GMChost.com Webmaster Guide

WebPosition's Page Critic Made Easy!
By Robin Nobles

WebPosition Gold's Page Critic is a wonderful tool for checking your pages to learn how to get them primed for top rankings. However, because the Critic offers such a huge volume of information, one issue I see with my students is that they think they have to do every single thing that Critic tells them to do. They spend hours and hours trying to create a "perfect" page, rather than following the Critic's basic guidelines to get their pages online sooner rather than later.

The first thing you need to know . . .

There's no such thing as a "perfect" page! I can give you numerous examples of top ranking pages that could be improved in a variety of ways. But, the first rule you need to remember is never mess with success. If you have top rankings, leave the page alone!

Let's learn an easy way to use Page Critic. My partner with Search Engine Workshops, John Alexander, uses Page Critic in the most "stress free" manner that I've seen while achieving excellent results. In fact, he teaches this technique at our workshops because it goes along with the "stress free" process we teach our students on how they can optimize their sites.

But before we get into John's method of using Critic, let's take a simple walk through of the Page Critic feature of WebPosition.

Easy step-by-step walk through of the Page Critic:

1. Let's say you want to analyze a new page. Open WebPosition and choose "New" from the File menu, then choose Page Critic.

2. On the first tab, under Domain Name, type in the name of your domain, such as www.searchengineworkshops.com.

3. If the page you want to analyze is on your hard drive, point WebPosition to that page by clicking on the Select button. Find the page by looking through the listings of folders and files on your hard drive. If the page you want to analyze is online, type in the URL, such as http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/search-engine-seminars.html.

4. Under Analyze Page for Keyword or Phrase, type in your keyword phrase, such as "search engine seminars."

5. Click on Next.

6. On tab 2, choose an engine to optimize your page for and click Next.

7. Under Settings on tab 3, you can choose whether to check the link popularity of your page (which is a very neat feature), or you can just go with the default settings, which allow the quickest analysis of your page. Click Next.

8. You're now on the Page Editor section of tab 4. Click Start, and the program will ask if you want to save the Mission. Click Yes.

9. The Page Critic results will now appear in your browser window.

10. Scroll down until you see the first blue bar, which contains these words:
    "Suggestions for making your page conform closer to the statistical averages for top ranking pages"

11. Scroll down some more until you see the next blue bar, which contains these words:
    "Suggestions based on the analysis of your page for <engine> for keywords '<your keyword phrase>'"

12. Do you see the information that falls between those two blue lines? Concentrate on that information only, and you'll be amazed at the results you'll achieve with your Web pages by using WebPosition's Page Critic!

Focus on the advice between the two blue lines to gain top rankings with a minimal amount of effort.

This particular section, based on John's method of using Critic, contains the "gold" that you'll want to focus on with your pages. It will tell you:

• How many words to use in the title tag

• Whether you need to increase or decrease your keyword prominence in the link text area

• Whether you need to increase or decrease your keyword relevancy in the URL's on your page

• Whether you need to increase or decrease the number of words in your body text

• Whether your keyword phrase is used prominently in the body text

• Whether your keyword frequency on the page as a whole is where it should be for that engine

• And more...

After you've run your page through the Page Critic, simply open your HTML editor (or use WebPosition's text editor) and make changes according to the above suggestions, taking them one at a time. As you "correct" a potential problem area, that suggestion will be removed when you press "Start" to re-run the Page Critic Mission.

Do you have to do everything that the program suggests?

No. Use your own judgment to determine whether you want to make the changes or not. As you become more knowledgeable about search engine optimization, you'll feel more comfortable in making decisions based on WebPosition's recommendations.

Remember, however, that WebPosition's recommendations are based on intense research on what's working in that particular engine at that particular point in time. So, each suggestion should be considered, though it's your choice whether or not to make the change.

For example, let's say that the program says that a suggested word count for the title area is 5 to 8, but your title contains 9 words. Do you need to change it? If you want to change it, do so. If you really like your title the way it is and don't want to change it, don't. If you don't get the rankings you want with this page, you can always go back and make that change later. This isn't a "last chance to make changes" type of scenario!

The bottom line is this: try to correct as many of the areas of the Page Critic that fall between those two lines. Then, upload your page to the Web and see how it ranks. Remember to give it some time, because depending on the submission route you choose to take, it can take a month or two to see results. And even then, your rankings won't stay at that particular level forever. Rankings need time to "settle," and they'll certainly fluctuate. So, give it time.

If you don't get the rankings you want, run the page through the Critic again. There may be changes to the engine's algorithm that the Critic will pick up, so it may suggest different changes to increase your chances at a better ranking.

Should you totally ignore the rest of the Page Critic page?

No! As stated previously, the Page Critic offers an abundance of information that becomes very useful particularly for those in highly competitive industries. You can certainly study this information and learn a tremendous amount about that particular engine as well as what you might do to improve your chances at a top ranking.

But if you're busy like the rest of us, and if you want to concentrate on the section that can help you achieve amazing results with your pages, take John Alexander's advice and focus on the area between the two blue lines.

Then, when you get some time, read through the rest of the page and see what else you can learn.

In Conclusion . . .

Use the Page Critic as a guide, and concentrate on the area between the blue lines. Take care of as many problems as you can, then get the page online and start on another page. Don't spend hours and hours trying to achieve a single perfect page. You'll do much better if you optimize many pages, get them up there, see how they do, and learn by your experiences.

As you continue this process and begin to achieve good results, your confidence level will soar, and you'll become even more effective as a search engine optimizer.

By following these guidelines, the Page Critic will be working for you at a much faster pace, so you can move forward in creating new pages for your site that adds content while also achieving top rankings.

Good luck!

Robin Nobles is the Director of Training of for OnlineWebTraining.com , which teaches online training in search engine marketing. For more information about the online training or on location workshops, visit our Resources page.

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition Gold. FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings. A free trial of WebPosition Gold is available from their Web site