If you already have a website, chances are you have spent at least one sleepless night "thinking like your customer." You know what we mean: punching in keyword search after keyword search on Google and obsessively checking to see where you rank in the results—that is, if you rank at all (page 768 probably isn't all that relevant!). We hear a lot of griping about "that competitor" who takes the number one spot: What's so great about HIS website?!

Well, for starters, whether or not it looks great, that site is definitely search engine "optimized," built to appeal to the search engine "spiders" that crawl the vast arena of content to answer a question or respond to a query on the World Wide Web.

In truth, while search engines hardly make public the ever-changing algorithms by which they decide on website rank in results pages, there is at least a good measure of credit given to websites that are straightforward, honest, and full of rich, relevant content. In short, sites that are helpful to searchers.

What makes a site "helpful," then? Google, which maintains 80%-85% of the search market share, originally based its ranking philosophy on the school thesis written by founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page asserting that the most popular books come with numerous recommendations and testimonials from well- and widely-respected people. Likewise, websites that rank highest should be linked to from many other well-liked websites.

Although it's hardly an exact science, factors that are believed to play a role in higher rankings include:
- The number of links TO your website, and the quality of those websites recommending yours
- Well-written, keyword-rich, relevant and focused content (and NOT content simply stuffed carelessly with keywords)
- A well-developed site architecture with user-friendly navigation
- "Clean" code that is easily crawled by search engine spiders
- Appropriate and descriptive meta tags in place
- A high volume of visitors to your website
- Strong internal links connecting the pages of your website with the aim of better navigation
- The age of your website

These are some of the measures we take into account when building your website, and many come into play at multiple stages of website development. Patience is critical—it can take months to boost your natural search rankings—but the long term payoff is truly immeasurable.

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