The search engines that display results have a number of criteria they choose from to rank your page. In the global market it can be tougher to get top rankings because of the competition that is out there. In the local market it may be much easier to get in the number 1 spot or at least on the first page. Still, there are two things you need to consider when it comes to ranking factors on your site.

The first factor is the offsite ranking. In offsite ranking you need to optimise it for search engines’ local listing options like the Internet Yellow Pages. You also need to look at the inbound links and reviews you have. Most often this information is found separate from your actual site. Typically you have little control on things like reviews, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help to optimise your site.

The other factor is the onsite options. In onsite ranking you want to ensure your titles, content, and site links are all working properly. You also want to make sure that your business address is very easy to find on the site as well to ensure the local search engine database can find it and log your site in correctly.

Now let’s look at things a little more in depth.

Offsite ranking factors:

You will need to claim the listings in the major local search engines. In other words go to MSN, Yahoo, and Google to claim your listing. Next you will need to go through some of the Internet Yellow Pages and ensure your listing is there and that it is properly listed. You have several options for Internet Yellow Pages that you can choose from. Next the category you are listed under is important. You want to ensure that your site is listed under the right category.

Onsite ranking factors:

We mentioned it above, but your physical address and phone number is imperative to the local search results. You can put this information on each page if you wish. This way all pages will be ranked in the local listing if chosen by the search engine crawlers as relevant to listings. You may even offer GPS coordinates to make the information more helpful. Business hours are also essential to getting more clicks on your listing. A consumer that sees all information in the results will find you more professional.

My friend was giving me a search engine optimisation advice last night because he said that he noticed that nobody seems to know how to find my web site so I should make sure that everything is easier for me to be recognized. He told me something about taking advantage of META and making sure that it works for me. He said META tags are hidden codes that are read only by search engine web crawlers (or spiders). They exist within the HEAD section of a web page. He said that there are two highly important META tags that I need to worry about, which are the description and the keywords. Meta tags summarize what the site is about, and despite some SEO hullabaloo, they still play an influential role in meta-based search engines. He also told me to make sure to keep the description of Meta tags under 150 characters and never try to repeat the keywords for more than 3 times. He also noted that if I try to repeat my keywords for more than 3 times it can be a pretty good indication to the search engines that I am trying to spam the search results. Keep it fresh and simple so search engines would show me in their sites.