SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Factors

We often get asked how Google, Yahoo and MSN decide which sites get listed on top. Ahhh.... if only we knew the magic answer to that question. While we might not have a definitive answer, we do have a good idea of the factors that go into the search engine algorithms. We have compiled a list of SEO factors below.

1. Your keyword phrases are present in the title tags.
   
   
2. Keywords are used in Heading tags. You might want to pay attention to too much duplication of title tags and too much exact matching of titles, heading and phrases in a page.
   
   
3. You have developed well-written relevant text.
   
   
4. Keyword Density. Your pages should be about your keyword phrases. As a general rule, the text of your pages contains the keywords you are interested in at least a few times.
   
   
   
5. Your links work throughout the site. Consider using a link checker to ferret out broken links.
   
   
6. Number and quality of inbound links. How many inbound links does your site have and are they of high quality.
   
   
7. Number and quality of outbound Links. How many outbound links does your site have and are they going to "good neighborhoods"?
   
   
8. How new is the site? Was the domain recently registered and if so, for how long has it been active. If the site has been around for awhile and not associated with any bad practices you will be doing yourself a favor.
   
   
9. Is the server operating correctly and serving all pages to the search engines at a reasonable speed? Make sure your robots.txt file is not blocking the search engines.
   
   
10. Do a spider test to make sure the navigation is traversible and all pages can be reached through standard hypertext links. Consider adding a sitemap.
    
    
11. Frequency of updating content on your site. New, relevant content is a good thing.
    
    
12. Type of content. Does the content on your site match the phrases that you are going for?
    
    
13. Dates on the page. Posting the current date with new content can be a good thing.
    
    
14. Frequency that Google visits your site. If Google is coming back to your site on a frequent basis that can indicate that your site has built some importance.
    
    
15. You are using Google Webmaster Tools to send Google your sitemap.
    
    
16. You are using permanent (301) redirects when you are retiring pages and replacing with new pages at a different url.
    
    
17. Miminize the use of Javascript pop-up windows and frames, which cannot be easily crawled.
    
    
18. Doc type Tags. Is there a Doc type Declaration present?
    
    
    
19. Meta Tags. The meta keywords and descriptions are relevant, concise, and contain good keywords. Do not stuff them with a long list of keywords?
    
    
20. Charset. Is the character set declaration properly specified?
    
    
21. External Javascript References. When possible, reference large javascripts in an external file.
    
    
22. When possible, reference stylesheet files externally.
    
    
23. Make sure the physical address of your business is present on the site. Typically this would be in the footer of your pages.
    
    
24. Spell check the site to ensure that you have accurately entered your keyword phrases.
    
    
25. Make sure incoming links are pointed to appropriate landing pages?
    
    
26. Confirm that keywords are used throughout the text of the page.
    
    
27. Compress graphics so the overall loadtime of the page is kept to a minimum.
    
    
28. Use keywords in the internal links of the site.
    
    
29. Is there a robots.txt file? Is it properly configured and have you confirmed that it works?
    
    
30. Does your site have a sitemap? This can be a good backup, to make sure the engines can crawl the site.
    
    
31. Have you pointed the non-www version of your site to the www version?
    
    
32. Are your pages being cached by Google?
    
    
33. Have you minimized duplicate content on the site?
    
    
34. Are you giving your graphic files names that are keyword rich?
    
    
35. Do you have xml sitemaps that work for Google, Yahoo, and MSN?
    
    
36. Have you set up Google Analytics or another stats package so you can track and analyze your site traffic?
    
    
37. Have you successfully validated your html?
    validator.w3.org/
    
    
38. Does your site include anything that could get you blacklisted, such as hiddent text, or invisible links.
    
    
39. Does the site satisfy basic accessibility criteria? This is slowly becoming more important.
    This has varying levels of important to different customers.
    
    
40. Direct your links toward relevant pages. Use rel=nofollow attribute to direct PageRank away from your non-essential pages and towards your important ones.