Many people find their sites no longer have the high rankings prior to the latest Google update. There are some common starting points that if you apply these to all of your sites, you should be able to survive any update integral and as a long-term investment for your site.

The items that matter most for SEO are

1. Page Titles (make sure they are relevant and descriptive for the content of that specific page. The more text on your page, the easier it is for Search Engines to figure out what your page is about)

2. URLs (they also need to be descriptive and relevant),

3. Meta descriptions

4. Meta keywords

5. Semantic markup (using proper tags for header elements, etc.)

6. Make sure your site is "link-worthy.

7. Keyword density is essentially the number of times the keywords are used on your page relative to the total number of words on the page

8. Keyword research is completely and utterly the key to everything that is search marketing.

9. Make sure your site is not made up of graphics alone, as these cannot be read by the search engine spiders that come a-crawling. (This is especially true of graphics that look like text -- these are often used when a particular font is desired.)

10. Be sure to use natural, easy-to-understand language that conveys the message of your website and includes keyword phrases you'd like your site to rank highly for.

11. Make sure your Title tags and link anchor text all crack with the visible content on the page.

Be sure to follow these simple guidelines and you won't need to worry too much anytime Google has an update - your site will not be impacted by any filters that are checking for spamming, hidden text, or anything that resembles cloaking.

The bottom line is relevance. You need to make sure that all of the elements of your page are descriptive and relevant. Content is still king for optimization. The more confident the Search Engines can be that the content is useful; the more chance you have of relevant visitors finding you. Good Content is pouring your heart and soul into your website, not looking for the next quick fix. And it's making your site the best it can be for your site visitors AND the search engines. It's what brings targeted traffic to our own site for thousands of phrases, and it's what will help your site gain traffic for whatever phrases relate to it.

Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to: One of the many factors in Google's search engine algorithm is the age of a domain name. In a small way, the age of a domain gives the look of durability and therefore a higher relevancy score in Google.

Optimize your website for target audience: Location is important. Search engines like to bring relevant results to a user, not only in the area of keywords and sites that give the user exactly what they are looking for, but also in the correct language as well. So a search engine has to have some way to be able to return the results the user is looking for in the right language, and a search engine's goal is also to try and get the user as close to home as possible for their search results.

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