The sites that Google will rank highest for a particular search term are the ones that appear the most relevant and that have the best content and best design. At the same time though, they will also be the ones that have the most trust. This means that Google considers them an authoritative resource and expects the information on their site to be accurate and well-written. SEO factors have varying weights and no SEO consultant knows the exact weight of each or when these weights change. We’re not going to talk about every SEO factor. This is because Google has over 200 SEO factors and over 10,000 sub-signals for ranking. That is way too much information to digest and remember. Machines are writing stories and that is often something Google is not a fan of. The reputation, authority, and credibility of a website will be judged by the search engines based on the type of backlinks the site has.

“Niche down” approach

Diving straight into the internet without any clear game plan is time-wasting, dangerous and more often than not, a futile attempt to rank any website for maximum targeted traffic. There’s no clear formula, or single answer for the minimum amount of content a page should have. Some sources suggest having at least 600-700 words of content on every page. Search engines reward sites that are user friendly, which means they have high usability. Google favors sites that are not only rich in keywords, but also demonstrate user engagement. Keywords are single words, or more commonly strings of words, that represent the content of a web page and how people ask for web content. Keywords are strategically selected by optimizers and are intended to help your web content communicate in a way that resonates with humans and Google search spiders.

Is a Link Exchange the way to go?

While the page meta data (page description and keywords) are not nearly as important as they used to be, they still count. Take advantage of them by putting your keyword or phrase there. Search engines are invested in providing users a great mobile experience. Any time Google opens up the vault and gives a peek inside the mountains of data it has at its disposal, marketers would do well to pay attention. Don’t worry if you don’t have any formal training or education in your chosen area, Google will take into account the “amount of life experience” that makes them an expert on the topic and will value this as “everyday expertise.”

Entries with rich snippets have higher click-through rates

Realize that meta keywords are only used by your competitor to see what you want to rank for. Google still doesn’t use them. A good resource is more than just a long-form 1500 word blog post. It deep dives into topics and can stretch on for pages, combining data and insight that your audience would be hard pressed to find anywhere else. Be careful not to focus too much on one single key phrase otherwise your site could grow repetitive, and earn a penalty. Gaz Hall, from SEO Hull, had the following to say: "One of the strongest signals the engines use in rankings is anchor text. If dozens of links point to a page with the right keywords, that page has a very good probability of ranking well for the targeted phrase in that anchor text."

Create an e-book or guide every few months

Google crawls most popular pages several times per day, but they don’t want you manipulating them, so they update their index pretty slowly. Researching, tracking, and competitive reviews all of these are part of Search engine optimization package. SEO is not just limited to advertising tools, although it includes all elements of advertising. If you aren’t seeing a positive ROI after a month or two, try changing tactics and/or improve your methods until you start seeing positive momentum. It is an unfortunate fact that your SEO budget will have an impact on the speed of your SEO results. A higher budget simply allows for more people working on your campaign and researching your industry and creating your content.