Google calculates more than 100 components in its algorithm, but the most important components are:

  • Title tag
  • Description tag
  • Content
  • Inbound links

Consequently, these components should include your keywords if that page is to have pinpoint relevance. Most sites only have the keywords they're after in only one or two of the above components. A page with the targeted keywords in all four components will be considered more relevant than a page with the targeted keywords in only one of the above components. Get them all working together to create the strongest relevancy possible.


Title Tags

A page's title tag tells consumers and search engines the topic of a particular page. If each web page is different, then each web page should have a unique title tag. Imagine each web page is a book, and Google is a library. Now imagine walking into that library, only to find books with no book titles. You might be able to navigate your way if you knew the author?s name, but if you didn't, finding information would be extremely difficult. Book titles tell us what the book is about. Web page titles tell search engines what the page is about. The most important element a search engine uses to decide where a web page should be displayed in the search results is the title tag. When an accurate title is present, it?s much easier to figure out what this book is about. The title tag is placed between the head tags of the web page.


Description Tags

The page's description tag gives search engines a summary of the page's content. Like the title tag, the description tag is also an HTML meta tag, located within the "head" tag.
<head>
<meta name="Description" content=" Find Homes For Sale in (your city). Search (your city) real estate, new homes, school information and much more at (company name).>
</head>
<body>

Many times, it's displayed on the search results page. The description tag offers a lengthier summary of the title tag and, like the title tag, is also a contributing element to search engine results. Additionally, because description tags are displayed on search engine results pages, writing thoughtful and accurate description tags will have a strong impact on consumer click-through rates.


Site content

The content of your website will influence your site visitors and search engines more than anything else. As a rule, the search terms you are targeting need to appear in the content of the site, in the exact same order in which a search query is performed (not necessarily with every usage, but it should appear that way at least once). If the search term you are targeting is not on the page in the form of text, that page most likely will not displayed in the search engine results.


Inbound links

Many of us have heard of page rank, the original and distinct component Google uses in its algorithm. Page rank is also known as "Google Juice" and refers to the score that Google assigns to a particular web page; it is accumulated from inbound links from other websites. An inbound link is a link from a web site other than your own that points to a page on your site. Inbound links are an important factor in how search engines determine how to rank sites.

There are two things to consider when building links to a site:

  • Linking sites should be of a similar theme. Sites linking to your site should be relevant to your site to maximize inbound link efforts. A site linking to yours that has little or nothing to do with your site will have much less positive impact and could possibly have a negative impact.
  • Links text should be relevant. Anchor text is the clickable text that is anchored to a hyperlink. Search engines look at the anchor text (keyword text) of a hyperlink to determine how to rank web pages. The more relevant the keyword within the hyperlink, the more valuable that link is. A common mistake is to use the text "click here"to define the actual link. It doesn't matter whether the links are internal or from other sites. Anchor text is very heavily weighted in a search engine's algorithm.

Maximizing the use of multiple sites

If you have two or more websites that share a common theme (i.e., real estate and mortgage), you can add to your sites' link portfolios by cross-linking between the sites. There are two methods of cross-linking. The first and most popular method is to place a link in the footer of all the primary site's pages. With this method, the same page on the secondary site will get all the links and the anchor text is the same for each link. If the primary site has 100 pages, and a link is placed in the footer from the primary site to the secondary site, the secondary site will have 100 links, all with the same anchor text.