As long as there have been Internet search engines, there have been people promising they can make your website come up on the top of the list of search results. While there are no sure-fire ways to get you to number one every time, there are some search engine optimization, or SEO, techniques that will help improve your site’s chances of being found by those searching for the type of product or service your company offers. 

But first, how do search engines rank websites and what do they look for? 

Search engine automated robots crawl through the web following links to index all the millions of interconnected documents that make up the Internet. When you search for something, the search engines quickly scan their indexes looking for the most relevant information based on your search criteria and then they rank it in order of perceived value, displaying the information on search engine results pages, also known as SERPs. 

The ranking factors of how the major search engines determine what information will provide the most value often changes, but currently it is based on popularity. Their “thinking” is that the more a site or page is viewed, linked to, or updated, the better and more valuable its content must be. This means simply loading your site and metadata tags full of keywords you hope people are searching for is not an effective tactic. 

So what can you do to make your site more attractive to the search engines? While there’s no way to guarantee you’ll be ranked number one (and anyone who tells you they can do that for you should be sent packing), there are some tactics you can use to optimize your site: 

• Make sure every page can be accessed by at least one static text link. Flash-based navigation can look really cool, but the search engines can’t “see” the links to know how to move through your site.
• Fill your site with quality content that people will be interested in reading and sharing, and make sure the title and description data (in the HTML code for the page) for each page reflects the topic of the page.
• Think like a searcher: use potential search terms or keywords in the visible page text, but make sure the content is written for users, not search engines. There are plenty of people who will search for “marketing agency” but they will get better results if they search for “SEO and social media marketing” or something more closely targeted. Keep those phrases in mind when you’re writing your content.
• Make regular updates to your site content.
• Increase the number of links to your site, called inbound links. Quality directories for your industry, social media tools, and partner businesses are all ideal locations for links to your site. 

Including terms and phrases in your content that will help make your site rank well requires a fine balance – you want to use the keywords that people are searching for, but if these words have too much competition, it will be harder for your site to have a higher ranking. At the same time, you want to be sure your keywords are ones that people will be interested in searching for. 

How to tell whether your keywords are effective often involves trial and error. Website analysis tools such as Google Analytics and HubSpot can indicate which search terms people are using to reach your site — if there are keywords that no one is using, you can change them in the content of your site to have a different focus based on what people are actually searching for. 

And maintaining your website should be a regular activity:

• The search engine robots can tell if there is new content on a site, and perceive a site with new content to be better than one that never changes.
• You should actively monitor your site data to ensure your keywords are up to date and keep your product and company information current as well.
• Keeping up with the Joneses on design trends and technology is important, too. If the sites of your competitors are fresh and new and yours has been the same for years, it might be time for a redesign. Search engines like sites with clear hierarchy that are easy to maneuver.  

Search engine optimization isn’t rocket science (not totally, anyway), and there are a number of steps you can take to make your website more friendly to search engines, increasing the potential that your site will be found by the people it will benefit the most.