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According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100 factors that
affect search engine ranking. For those of you who don't
know, Matt is a Google guy guru, he is employed by Google
but writes an independent blog and shares information
related to Google and search engine optimization.
Unfortunately, of those 100 items that account for search
engine ranking, there are only a few that webmasters can
actually control.

Unless you are a interested in an exercise of futility, it
is important to only focus on those ranking factors that
you, as a webmaster, can control and influence.

What are Search Engine factors do webmasters control?

Outside of the obvious (webpage title and description)
those items which the webmaster has the most control are:
PageRank, TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain
Age, URL, and Relevant Links.

How can a webmaster use these items to help ranking?

First off--the obvious, each and every web page should have
a descriptive page specific title and description. The
title, description, and header tags are channels to
communicate the most important details of a specific
webpage. They should be used effectively, but not be
abused. The web page should make use of h1 and h2 tags
(header tags) to emphasize pertinent keywords and phrases.

Particular attention should be paid when formatting urls.
Keywords related to the webpage can and should be used in
the webpage urls. Use hyphens rather than underscores
between the keywords. Search engines are designed by
developers and programming languages will recognize a
hyphen and distinguish separate words, while an underscore
blends the words. Keywords in the URL should not be abused,
as search engines do not appreciate excessively long urls.
Avoid using characters like ID= in the URL as many search
engines will see it as a unique session ID and not spider
the contents of the webpage.

The website's navigation depth should not exceed 3-4
levels. The shallow website depth will make a search
engines deep crawl easier, ensuring that will be able to
spider the entire contents of your website. If you add a
new page and wish for it to be spidered quickly add a link
to it from an existing spidered web page.

Domain hosting and location do matter! A .uk domain and a
webhost located in the UK will increase the domains search
engine position in any .uk search engine. If you are
targeting a specific region or market consider purchasing a
local domain.

Obviously you control the websites content;bad content or
no content means no incoming links. Good content has the
potential to attract good quality unsolicited links.

What kinds of content generally attract quality links?

The idea is develop quality content that will result in
incoming links. Think of JibJab, http://www.jibjab.com they
portrayed a controversial subject in a humorous way without
alienating their audience. While JibJab was able to garner
a lot of attention, its a tricky tight-rope to walk.
Consider adding tutorials that explain a specific
technology, create a niche directory or a topic specific
glossary, post industry news, maintain a blog with fresh
content, or write how to articles.

Take advantage of your content. If you write a press
release don't just send it to the editors, add it to your
website in a press center. Submit the press release to
public relations websites. There area a number of press
related websites like PRWeb that are really good and all
will result in good quality incoming links back to your
website. Also add your press release(s) to an RSS feed, not
only with this communicate with your customers that new
products or updates are available but you will also benefit
from links from RSS search engines and directories.

When you post a release or content that has genuine value,
use social bookmarking tools (like digg, del.icio.us, furl)
to bookmark the contents. These social bookmarking sites
are becoming increasingly important in weighing the value
of a site. The large search engines do not yet use social
bookmarking in their algorithms, but it is quite possible
and highly likely that they will in the future. If the
webpage/content has genuine value others will social
bookmark it as well. The bookmarks are viral and with
increasing popularity there is more emphasis placed on the
content. Additionally, bloggers notoriously skim social
bookmarking sites for content to write about which will
result in additional links. Keep in mind that in order to
bookmark a webpage, it really must have genuine value.

Before we talk more about links, there are a few warnings
worth mentioning.

What are the link warnings?

The first is to attain links gradually, search engines
prefer links obtained over time rather than links achieved
all at once. Avoid link schemes, link farms, or overt
reciprocal links, they can be time consuming and have very
little benefit. Avoid links on the C block. If you own
multiple domains, be sure not to triangulate links. Search
engines have become wise to this and they prefer a linking
scheme that is more like a star (or web).

What keywords should you optimize for?

When determining what keywords to optimize a website for,
there are a number of tools that will assess the number of
times that a keyword or phrase is searched on, the number
of websites/webpages competing for that keyword or phrase,
and rate the phrase. Obviously, the terms that have more
searches and less competition are the best to optimize
for--if, and only if, they relate to your product or
service. If you optimize for terms that are either too
broad, you will likely increase traffic but decrease your
conversions. It is really a balancing act. Two of the more
popular tools available are Keyword Discovery and Word
Tracker. Also, talk to friends or family members and ask
what phrases they would use to describe your product or
service. You might be surprised with the terms they use.
Consider optimizing for regional variations, look at the
variety of terms used to describe soda - tonic, pop, soda,
soda pop, or cola all are relevant and popular but only
within a specific region. Examine web logs to determine
what your users are using, look at the language used in
emails and forum posts and consider optimizing specific
pages for popular descriptive terms.

And finally, use competitive intelligence to locate links
and keywords. What are your competitors using? Analyze the
adwords they bid on, look at their meta tags, look at their
anchor links.

There is a wealth of information out there, no real mystery
to it, so use it to your advantage.

About the Author:

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a
wireless text messaging software company.

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