optimisation - one of the big benefits is a hugher conversion rate for a 3 word phrase then any other.
Cheers
Brendon