What are the most important things for optimization?

[sadierae]

Okay my boss posed this question and I think it'll vary depending on who you ask. So now I ask you to see what the consensus is.

She asked me to weight the most important things about optimizing a site totaling 100%.

I said:
1. Content 70%
2. Quality links 20%
2. Title tag (meta tags incl) 10%

How would you break it down?

[agerhart]

It depends on the search engine or directory in question. Some place more weight on one variable, and others on another variable. Develop and optimize your web site so that it is well rounded and ALL of the search engines will eat it up.

<added>

But, if I had to say, I would place the importance like this:

- Content - 50%
- Link popularity - 30%
- Title tags - 20%

[edited by: agerhart at 2:14 pm (utc) on June 26, 2002]

[topr8]

how about this ...

1. Linking Strategy 50%
(including anchor text)
2. Page Title 30%
3. Content of page 20%

[ukgimp]

Hello Sadierae

I would not like to say what the breakdown would be (i dont know :-)

I would say that they all go hand in hand. After all you can have the best content in the world, but if no one knows you are there then it aint worth nothing.

In addition to that, it has to be navigable. So I would say you can add that to your list.

In further addition the page needs to be designed well. If you have lots of nested tables and other code thirsty aspects that wont help either.

So may i suggest that your list has the following :

1. Content
2. Quality links
3. Title tag (meta tags incl)
4. Page design
5. Navigational structure.

Dont forget the user though, they are pretty important also.

Cheers

Richard

[sadierae]

I did mention to my boss that I was reluctant to put any type of weight on the techniqus since each se varies and just one thing will not make your site get good rankings. But to appease them I did.

I agree many things make up a good SEO campaign but if you had to explain to to your clients you need to give them sense of what is important.

[rcjordan]

1. Linking Strategy 25%
2. Content of page 25%
3. Page Title 20%
4. Themes / Authority hubs 15%
5. Misc bits 15% (longevity, date of last file update, metas)

[agerhart]

In my experience with talking to clients, potential clients, and bosses, you need to tell them everything.

Explain to them:

- Link popularity
- Link text
- PageRank (and how it differs from conventional link popularity)
- Site navigation and internal link structure
- Keyword density
- Title tags
- Optimizing all HTML tags that are applicable
- Clean and small code
- Site Content
- more, more, more.......what did I miss?