Website Ranking is a step that becomes more and more important during the creation processus of a website.

Here is a list, ordered by importance, of factors that can influence your ranking. You must not forget anything from this list.

These are points not to forget when you create a websites. For a lot bigger list, I would recommend you to visit SeoMoz – Google Search Engine Ranking Factors.

Keywords in the <TITLE> tag

First, use different <title> tags on every page. Choose well which keywords will be in the title; your <title> tag should be a summary of the main subject of the page. A common way to do this is to include the subject of the page, and then, the name of the website. For instance :

Number of backlinks to your website, and popularity of them

More there are websites that have links to your website, more your site is popular to Google. More these websites are popular, more you’ll become popular. Be aware not to abuse; if you create thousands of backlinks for a brand new website in one shot, Google may notice it and put you deep into the sandbox, or blacklist you.

To subscribe to good quality directories, and look for partnership without having a break are needed efforts to put your website on the map. For directories subscriptions, 5 to 10 per week is a good rate. If you have a RSS feed, you should also submit your website to RSS directories.

Keywords in the page itself

You must write your contents using the keywords you want to rank. Here, the keyword density is pretty important (the % for presence of the keyword in the whole page). For instance :

The Electronics shop is selling many MP3 player brands : Ipod, Samsung, Sandisk, etc.

You can help you to choose the right MP3 player for you, because we know MP3 players pretty weel!

It is important not to abuse; we must not be able to notice that you tried to put your keywords everywhere. It must be present a couple of times in your page, if you wish use it for your Google ranking.

Keywords in <h1> tag

Heading <h1> is something like the title of your page, like the <title> tag. Moreover, it is common to use the same information in the  <title> tag that in <h1>.

Keywords in the domain name

Importance of keywords in a domain name is often a debate, but we could say it remains to be an important factor. If I own the domain name electronics-shop.com, it may help for keywords « electronics shop ». The URL would be bolded in Google results someone would search those keywords.

Keywords in page URL

You must pay attention to names of PHP and HTML files, or better :use URL Rewriting. For instance :

http://www.electronics-shop.com/ipod-nano-16gb.php

is much better than :

http://www.electronics-shop.com/produits.php?tag=343&id=9&order=0&search=ipodnano8gb

Note that Google don’t like to see too much parameters in an URL, like it the second part of the example.

Keywords in headings <h2>, <h3>, etc.

These headings may be interpreted in a way as much important as <h1> tag. Try not to repete in <h2> what was already in <h1> or <title>. The goal of those headings is to show a hierarchy of content. Use it correctly, and if it doesn’t give anything more to the content organisation, don’t use it at all.

Keywords in DESCRIPTION meta tag

You must use a different DESCRIPTION meta on every page, containing well chosen keywords. Think of the DESCRIPTION meta tag as being a description of your <title> tag, because both will appear, most of time, in Google results page.

Valid and correct use of HTML language

HTML isn’t very complex, but lots of people don’t use it coherently. Google likes clean HTML, well scripted and W3C valid.

That’s it, it was only a little preview of facts you must think about, when you create a website. You should also submit a Google Sitemap, and be sure to use valid XHTML.

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