Do I Need To Use Exact Keywords On My Website To Rank?

A) There is no such thing as "domain authority". It is an invented metric by MOZ that they HOPE is an estimate of what Google does. Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo - none of the search engines use "domain authority".

B) Backlinks play a major role in ranking and not all backlinks are equal. You can use Domain Authority as a best guess to determine which links MIGHT be worth more but again, it is a GUESS by MOZ on what site's links MIGHT be worth more to search engines.

C) The age of a website definitely plays a role - and one we have seen over the years that plays a fairly major role. It only makes sense that a site that has been around for 10 years and is actively updated is going to be seen as perhaps being more reliable than a website that was started 6 months ago.

D) User experience seems to play a major role in ranking these days - something no tool that I know of knows how to measure. Make your pages for users. Keep them on the site, get them to scroll, get them to click links to other pages of your site while visiting.

E) Sure, use exact keywords. It can't hurt, but Google's algorithm is "smarter" now. It's based on semantics, not exact words and phrases, and how their algorithm believes different words are related to other words. So, "blue" and "aqua" might mean exactly the same thing to their algorithm, depending on the context they are used in.

F) There are more than 200 ranking factors in Google's algorithm. The ones I have mentioned are just what are believed to be the main ones.

Just create the best content that you can that helps people understand whatever each page is about. Make each page the best on the internet about that subject. Get great backlinks from highly regarded and related websites who will actually WANT TO link to your content because it helps people on their site.

The rest should take care of itself but it takes time and doesn't happen overnight. Some low competition phrases take weeks or months, harder one can take years.

While using exact keywords on your website can be helpful for ranking, it's not the only factor that search engines consider when determining the relevance of a website to a particular search query. In fact, search engines are becoming increasingly sophisticated at interpreting natural language and understanding the meaning behind content, even when exact keywords aren't used.

List of Google's ranking factors.


The first quoted paragraph, especially, tells me you have a poor understanding of SEO.


The link to the list of factors is on Backlinko.com... They have a lot of articles that will greatly increase your understanding...


Matching or higher domain authority is altogether irrelevant... Google has its own version, which they stopped making public years ago)... and it's about page not site...



Because, ding, ding, ding... Google ranks pages, not sites.


By the way, does your site have a silo structure? If not, read up on silos for SEO on Bruce Clay's website. Internal links count a lot more than a lot of the stuff most people think is good SEO.



Your comment ' should rank"