SEO Basics

A Prerequisite to Understanding Search Engine Rankings

There are thousands of factors that the major search engines consider when determining search engine rankings but only three major ones. By understanding those three major factors and by doing comparisons of well ranking competitor web sites one can see what is necessary to gain rankings.

The Three Major Factors

Site Design - The way a website is put together has a significant role in how well it ranks in the major search engines. The main element to be concerned with is "spiderability" or a search engine's ability to see and index what is on your website. Factors that can limit a search engine's view of your site are things like java or flash navigation, the use of frames, page redirects, and the lack of a site map.

Content - Site content is significant because search engines are about providing information. A site with less content appears to have less information to offer and thus is deemed less important. When discussing content another aspect should be mentioned, keyword focus. A page that covers too wide a range of topics will typically lose out in rankings to a page that has an equal amount of content but that focuses on only a few themes or keyword phrases.

Links - Links are probably the single most important element that affects a web page's rankings. It used to be that the more links a site had relative to its competitors the better the ranking. Now it's more about quality over quantity. What is a quality link? A quality link is one from a web site that meets 2 criteria. The 1st criteria is that the site is relevant or related to the same topic or theme of the site it is linking towards and the 2nd criteria is that the site is thought of in high regards by the major search engines.

Understanding these three major factors of search engine ranking will help you understand SpiderBait's services and why they are important.



See SpiderBait's Services, Simple Solutions.