SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of getting free (organic) targeted traffic to your website, product or services through the search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo etc by optimizing the website. The benefits are obvious: free, passive traffic to your website, month after month.
When a user type a query/keyword into a search engine, it looks through all the pages in its index and tries to return the most relevant results. To do this, it uses a computer program called an algorithm.
According to Google, there are over 200 SEO factors involved to rank a website for a specific keyword. Based on those factors, Google and other search engines rank the website. SEO experts try to implement all possible factors to the website in order to get the best results.
Common tasks associated with SEO include creating meta data (meta title, description and keywords), producing high-quality content, optimizing content around specific keywords, and building backlinks and more.
The question is; how Google ranks the websites at the top of its search results (SERPs) when a user type a specific keyword/query in Google search such as; SEO Dubai ? Keeping in mind that all those websites are well optimized and having the same kind of SEO factors implemented.
For example, if a user type SEO Dubai or SEO Company in Dubai, he/she will get a list of top 10 companies providing SEO Services in Dubai under the organic search results as below in the screenshot;
Again, the question is; how Google ranks those 10 websites on the top of search results?
Note: I have removed the paid and places/GMB results from the screenshot targeting SEO Dubai or SEO Company in Dubai keywords
There are many factors involved based on Google ranks the website at the top of search results such as; meta data, content, keyword density, backlining (quality links), domain authority, age of domain, content frequency, technical SEO (ALT tags, Header tags, Breadcrumbs etc), user experience, code/layout, social bookmarking/social media factors and a few more.
I examined the top three websites appearing at number 1, 2 and 3 when a user type SEO Dubai in the Google search results;
Website # 1 at the Google search results with the keyword SEO Dubai
www.unitedseo.ae
Website # 2 at the Google search results with the keyword SEO Dubai
www.beontop.ae
Website # 3 at the Google search results with the keyword SEO Dubai
www.seosherpa.com
1. Meta Title Analysis:
Website www.unitedseo.ae stands at number one position in Google search with the below meta title
SEO Dubai | Best SEO Agency, Digital Marketing Services : UnitedSEO
Website www.beontop.ae stands at number second position in Google search with the below meta title
SEO Dubai | Best SEO Company, PPC and SMM Experts in the UAE | BeOnTop
Website www.seosherpa.com stands at number third position in Google search with the below meta title
SEO SHERPA™ // The Organic SEO Agency • Dubai, UAE
Conclusion:
The first two websites unitedseo.ae and beontop.ae used the exact match keyword SEO Dubai which considers a very important factor. Your main/focused keyword should place at the start of your meta title. Website seosherpa.com also added keyword SEO Dubai in the meta title, but not at the start and exact match.
2. Meta Description Analysis:
Website www.unitedseo.ae stands at number one position in Google search with the below meta description
SEO Dubai | Best SEO UnitedSEO is one of the top UAE SEO companies focused on helping its clients grow their online presence. For best SEO Dubai service give us a call today! +971 4 442 6518.Agency, Digital Marketing Services : UnitedSEO
Website www.beontop.ae stands at number second position in Google search with the below meta description
SEO Dubai services with the best payment after achieving 1st-page position, no monthly fees. 60+ professional SEO Experts, already 750+ websites on the top of search results. You can rely on BeOnTop!
Website www.seosherpa.com stands at number third position in Google search with the below meta description
Top-rated organic SEO agency • MENA’s Best SEO Campaign in 2019 & 2018 • Best Large SEO Agency in 2018 • Call us for higher rankings (and revenue).
Conclusion:
The first two websites unitedseo.ae and beontop.ae used the exact match keyword SEO Dubai at the start of meta description like meta title which considers a very important factor however unitedseo.ae used twice the keyword SEO Dubai in the meta description. Website seosherpa.com isn\’t used exact match keyword SEO Dubai in the meta description however the keyword SEO repeated three times in the meta description.
3. TLD (Top Level Domain Name) Analysis:
Check the domain name / URL of the top three websites (.AE Vs .COM);
www.unitedseo.ae
www.beontop.ae
www.seosherpa.com
Conclusion:
The first two websites unitedseo.ae and beontop.ae are taking advantage of local/geo TLD advantage over the seosherpa.com. Since the keywords used SEO Dubai (a geo based keyword) so Google ranks the geo based TLDs at the top which is one of the SEO factor in Google search results SERPs.
4. Domain Authority Analysis:
Domain Authority is a search engine ranking score hat predicts how well a website ranks on search engines (SERPs) in terms of on-page and off-page optimization. A Domain Authority score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.
Based on the SEO implementation, a website get higher authority in the domain authority tools. I selected SEMRush.com to check the domain authority for the websites;
www.unitedseo.ae
www.beontop.ae
www.seosherpa.com
Conclusion:
unitedseo.ae has the highest domain authority and stands at 43 with 3.5K backlinks however beontop.ae and seosherpa.com stand at 37 and 38 domain authority respectively. Website beontop.ae has an edge of backlinks which are 4.2K with compare to website seosherpa.com got 3.5K backlinks. That could be another factor that Google ranks beontop.ae higher than seosherpa.com with the keyword SEO Dubai.
5. Anchor Text Analysis / Backlinks:
Anchor text is the clickable and visible text in a hyperlink which used to link one web page to another. Google uses anchor text to help understand the context of the link and consider it a \’ranking factor\’.
Google explained that they use anchor text to influence rankings. An exact match anchor text is most powerful to get the ranking for a specific keyword.
Below exact match Anchor text (SEO Dubai) analysis across three websites;
www.unitedseo.ae
www.beontop.ae
www.unitedseo.ae
Conclusion:
I find 105 backlinks with exact match anchor text SEO Dubai for the website unitedseo.ae which ultimately ranks at the number 1 position in the Google search results. Websites beontop.ae and seosherpa.com both websites may have less backlinks with the exact match anchor text SEO Dubai that rank at number 2 and 3 respectively in the Google search results.
6. Other Technical SEO:
There are other important SEO factors involved that ranks the websites high at the top of search engines results pages such as, ALT tags for images, Heading tags, SEO friendly URLs, Breadcrumbs, Keyword density, Page speed, Content and more.
I am sharing a list of top SEO tasks to optimize your website;
- Keyword research
- Keyword mapping
- Website audit and complete analysis
- Competitor’s analysis
- Meta Data for home page
- Meta Data for all available pages
- Meta Data mapping
- Keyword optimization
- URL rewriting (where applicable)
- Breadcrumbs recommendations
- Images optimization
- ALT tags optimization
- Header tags optimization
- Webmaster tool creation
- Google analytics creation / optimization
- Webmaster tool optimization
- GA and webmaster integration
- Robots.txt management
- UX and SEO optimization
- Blog article’s optimization
- Content optimization and recommendations
- Keyword density analysis and optimization
- Broken links – Validation of links according to W3C
- Page load time / page speed optimization
- Creation of XML site map
- XML sitemaps recommendations and submission
- Link building
- Social bookmarking
- GMB (Google My Business) account setup & optimization
What do you think about the analysis of keyword ranking? Is this really helpful to understand how really Google and other search engines rank a website with a specific keyword/query?