Google, MSN, and Yahoo all use their own methodologies and/or algorithms to calculate the relevance of your pages, but here are a few common factors that are accepted by most to guarantee good rankings in renowned search engines.

Analyze your pages, and start the process today; remember to resubmit your changes when you are done, and the traffic will start to flow.

1) Keyword Density

Try to achieve a 3.5% to 7% keyword density for each of your pages. This means, your keywords should get repeated 3 to 7 times per 100 words written. However, do NOT overuse your keywords on the same page. Related keywords may help further.

There was a time when random usage of keywords was accepted by major search engines. This led to utter chaos and visitors hardly got to read what they were looking for. This was brought to the notice of search engine webmasters and it changed the rules overnight. Today, it is considered spam and the offender is punishable by law.

2) Keyword Phrase Choices

It is next to impossible to get a high rank for a single keyword, so make sure you aim for some lower-demand phrases too. The keyword 'coffee' has been listed in Overture as getting searched 370830 times a month. 'Coffee' as a keyword has an immense competition. However, a key phrase like 'coffee club' shows just 1813 searches. Getting a number one rank for coffee would of course be wonderful, but having a moderately good rank for several lower-demand keywords must be an essential part of your search engine optimization strategies.

3) Original Content

Google can penalize websites that offer exactly the same content, and this can result in lower ranking for all sites. In extreme situations, the website may be written off from the search engine forever. How many times have you seen multiple sites meant to promote the same old resale rights product? All of them display the same old sales page. The cleverest thing for you to do would be to simply rewrite the sales letter and submit that page to the search engines. This is vitally important SEO tip. Make sure you put in connected words and phrases; not simply the targeted keywords. Originality always sells. And it sells more than any other strategy ever used.

4) Linking Right

Make sure all your links use proper text. How many times have you seen "click here to visit" on a website? Simply changing the link text will cause your page to rank higher in all the search engines. You may also select connected phrases as link text. An interesting text link raises the visitor's curiosity and increases the value expectation of the product.

5) Repetition of Key words and Phrases

Do ensure that the key phrases and keywords that you select appear multiple times in every one of your paragraphs and the entire content as a whole. Remember to put in connected phrases and keywords to help give a boost to your SEO. Do not let yourself get attracted to keyword stuffing which is the other name for indiscriminate repetition of the same keywords again and again.

5) Update yourself by visiting SEO news sites to stay in tune with the latest trends. The engines keep on shuffling their formulae and strategies so you can do good to get yourself updated on the latest news.

6) Alt Tags

When adding a picture or an image to your webpages you must add connected key phrases and words to the alt tags. Taking this simple step helps in boosting your PR.

Reviewing your site from time to time, implementing the necessary changes, and keeping abreast of the newest trends in Search Engine Optimization will definitely ensure your site achieves a top ranking for your chosen keywords and key phrases.