If there is one rule that should be referred to as the refrain in SEP, it is this: To achieve a top position in a particular search engine, analyze what other high ranking Web pages have done.

Search engines change their ranking algorithms from time to time. A page in your Web site that earned a top ranking last week might drop in the rankings a few months later. Then, left untouched, that same page could later climb right back into its old search position, although this is unlikely to happen by chance.

The trick to always being on top is to learn the variable that can be influenced and analyze the contents of the top Web sites to see what they're doing better than you. Literally, click on their listings, visit their site, and select View from the pull-down menu in your browser and then Document Source in Netscape Navigator, or Source in Microsoft Internet Explorer. This allows you to view the actual HTML code that makes up their page.

Ask yourself, "Is a particular keyword more prominent in their Title tag than in mine?" See whether it's repeated more often in their description META tag or in the actual copy that makes up their page than on your own site. Perhaps they're using the keywords in the heading tags, or maybe keywords appear in hyperlinks to other internal pages or some other way that you had not considered or are not using.

About the Author

Pamela Upshur is a SEO/Promotion Specialist. She is the Webmaster of http://www.website-optimization-promotion.net