Factors that Affect Your Web Site's Natural Search Engine Listing Position
Google, Yahoo! and MSN make up nearly 90% of natural search engine traffic. The databases (and search results) maintained by these three companies feed other major search sites such as AOL, Lycos and HotBot. To achieve high ranking in Google, Yahoo! and MSN’s natural listings for specific terms requires your web site to contain the right kind of content and be constructed in the right manner. Other ‘off-site’ factors also play a key role in determining your listing position. The list below outlines some critical factors that affect how your site is cataloged and ranked by search engines.
- Site Content – The words and photos on your pages
- HTML Tags – Title, H1, H2s, Meta, etc…
- Organization of your site pages – How is your site put together
- Dynamic Content – Are portions of your site generated dynamically
- Page Linking – How are your pages linked to one another
- Anchor Text – Words used to create links between pages
- Flash Content – Is there critical information being displayed using only Flash
- Size of Site – How many pages and on what topics
- Age of Site – Is this a new site or has it existed for years
- Link Popularity – How many web sites link to yours
- Inbound Links Quality – What type of site links to your and how are the links coded
- Directory Listings – What major web directories is your site listed in
Macy Creative's optimization services can help address all of these factors and more, to create a web site that is search engine friendly and offers the best possible natural listing opportunities. Proper content development and optimization are critical components to buidling and maintaining high ranking search engine positions.