How Search Engine Rank Sites
The algorithm each search engine uses to determine how pages rank for a particular term is heavily-guarded and constantly changing. That said there are a couple of characteristics and principles that all search engines use to determine a page’s rank and one simple guiding “secret” of SEO:
Well-coded sites that contain original, useful, well-written content of interest to the target market rank well.
Of course it’s not as simple as it sounds, let’s take a look at what some of the phrases in the above ‘secret’ actually entail.
Well-coded sites
A well-coded site is a site where the site’s content is easy to read and parse, the relationships between the content is made clear by the use of semantic html. This entails the following:
- Javascript and CSS is externally linked.
- CSS based layout and styles.
- Semantic use of html
- Compliant with web standards.
- Uses metatags in a descriptive, differentiated, and appropriate manner.
Original, useful
Ideally a site should have original content, search engines penalize for duplicate content within the same domain and across the entire web using increasingly sophisticated methods. Moreover content that is original and useful is more likely to retain visitors to your site and entice owners of other sites or blogs to provide a link to your content or to your site.
Well-written…Target Market
The site content should contain terms and speak to the target market. Site copy should be written to include and incorporate keywords without sacrificing readability. Accomplishing these goals requires analyses to determine the target market and the appropriate keywords to use on the particular page/site.