1.1 Internal Ranking Factors
Internal ranking factors tend to be those that are generally controlled by a website developer.
Content is King
Search engines favour sites with a high and unique information content, the optimum being 500-3000 words per page. More content increases the chance of occasional/accidental searches causing the site to be listed, leading to more visitors and better search engine visibilty. Search engines look for the following items (and in this order) to determine content: domain name, page title, page url stucture (excl. domain), page headline, sub-headline, sub-sub-headline, page content, bold and italicized words, navigation links, and links to other websites.
Keywords and keyword phrases
Choosing keywords and keyword phrases should be a primary consideration when constructing a site. After all, these are what you hope visitors will be typing into search engines when looking for a site like yours. Keywords should be used at least three to four times in page content (the upper limit depending on the page size). Keyword phrases (combinations of keywords) should be used several times too, with the keywords arranged in the same order. Ensure there is a difference in the number of entries for each keyword too.
Keyword density
Keyword density is a measure of keyword frequency expressed as a percentage. A keyword appearing 5 times in a page of 100 words would have a keyword density of 5% for example. Low keyword density may not attract much attention from search engines, while one that is too high may activate their spam filter, resulting in lower ranking. The optimum value is 5-7%. For keyword phrases, ensure the density of each individual keyword is still within specified limits. In practice, going slightly over may not harm ranking but could put off visitors. One page, one keyword phrase is a good rule, and sometimes two or three related phrases are wise but never optimize a page for 5-10 phrases. Optimize the main page of a site for the most important keywords as this page takes up most of all search traffic. It has the highest visibility in search engines and therefore the largest number of inbound links, which also help with ranking. Use synonyms and derived forms of keywords too (keyword stemming).
Keyword location
The closer a keyword or keyword phrase is to the beginning of a web page, the more significant it becomes for search engines.
Text format
Search engines pay special attention to content that is highlighted by special formatting. Keywords in headings using the <h1> and <h2> tags are most effective. Also, highlight keywords with bold fonts using the <strong> tag rather than the bold (<b>) tag.
The <title> tag
Keywords MUST be used in the <title> tag. One of the most important tags for search engines, this is displayed in search results and will contain text derived from the title tag. It should contain keywords and also be informative and attractive to visitors. About 50-80 characters from the title tag are displayed in search results.
Keywords in links
Use keywords in the text of all links on your site, where possible, including those to any other sites.
Using alt attributes in images
Search engines cannot read images but they can read the alt attribute if specified in the image tag (<img>). They record the value of image alt attributes when they parse (index) pages but don't use it to rank search results. Some take into account only alt attributes of images used as links.
Description Meta tag
This is included in the head section of a web page, for example:
<meta name="description" content="Information including keywords here..." />
This does not direcly influence ranking but it is important. Many search engines display content from this tag in search results. The description should be brief, informative and attractive, to tempt visitors to visit this site rather than another, and should also contain keywords appropriate to the page. More visitors of course means better ranking.
Keywords Meta tag (no longer important)
Again this is included in the head section of a web page, for example:
<meta name="keywords" content="keyword1,keyword2,keyword3,etc..." />
This was originally used to specify keywords for pages but it is no longer used by search engines. It is best avoided now because it can reveal keywords to competitors. If it must be used, only keywords actually used in the page text should be added.
Number of pages
The more web pages a site has the better, as this increases the visibility of the site to search engines. If new content is constantly added, they consider this as development and expansion and this may give additional advantages in ranking (this is why blogs, or weblogs, rank well).
Navigation
Use keywords in menu links, where possible, as this will give additional significance to the pages to which the links refer. Also use the title attribute in links to repeat these keywords.
File naming
The first page of any website is normally called index.html (or index.php etc). After this, the other page names within a site can be whatever they need to be. It is good practice to include keywords in these page names. For pages with multiple names, it is best to join the names using a hyphen or an underscore, rather than a space.
Keywords in page names
Using keywords in page names whenever possible is important (e.g. learn-CSS.html), as it is one of the first things the search engines look for.
Use CSS
Keeping the page styling seperate to the HTML makes life easier for search robots as there is less code to trawl.
Outbound links
Publishing links to other resources relating to your content using relative keywords may help with ranking (but no more than 50-100 per page). Do not publish links to FFA (free for all) sites and other sites excluded from indexes.
Site age
Search engines prefer older sites as they are more stable. They also prefer sites with longer-term domain registrations. Some webmasters have noted increased pagerank and visits on sites reaching 5 years of age.
Visitor satisfaction
Search engines keep track of visitors that immediately return to searching after visiting a site via a search result. Lots of returns indicates the content was probably not related to the corresponding topic and will reduce ranking. They also track how often a link is selected in search results. If a link rarely selected it means the page is of little interest and ranking will reduce.
Site map
If your website has more than a couple of dozen pages then including a site map, in addition to your other navigation, is a good idea as it will assist the robots to search your site. Create both a HTML sitemap and an XML sitemap.