* This post will be examining the top 3 results for a certain keyword. I will then be reviewing the following metrics:
- Links to website
- Domains to website
- Linking c blocks to website
- Links to webpage
- Domains to webpage
- Total internal links to webpage
- Linking c blocks to webpage
- Total social shares to webpage
- Anchor text to webpage
- Keyword use in page title
- Occurrences of keyword on webpage
- Keyword use in alt text
- Keyword use in URL
- On page report card (via SEOmoz)
- Website Age
This does not mean that these are the only metrics that Google uses to rank these pages but just the ones I have time to review (obviously I’m not going to check hundreds/thousands of metrics…) The Anchor text part of the examination is exact so “Simply Sales Jobs” won’t be included under “Sales Jobs”. In terms of the page titles, I know that these can be edited by Google so I have checked each websites page source as well as what is indexed in Google and they are the same.
Some of you might also be thinking why I chose this particular keyword. Well, maybe because this happens to be one of the most searched job roles and people are often on the lookout for the latest sales training courses (like those from Sandler: providing strategies from sales leaders across the world) and job openings. So, I was sure that I would be able to get numerous search results, which will help me use all the metrics I have listed above.
Having said that, I will be taking the on-page information from SEOmoz’s on page tool and link data from Open Site Explorer. The keyword that we will be reviewing today is “Sales Jobs” Just to keep things kosher, I don’t currently or ever have worked on a website that targets Sales Jobs. The top performers for these terms are:
- www.simplysalesjobs.co.uk/
- www.salesjobs.co.uk/
- www.totaljobs.com/JobSeeking/Sales.html
| Metric | Simply Sales Jobs | Sales Jobs | Total Jobs |
| External links to website | 10,481 | 499 | 95,920 |
| Domains to website | 1,644 | 12 | 2,594 |
| Linking c blocks to website | 1,170 | 11 | 1,721 |
| External links to webpage | 1,005 | 497 | 17 |
| Domains to webpage | 151 | 11 | 16 |
| Internal links to webpage | 3,555 | 42 | 267 |
| Linking c blocks to webpage | 110 | 10 | 15 |
| Total social shares to webpage | 33 | 2 | 110 |
| # of Anchor text links for “Sales Jobs” to webpage | 19 | 1 | 10 |
| # of domains with “Sales Jobs” links to webpage | 17 | 1 | 10 |
| # of Anchor text links for “Sales” to webpage | 902 | 3 | 13 |
| # of domains with “Sales” links to webpage | 83 | 3 | 13 |
| # of Anchor text links for “Jobs” to webpage | 890 | 3 | 13 |
| # of domains with “Jobs” links to webpage | 81 | 3 | 13 |
| Exact keyword use in page title | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Occurances of keyword on page | 50 | 27 | 32 |
| Keyword use in alt text? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Keyword use in domain name? | Yes | Yes | No |
| On page report card | A | A | A |
| Website age | 6 years, 8 months | 7 years, 7 months | 12 years |
Some Thoughts (none that are mindblowing but neither is SEO):
- Exact URL’s are still working…
- Social Shares may not be as influential as some people would wish
- Anchor text links are still useful
- Total Jobs have done well thanks to overall domain authority
- Keywords on page help you rank…
- Remember internal linking
I’m sure that millions of you guys could rip this apart but this was done merely out of interest and I thought I might as well write about it 🙂 The “findings” above shouldn’t surprise many of you but will hopefully confirm the importance of certain techniques.