Gaining a high rank is done by analyzing the competition's sites SEO properties for your main keywords, and trying to copy their methods while doing better to out rank them.
There are 2 types of search engine optimization techniques:
1. Onpage Optimisation
2. Offpage Optimisation
Onpage factors include:
Title - The title of the page should include your main keywords and be as short as possible to give them more weight with hyphens used for search spaces.
Header Tags - You should include your main keywords within header tags, particularly the H1 tag which is usually simply the title of your content. Other keywords should appear in sub-headings, which are your H2 tags. You should also bold and underline these titles containing your keywords.
Keyword Density - You should include your main keywords as often as possible without making the content seem spammy or nonsensical.
Meta Tags / Descriptions - You should use meta tags to write a description of your webpage's content. This will not appear on the actual webpage, but in the description in the search engine results. It should be compelling so visitors click on the link to your site, as well as including your main keywords for optimization purposes.
Image Tags - If you have any graphics on your site, you should include your main keywords in the alt tag of each image. Offpage Optimisation:
While onpage optimisation is still something you should do, it's NOT what will get you high search engine rankings. It's the offpage optimisation factors that will. This can basically be summed up in a single word - LINKS.
Google and most other search engines, place great emphasis on both the quality and quantity of inward links to your website. You want to get as many links as possible, but you should place more emphasis on getting quality links from sites similar in subject to your own, and from pages with high page rank (PR).
Offpage parameters include:
- Which websites link to you
- The number of websites linking to you
- The PR of the website linking to you
- The page title of the website linking to you
- The anchor text used in the link linking to you
- The number and type of links linking to the website that's linking to you
- The number of outbound links on the website that is linking to you
- The total number of links on the website that is linking to you
- Whether or not the websites linking to you are deemed by Google as an authority website
Doing search engine optimisation can be done manually or with the help of scripts. It is also very time consuming with lots of commercial feeling!