This post is not designed to go into detail about each external, off-page SEO factor, but rather it’s a list of things I have found to be important. Please comment or Google it if you do not understand.

The following lists the ranking factors for 2009 in order of importance.

I’m going to start creating blog posts of the most important on-page or internal SEO keyword placement ranking factors. This first post is donoted as v1.0 of 2009 to make sure that everyone can keep track of the lastest or most recent versions.

Don’t expect these guides to be too wordy as I am just mentioning the factors I focus on or think that are important from an internal SEO standpoint. If you don’t understand, simply post a comment or Google it.

Semantic search is something I’ve been interested in ever since Google first started displaying relevant search suggestions in their SERPs (search engine result pages).  Semantic search is basically using language, meaning and relationships between words to understand the intent of the searcher. On a basic level I believe that Google and other search engines may be looking for words they expect to see on a page aside from the exact keyword phrase match to determine relevancy. For example, if you had a blog about football that you hope to rank on the first page of Google for the search query ‘football’, Google may expect to see words or phrases such as NFL, sports, Indianapolis Colts, soccer, touchdown, etc.

If your website contains the word ‘football’ hundreds of times throughout your website, but does not see other likely keywords related to this keyword, then they may assume you are not as relevant as other websites containing the keyword ‘football’.

An example of this is if you conduct a search on Google for ‘AROD’. Google will bold ‘AROD’ as well as ‘Alex Rodriguez’ in the titles and descriptions of the SERP listings. This proves that Google recognizes that these words have a relationship.

Semantic Search Example AROD

This further supports the theory that keyword consistency and topical relevancy are more important than keyword density. The point is that you want to write original content that reads well, contains your main keywords a few times throughout the content, and also incorporates other phrases one may expect to see relating to those keywords.

This is good news for everyone in and out of the SEO industry. Who wants to write or read keyword stuffed content? We all want more relevant search results.

Once upon a time Yahoo was the main search engine and Google didn’t even exist. Yahoo focused on simple metrics to determine the relevancy a website had to a keyword or phrase. Some of these metrics included keyword density, page titles, meta keyword tags, meta description tags and load times. Although the visionaries of Google thought page titles should be one of the most important factors for determining relevancy, they had another idea to improve search results. The SEO community might know of nearly 100 factors that may affect your rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages), but none may be as potent as in-bound links.

Links pointing at a website give that website credibility with Google, just as you would source the encyclopedia or a well known author when writing a report. Google’s algorithm factors in such criteria as anchor text, quality and quantity of links to determine how credible a given website is on a topic. With this basic understanding of the importance of links, I would like to pass on a few tips and strategies for link building.

Let’s say, for example, that I wanted to rank www.ObsidianSEO.com for SEO. How would I go about finding websites that may be willing to give me a link? Creativity is the key. You can begin your hunt by using the following phrases in conjunction with your keyword.

(keyword) (link phrase)
SEO submit url
SEO add url
SEO submit website
SEO add website
SEO submit link
SEO add link

These search phrases and others can help you find relevant directories to submit your website too. Many blogs have similar formats for allowing visitors to comment. Here are a few examples of phrases to use to find relevant blogs that may allow you to submit a link.

SEO comment url
SEO comment website
SEO comment link
SEO shoutbox
SEO chatbox
SEO tagboard

You can also get more creative. Try some of these phrases to find websites that have landing pages that are no longer in use or have discontinued a service or product.

SEO not available
SEO not found
SEO expired
SEO no longer available

Maybe these ideas will get you thinking about various ways to find websites that may be able to offer you a link. Some are as easy as typing in a your web address and link text, others will require you to contact the owners or webmasters directly.

I would also like to comment on buying links. This is against Google’s guidelines. Google is aggressively penalizing websites that sell and buy links to artificially affect search results. If the link is not free I would stay away from it.

PR releases are also a great way to acquire links. If your business can afford to hire a PR firm and has newsworthy services, events or news then your website can greatly benefit from links from say CNBC.com, NBC.com, Yahoo News, state newspapers’ websites, industry association websites and others like this. If you can not afford to hire a PR firm or you are just too boring for these news agencies, you can submit your own PR articles to free PR websites. Be creative, with a few searches you can find plenty of these websites to submit your own articles too.

Another way to find websites that may link to you is to look for your top ranking competitors. Once you find a handful of websites such as www.yourcompetitor.com, you can find links point to their websites. Go to Yahoo and enter the following into a search…

link:www.yourcompetitor.com

Yahoo will display all the links pointing to that website address. Go through these links and see which ones may be able to offer you similar links.

Stay tuned as I will release new link building tips, tricks and strategies in the future including how to use Social Media networks to acquire lots of natural links.