What do search engines want?

• Search engines want to provide their visitors with a list of web pages relevant to the words that their visitors are searching for.
• Search engines want to list these web pages in the order of relevance to the search words, with the most relevant at the top of the list, down to the least relevant at the bottom.

What makes a web page relevant to a search?

• Words or phrases in the search that are displayed on the web page. (Graphics don’t count).
• The popularity of the web page.

What factors determine the order of relevance in a list of web pages?

• The number of times the search words appear. Naturally, if a web page contains the word three times on the page, it is three times as relevant as a page which contains the word only once.
• The position of the words in for instance, the title tag, in a heading, in a hyperlink, in the body text.
• The proportion of the search words to the rest of the text on the page.
• The number of inside pages linking back to that web page. (Means the page is important).
• The number of other websites linking to that web page. (Means the page is popular).
• The number of articles published on the internet linking to that web page.

Why do different search engines give different rankings to the same website?

• Each search engine may give a different weight to each of the factors above.

Why would a website lose or gain ranking position, without any change?

• Search engines change their secret algorithms (factors and weightings) from time to time.
• Other websites may enter the listings, or may change, or may leave the listings.

How do you keep or improve a search engine ranking?

• Contract an experienced reliable company that knows SEO.