Welcome to the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a sometimes frustrating experience of getting on the elusive first page of a search engine’s listings. Many of us want to know the “secret,” but if the secret became wide known, then a lot of people with bad intentions would scam the system and get ranked higher than people honestly trying to do business. Nevertheless there are several factors that influence how well your page ranks. There are some additional factors that a good search engine optimization expert and your website develop should delve into on your behalf, but the following list should give an average person some idea of the process for getting ranked well in search engines.

1. How old is your site? Some systems like to see that you have content that has been around for a while. Others do not care. (As of this writing Yahoo rated this aspect less important that Google. Which means Yahoo was giving better rankings to new sites than Google.)
2. What search terms are testing against and did you use those terms in your site text? After you hear this concept it seems obvious, but it may not be at first. You have to figure out what terms people will use to find your site. Then you have to use those terms REASONABLY in your site. If think people will search for “Nashville web services” and you never use the word Nashville in your site language, then you should not expect great results. However, be aware that the search engines also attempt to determine if you are throwing in words to get them on the page. Therefore, be reasonable in your use of different words and do not try to game the system too much. Essentially this concept requires most of us to write our content and then re-write it to include the search terms we want the search engines to find us. (And you thought writing the content once was hard enough.)
3. Do other people like you? (In other words, to some extent it is a popularity contest.) Do other organizations have links to your site. (Are those organizations well ranked also.) How much site traffic do you generate. (Yes, this is just like the problem of looking for a job fresh out of school when all of the employers want you to have experience.)
4. Do you have new content? The search engines want to believe that if they send someone to your site that you will the most up-to-date information. That means they want to see new content on a regular basis. (Yes, this is more difficult in an industry where things do not change much and it has been done the same way for the last 100 years.) Blogs and other social media tools create a sense that there is new content, which is part of their appeal.
5. Do you have an information rich site? To some extent the people that could easily write 500 extra words on that English paper in school have an advantage here. The search engines have to count and catalog words, which is an easy process. To some extent this extra information may not really be helpful to the client but I am not aware of there being any great “fluff detectors” out there as the process would be very difficult. However, you can focus your energy to creating pages that look at your client’s problem’s from every possible angle. Consider news and information related to current events, industry trends, core offerings and more.
6. Do you have external links? This topic is very tricky. Anytime someone leaves your site, they may not come back. However, a link to a great site with lots of information shows the search engines that you are willing to “spread the wealth” and gives you credibility.
7. Do you have a good site name? If you name includes good search terms the search engines will rank you higher, especially if you the other attributes in place.
8. Has your developer included the appropriate search terms in the page “special codes?” Every page has a variety of “meta tags” and “alt tags” that can be used to describe the page or specific page items for the web browsers as well as for people with access impairments such as blindness. Proper coding of these terms can help immensely. A good developer also knows how to construct the page so that it uses a minimum amount of html to produce the right results so as not to bog down the search engines. (Some sites are built like interstates and others like a muddy wagon road.)