What are the main factors that affect search engine ranking?

As you read through various seo (search engine optimisation) websites you'll come across a wide range of hints and tips and techniques for tweaking the various aspects of your website. But what really matters? As with most things there are a few factors that make a big difference and a vast array of smaller factors that each make a much smaller difference. In this article we'll cover the two main areas you need to address to boost your rankings. Once you get these right you can tweak away to your heart's content.

There are really 2 factors that search engines measure to rate your webpages.

• The words on your page dictate how relevant you are to a topic
• Other websites that link to you give you reputation on the web

When someone searches on Google, Google looks through its database of all the webpages on the Net and works out which ones discuss the topic being searched for. It then looks at how much reputation each page has and combines these factors to rate each page. The highest rated page comes at the top of page 1- where you want to be.

Improving your webpage's relevance

Once you've done your keyword research (you are doing keyword reseach aren't you!) you'll know what phrases your customers are typing into the search engines. For a page to be relevant to a keyword or phrase it basically has to use it somewhere in the actual text. Note that text in images, Flash and AJAX created areas doesn't count at the moment. We're talking straight forward typed in HTML text. There was a time when the more times you used the phrase the better it was, but nowadays this 'keyord stuffing' will get you banned by the search engines for spamming. Try to work your key phrases into the text but make it natural. Remember that although you want the search engines to like it, you still need to appeal to potential customers who read the page.

A lot of people talk about getting an exact figure for keyword density- the percentage of words on the page that are your keywords. Don't worry too much about this. There isn't any magic number. Read through your text and see how it sounds. If you've put the phrase in too much you'll know.

There are lots of finer points to getting this perfect, but this should get you started.

Improving your site's reputation

Links, links and more links. That's what you need. Social networking, blogs, forums, bookmarking sites - use all of these to build links to your site. Anywhere you post a comment try to add a link back to your site. Swapping links with other sites (reciprocal linking) still works but make sure you choose sites that are good quality and, if possible, relevant to what you do. Keeping an eye on what sites you are linking from is essential. The search engines monitor the 'neighbourhood' you belong to. If you've got lots of bad sites linking to you, and you to them, then you'll be branded bad as well.

Web directories can be a good way to initially build some good links. These days directories that accept automatic submissions are usually not worth bothering with. Look for manually edited ones like www.joeant.com. Quite often you'll have to pay to be listed, but the search engines know that you have to pass a manual quality check so they will ate the linkback you get.

There are programs that will submit you to 100,000 directory sites and search engines. DON'T use these. At best you'll end up with no better ranking and lots of extra spam emails, at worst you'll get your site banned. Don't be fooled by the idea that you have to keep resubmitting your site to search engines to stay listed. This isn't true, nor does resubmitting get you better rankings. All you need is a link from another website to get you into the listings and keep you there.

Keep going

Once you get started you'll soon build up your rankings. Don't stop though. Keep adding new content and pages with relevant text, and keep building incoming links. The search engines like to see sites that are active so see this as an ongoing task.

Have fun optimising!