Given that there are a heap of websites out there who are on the first page, what is their secret? It is a little industry term called “SEO” and it stands for Search Engine Optimisation. SEO basically consists of the customisation of your website, its content and its internal and external links to assist in the overall indexing and ranking of your website in popular search engines. There are many contributing factors that are used in determining a website’s ranking and every search engine is different. This makes trying to optimise your site for Google, Yahoo, Live and the many others quite a pain staking task.

As most of us are aware, Google is currently the most popular search engine for the majority of Internet users. As such, it is only normal that we’d want to focus our sights on achieving a higher ranking within Google first with a hope that the rest will follow. To do this, we must start a journey that could potentially take months before we start seeing any real change, however we have to start somewhere.

Our journey begins by defining some of the key contributing factors that Google uses to determine a website and webpage’s ranking within its results. These factors range from keyword use to manipulating internal and external links and the list goes on. To get you started, we have listed the top twenty factors that you should focus on in order to help get your website that little bit closer to the top of the search engine results listing.

Keyword Use Factors
The following components relate to the use of the user’s search query terms in determining the rank of a particular page.

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag – Placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page’s HTML header.
2. Keyword Use in Body Text – Using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page.
3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords – Topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords.
4. Keyword Use in H1 Tag – Creating an H1 tag with the targeted search term/phrase
5. Keyword Use in Domain Name & Page URL – Including the targeted term/phrase in the registered domain name, i.e. keyword.com plus target terms in the webpage URL, i.e. seomoz.org/keyword-phrase.

Page Attributes
The following elements comprise how the Google interprets specific data about a webpage independent of keywords.

1. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure – Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page.
2. Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages – Do links on the page point to high quality, topically-related pages?
3. Age of Document – Older pages may be perceived as more authoritative while newer pages may be more temporally relevant.
4. Amount of Indexable Text Content - Refers to the literal quantity of visible HTML text on a page.
5. Quality of the Document Content (as measured algorithmically) – Assuming search engines can use text, visual or other analysis methods to determine the validity and value of content, this metric would provide some level of rating.

Site/Domain Attributes
The factors below contribute to Google’s rankings based on the site/domain on which a page resides.

1. Global Link Popularity of Site – The overall link weight/authority as measured by links from any and all sites across the web (both link quality and quantity).
2. Age of Site – Not the date of original registration of the domain, but rather the launch of indexable content seen by the search engines (note that this can change if a domain switches ownership).
3. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site – The subject-specific relationship between the sites/pages linking to the target page and the target keyword.
4. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community – The link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world.
5. Rate of New Inbound Links to Site – The frequency and timing of external sites linking in to the given domain.

Inbound Link Attribute
These pieces affect Google’s weighting of links from external websites pointing to a page and ultimately will assist in the ranking of that page.

1. Anchor Text of Inbound Link.
2. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site.
3. Topical Relationship of Linking Page.
4. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community – The link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world.
5. Age of Link.

Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes
There are also some points we should make before you start getting your hands dirty. With any type of SEO marketing, there are some things that can actually have a negative impact on your ranking. These following components may negatively affect a spider’s ability to crawl a page or its rankings at Google.

* Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots
* Content Very Similar or Duplicate of Existing Content in the Index
* External Links to Low Quality/Spam Sites
* Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages
* Overuse of Targeted Keywords (Stuffing/Spamming)

It’s now time to get busy! Start prioritising your tasks, modifying your content and building your internal and external links to meet some of the above guidelines. Keep in mind that improving indexing is mostly a technical task, improving ranking is mostly a business/marketing strategy, what might work now may not work in the future and finally, it takes time. Loads of time. Still, with a bit of trial and error and a good dose of persistence, you can achieve the search engine ranking you’re after.

I believe that quality one way link will definitely gives you the advantage. However I also think reciprocal links from very high Google Page Rank website, which have high backlinks and relevant content to your website will also give the same value.

But if you are just starting a new website, I have learned that one way links are always better. Google wants links to occur in a natural way and one way links would imply that a website linked to yours because it liked your quality contents. So one way link building is the logical way to go if you are just starting a new website and wish to build your link popularity.

If I can get one way link on trusted site it would be great but if I had to link back with them I had to check my criteria. The site content must be related to my website and have decent link popularity
on google. It must also contain at least one top 20 ranking for one of my targeted keywords.

The key to success in my opinion regarding links is lots of relevant links. Any relevant links keep helping your ranking, the higher the relevant links, the closer you are to getting a top 10 ranking for your related keywords. The question is all about link quality. As long as you concentrate on quality links, link exchange will rewards you. Make sure to avoid link farms.

It’s far more effective to have 50 good inbound links from popular pages than 500 links from a
link farm stuffed with no relevant and duplicates content.

Always thing about quality over quantity!

To Your Success!

1. Post your links to some good and relevant directories. This is the easiest and quickest way to get links. But, remember; many reputed directories don’t permit links to internal pages.

2. Have a few complementary sites that support your main website. If the former obtains a rank, contact other webmasters for a 3 or 4 way link building. But, never link your main site from the supplementary one or vice versa; or else the search engine may catch your pattern. Also, ensure that all your sites are under different IP.

3. Include a blog in your main site for obtaining plenty of natural links.

4. Submit quality content articles that talk about your product or service to about 3-5 relevant web directories. They are one of the best link building ways of obtaining one way links, plus attracting traffic to your site.

5. Contact various webmasters and submit your articles to them for one way link.

6. Request links from your business acquaintances or search for local sites.

7. Register your site with the Better Business Bureau. It builds credibility.

8. Create pages in Hubpages, Squidoo, and other such sites to obtain links.

9. Create a list on various topics and put your link with some respectable sites that are related to your business. There are many sites that allow you to do this.

10. Bookmark those pages of your site that are rich in quality content.

11. Issue an RSS feed and organize it, if possible.

12. Associate with forums and post your articles in it for links. Though most of the reputed forums provide NOFOLLOW links, ye they still help.

13. Purchase some high class text links from niche directories and blogs.

14. Use your creativity and create a page or tool that can be used by visitors. For example, create a unique calculator. Let visitors associate with the tool or use it in their own website. This helps you obtain lots of one way links, depending on the quality of the tool.

15. Provide something FREE! The whole world loves free things. This is perhaps the best link building tactic. Such an offer will lure many links towards your site. Search for website designing companies that provide free templates. These templates help get the sites a large number of one way links.

Still thinking about the best link building way? Stop! Pick a few from the ones stated above and watch your site enjoy a ranking among the top ten on Google search!