Latest trend of SEO is to have more value to the content, rather than to the keywords. The following needs to be done:

Web sites must also be optimized for mobile devices with fast loading preferably in seconds for good user experience.

Research on what the users are searching and what are they looking for and to bring them to your target pages with right content.

Analyze the most visited landing pages and make necessary changes to the content according to the user searches.

Search Ranking Factors 2012

Search engine results have changed dramatically. Today, which websites get top rankings depend on very different signals than in the past. So much so that what we once considered the whole of SEO is now only a small portion. Here are some of the factors affecting search engine optimization today.

On-Site SEO

On-site SEO includes keyword selection, website architecture, hub pages, internal linking and content optimization. This is one of the original parts of search engine optimization. On-site SEO is vital; after all, if words do not appear on your website why you should rank for them? On-sire SEO no longer possesses the importance it once enjoyed. Search engines prefer signals that are difficult to manipulate or change and you can change the content on your site whenever you desire. Every time a new ranking signal from outside your website gets added to the ranking algorithms on-site SEO becomes a little more diluted.

Off-Site Link Building

 The other half of the original SEO equation is link building. By scraping the web search engines can find out which sites link to yours. The quantity and quality of links pointing to your site determines your websites PageRank or domain authority, a measurement of raw ranking power. Similarly it is better to get 100 links from 100 sites than 100 links from 1 site. Links to individual pages reveal you most important or popular content. Words in off-site links demonstrate search query relevance. Patterns count too. Having most off-site links point to your homepage is less desirable than having links go to numerous different pages. Receiving new links over time is more natural than getting a spike of new links every now and then.

Content Quality

Last February Google introduced Panda, a major algorithm update that penalized entire websites for serving low quality content. Historically search optimizers liked to put lots of articles or blog posts on websites. Quality was never a concern as long as the page got optimized for a long-tail keyword and linked to more important content. Another popular ploy was to add Wikipedia style text to the bottom of shopping cart or store pages. Panda looks for this type of low quality content. If it finds too much on a site the entire domain gets penalized for all searches.

Design

 Where content appears on pages has long been a part of on-site SEO. Now Google takes design to a new level when deciding where to rank your website. If you have too many adds or push relevant content below the visible page, forcing people to scroll down, the search engines may decide that you are being less than helpful.

Click Thru Rate

When visitors arrive on your website do the stay or leave? Google can tell when someone leaves their site then returns. If people stay on your site it may improve your rankings, but if too many bounce it can hurt them.

History

Search engines use history for lots of stuff.  Google records every search result you visit. Click on a result and you are more likely to see that site in future search results. Instant search is another example. As you type a query into Google it will predict what you are typing, display the likeliest possibilities and even the search results placements for the top query. If you have a Gmail account Google can use your email content to personalize search results too. They already use this information to select which advertisements to show to you.

Voting

Run a search on Google. Hover over the results and +1 buttons appear. When you click on +1 buttons those pages go to the top of your results for relevant queries.

Web and Social Media Content

Google loves brands. When they see brand names often enough on web pages and social media updates they become associated with relevant search queries.

Who is In Your Social Networks?

This is the new frontier of search. Google will personalize your search results based on who your friends are. Originally Google found your friends by following links to your social media profiles that you placed on your Google profile. Now Google has its own social network, Google+. It knows exactly who you have in your circles because it is in their database.  Imagine the search histories, bounce histories, +1 votes, Google+ content and even the email content belonging to all of your Google+ friends influencing and changing your search results. This is exactly what Google+ makes possible. There are lots of other ways for Google and Bing to change their search placement results: query deserves freshness, query deserves diversity, integrated search results and more.  Search has come a long way from on-site content relevance and off-site link authority, which is why we spend so much time thinking about starting, nurturing and growing conversations. Today the best SEO happens when everyone is writing about and mentioning your company, brand or products online.

Search Engine Optimization Ranking Tips

Search Engine Criteria

The first thing that you need to know is that most of the major search engines utilize an algorithm to determine where a website ranks. The search engines have setup specific criteria that a website must meet to get to the top of the list. The criteria are different for every engine, but all engines share several commonalities. It all boils down to the type and amount of content provided on a given website, the level of optimization done on the site, and the popularity of the website (link popularity/PageRank). Below we examine these commonalities in more detail.

Understanding Keywords and Search Behavior

In order to rank a website, you must first identify and understand your target audience. Keywords can tell you a lot about the type of user that will be potentially visiting your website. Many times it is best to consult an optimization professional during this process. Most individuals can determine which keywords are best for their website, if they are using the right tools, which are readily available.

The difficult task if determining which keywords are most relevant, and realistic to optimize for. One must also determine which keywords to optimize for on the various pages. Search engine optimization is often referred to as "an art," and this is a perfect example of where it takes a professional's touch to achieve the best results. When competing for any keyword, you can be sure that there is anywhere from 100,000 to 100,000,000+ websites competing against you. Proper keyword targeting is crucial for a successful search engine marketing and optimization campaign.

Content

Again, thinking at the algorithm level, how do search engines rank websites? The answer is quite simple: Those who have superior content rule. The phrase "content is king" was born about 4 years ago, and it still holds true today. If you want to be relevant for specific keywords, than you need superior or at least highly competitive content. With that said if you want to rank for a slew of different keyword phrases, than realize that you require a slew of relevant content. On average, one can target between 3-5 like keyword phrases per page.

This is another example of where a search engine optimization professional can lend some expertise. An expert can help determine what content you need, when compared to the type of keywords that you want to target. We are one of many firms that offer this type of consulting.

Are you Optimized?

Now that you have determined the keyword you need to rank for, and you have the right amount of content in place, you need to optimize your website to stand out from the crowd. Regarding on-page scripting the search engines are really looking for 2 things: 1) keywords in the Meta and Title fields and 2) keywords in the body of your website.

Regarding Meta Tags there are 2 very important fields:

1) Title Tag - arguably the most important SEO tag for any website. Google, Fast/Alltheweb/Lycos, and Ask Jeeves support approx. 60 characters in the title, while Inktomi and Altavista allows for up to 110 characters in the title. It is important to target the most critical keywords in the Title. Every page should have a unique Title.

2) META Description Tag - also very important for every page on the site. Some engines do display the description defined, while others do not. All search engines do read the description tag, and do utilize the content found within in the ranking process. A good rule of thumb is to create descriptions that do not exceed 200-250 characters.

The META keyword Tag is essentially useless in today's SEO market, but is often times good to utilize as a placeholder for the keywords targeted. The other optimization element to keep in mind is body content. Search engines are looking for dense content, with the right amount of keyword density and/or keyword placement. Depending on the architecture of a specific website, one may consider various means of placing keywords within body content. Typically it is best to place body content within a viewable area of the website. However, some websites may be graphic intense or within frames, or flash. In this scenario you will need to place keywords in ALT Tags, or No-Script tags.

Keep in mind that if you are following the rules published at the various search engines, that you must provide relevant content at all times, and it is always best to show all content to users that you show search engines.

At the end of the day, you must provide spiders with the keywords you want to rank in a variety of places, including META tags, Title, ALT Tags, Body content, links, etc. Enlisting the help of a professional is often times the most economical means of accomplishing these various nuances.

Are you popular?

So now you have determined the right keywords on the right pages, you've created all of the necessary content; you've optimized all of the content to the best of your capabilities. Congratulations - you're now in the top 80 percentile (from an optimization standpoint) of the websites listed for the keywords you're trying to target. So how do you get a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd page listing? The answer is quite simple: You have to be the most popular too. That's right, it's a popularity contest. In other words, how many other websites know you (link to you), and how popular are they?

Paid Inclusion

Once your site if fully optimized you'll need to submit to the engines, or pay the engines to guarantee that you will be indexed into their database. Paid Inclusion doesn't mean better rankings, but it does mean you are guaranteed the chance to rank because you will be listed in the databases. Currently you can perform Paid Inclusion with Inktomi, Altavista, Fast Search/Alltheweb/Lycos, Altavista, and Ask Jeeves. We can provide Paid Inclusion services, and does incorporate Paid Inclusion into many of its Search Engine Optimization and Placement packages.

SEO Factors

Off-Site SEO

Keyword-focused anchor text from external links. No surprise here. Rated as very high importance.

External Link Popularity. Again, not something new. Link building is about quality in addition to quantity. I don't know any SEO that doesn't inherently understand this. Authority is a well-discussed topic and this result reinforces it. See Link building: How many links do I need from a while ago for more.

Diversity of link sources. This is something we talk a ton about at Hubshout. One of the reasons we favor widgets and badges is the large domain name footprint it creates in your inbound link constellation. Go here for more on the impact of link diversity on rankings.

Domain trust. Again, something we've written about a bunch. This got a High Importance rating, and we agree. One day I went nuts on this topic, see my take on trust for your website.


On-Site SEO

Substantive, unique content. Do we need to say it again. Content is king. If you have not understood this by now, hearing again probably won't help. But there it is in the data for you. Very High Importance. We can't stress this enough. We believe it is at the heart of the search engine algorithms as a mechanism for sorting out source websites from those that simply regurgitate the words of others. See more here.

Keyword use in the title tag. Duh. This is now in every NetworkSolutions seminar and every blog post ever written on SEO.

Keyword use as the first words of the title tag. This has always been my preference. Browse my blog posts.

Keyword use in the root domain name. I stand corrected on this one. Jay once argued with me that it was important about 4 months ago. I didn't believe him and ran a few experiments myself. Turns out my data suggests it is quite important, especially for exact match searches. The SEOMoz data supports this thesis - and Jay's instincts. Sorry man. I'm not always right, but I'm always willing to admit when I am wrong.

From here, the importance rating drops from the 60% to the 40's. In my opinion you can probably stop here if you need to know the most critical stuff. If you want to make sure you do everything possible under the sun to attract search engine attention, you should read the entire list.

Tips on Keyword Optimization

1.      Google penalizes sites that stuff keywords, not because of promoting immortality device like that of Alex Chiu. Don’t obviously stuff your posts with SEO keywords make it look as natural. There are natural ways to make them appear into your post. Use this knowledge only for good, never for evil.

2.      Use the words that users are typing in the search engine boxes in your blog posts. For example, type in lol cats in Google’s free Keyword Tool and it will show you synonyms for lol cats, like cat pictures, L.O.L, funny pics cats, funny pictures cats and LOL kittens.

3.      Use also the plural forms, not just singular.

4.      Don’t use common keyword misspellings, leave it to your readers in a very natural way. There are people who don’t care about the correct spelling of the words they type.

5.      Use categories that are good keywords like gadgets, hacks, how-to weblog, blog. This promotes usability and search engine optimization as well. But, don’t use irrelevant categories as it will not only harm usability but also your Google standing.

6.      Google don’t rely as much on meta description tag as they’re not seen by the users. Instead, it gives more weight on categories, sidebars, navigation menus on the side, the whole content of the page.

7.      It is advisable to use the keywords somewhere in the post.

8.      Do not repeat the same keywords within a line but you may use slight keyword variants or synonyms. Do not alter the content you send to googlebot. It’s cloaking and you will be kicked out of the Google index for a long long time. Write with the users and search engines in mind