Figuring out the process of SEO can be quite a challenge. Knowing what you need to do and what work best and where to put your performance is a daunting task. So this is where I can help you out by providing 32 Google Ranking Optimization Tips. These were gathered from various sources and started with the Google Webmaster Guidelines. So lets get started.

1. Keywords In Your URL’s – First word is best, second is second best, etc. Use hyphens to seperate words.

2. Keywords In Your Domain Name – Ranks very well same as above using hyphens to separate words.

3. Keywords In Title Tags – Keyword in Title tag – close to beginning
Title tag 10 – 60 characters, no special characters.

4. Keywords In Description Meta Tag - No more than 200 chars long. Google no longer “relies” upon this tag, but will often use it.

5. Keywords In Keyword Meta Tag – Use less than 10 words. Every word in this tag MUST appear somewhere in the body text. If not, it can be penalized for irrelevance. No single word should appear more than twice. If not, it may be considered spam. Google purportedly no longer uses this tag, but others do.

6. Keyword Density in Body Text – 5 – 20% (all keywords/total words). Some report topic sensitivity – the keyword spamming threshold % varies with the topic.

7. Individual Keyword Density – 1 – 6% (each keyword/total words).

8. Keyword in H1, H2 and H3 Tags – Use Header font style tags appropriately. Limit to 1 or 2 per page.

9. Keyword Font Size – “Strong is treated the same as bold, italic is treated the same as emphasis” – Matt Cutts July 2006

10. Keyword proximity (for 2+ keywords) – Directly adjacent is best. Limit keywords so as to not get a negative for keyword stuffing.

11. Keyword Phrase Order – Does word order in the page match word order in the query?
Try to anticipate the search query, and match word order.

12. Keyword Prominence (how early in page/tag) – Can be important at top of page, in bold, in large font.

13. Keywords In Image Alt Tags – Should describe image message – Do NOT fill with spam
(Was part of Google Florida OOP – tripped a threshold – may still be in effect to some degree as a red flag, when summed with all other on-page optimization – total page optimization score – TPOS).

14. Keywords In Outgoing Links (anchor text) – Use title tags in links and keywords in link text.

15. Keywords In Internal Links – Same as above use keywords in title tags and link text.

16. Validate All Internal Links – Validate all links to all pages on site. Use a free link checker. I prefer to use this one by w3c.

17. Efficient Tree Like Navigation – TRY FOR two clicks to any page – no page deeper than 4 clicks.

18. Inter-Site Linking – Make sure you have appropriate linking to lower level sites so the spiders can find them easily.

19. Outgoing Links Should Be Relevant – Google patent - Link only to good sites. Do not link to link farms. CAREFUL – Links can and do go bad, resulting in site demotion. Unfortunately, you must devote the time necessary to police your outgoing links – they are your responsibility.

20. Outgoing Links Anchor Text – Google patent - Should be on topic, descriptive.

21. Link Stability Over Time – Google patent - Avoid “Link Churn” which basically means when one or more links provided by the document changes over time.

22. Less Than 100 Outgoing Links – Google says limit to 100, but normally accepts around 2000.

23. Domain Name Extension Top Level Domain – TLD – .gov sites seem to be the highest status, .edu sites seem to be given a high status, .org sites seem to be given a high status, .com sites excel in encompassing all the spam/crud sites, resulting in the need for the highest scrutiny/ action by Google.

24. Page Load and File Size - Try not to exceed 100K page size (however, sometimes there isnt much you can do, such as with larger textual pages). Smaller files are preferred <40K.

25. Fresh Content – Google patent - How your site changes over time. Newer the better – if news, retail or auction! Google likes fresh pages. So do I.

26. Amount of Content Change – New pages – Ratio of old pages to new pages.

27. Freshness of Links - Google patent - May be good or bad. Excellent for high-trust sites. May not be so good for newer, low-trust sites.

28. Frequency of Updates – Frequent updates = frequent spidering = newer cache.

29. Keyword Stemming – Use plural and non plural keywords, use phrases and narrow terms.

30. Site Size – Google likes big sites. As do most search engines.

31. Age of Page vs. Age of Site - Age of page vs. age of other pages on site
Newer pages on an older site will get faster recognition. Old is best. Old is Golden.

32. URL Length – Keep it minimized – use somewhat less than the 2,000 characters allowed by IE – less than 100 is good, less is even better just be sure to use keywords.

I hope this list can help you as much as it us. We've have been researching SEO and optimization techniques for years now and found that this list is the best to follow in optimization for Google and other search engines that follow similar rule.

If you have more to add to this list or need help with optimizing your website feel free to comment or contact us.