There is a lot of confusion about what search engines consider important when it comes to determining organic position. Here is my short list of key elements that search engines consider key when determining position.
- Source code title tag – this is one of the most important tags for your website and key to organic placement.
- Source code meta description tag – this is another important tag but not as crucial as the title tag but still very important.
- Keywords meta tags – I still input content in this tag, but it has been devalued by Google so don’t take a lot of time on it, or you can leave it out.
- Domain name registration renewal period. I recommend a minimum renewal of two years and five is even better. Google does look at this as just one of their organic placement factors.
- Home page content – this is crucial to organic placement. If your home page is all in graphics or has very little content, you WILL struggle to get organic placement.
- Spiderable navigation – if your navigation is in flash or image rollovers and you have not provided text-based navigation for search engines to follow, you should make the simple addition of putting text navigation links in the footer of your page.
Sure there are tons of other factors, but for clients who come to me when they are disappointed in their placement typically they all are lacking in the top six items that I have mentioned above and usually have other additional issues such as poor or very little content, no links from other websites, or content that has not been updated in years.
So take a look at your own site, what are your challenges. If you have a factor that you feel I’ve missed click comment and tell me what you think is important.