While nobody knows the exact secret formula that Google uses to rank websites in the search engine result pages (SERPS), one widely recognized factor is Keyword Authority. Although many Internet marketers know about keyword authority, I’ve found that very few really understand what goes into it. My goal with this post is to help demystify the idea behind Keywords Authority and how it can be improved.

Google takes two main things into consideration when determining a page’s keyword authority, keyword optimisation and the relavance of backlinks. Keyword optimisation refers to how (and how often) a keyword is used on the page. Generally speaking, you should try to keep your keyword at 2%-5% of the total page content. SEO software like Web CEO and IBP10 can help greatly with keyword optimisation.

The second aspect, relevance of backlinks, is more difficult to control. When google find a webpage that has  link back to your site, it analyzes the contents of the linking page. Links pointing to your site that have information that is relevant to the contents of your page will do more to increase your keyword authority than those that are irrelevant.

There are three primary factors that affect Google’s view of keyword relevance. The first consideration is the keyword authority of the linking page. Obviously, the higher the keyword authority of the page with the backlink, the better Google will consider your page. The second factor considered is the page’s keyword optimisation. This is actually tied into the keyword authority for the page, but the keyword optimisation looks at which words the page is highly optimised for. Your page would also benefit for these words in the SERPS.

The remaining consideration is the link’s anchor text. This is a very important part of keyword authority and is the one factor that you can often control to some degree. The anchor text of the link is simply the text that is highlighted as the link to the website. For example, search the web, is a link to Google by the anchor text is “search the web”. This is a very important concept to grasp when you are submitting your site to directories or including links in articles. If you are trying to rank well for a weight loss product, you would want to make your link text something like “lose weight fast” or “easy weight loss”. You don’t always have to use your website’s name or url as the link. Carefully selecting your anchor text can really help boost your site’s keyword authority and standings in the SERPS.

Tags: anchor text, keyword authority, search engine marketing, seo