It used to be that Meta-Tags were King. That is also no longer true.

It used to be that Content was King. That is no longer true.

It used to be that Search Engines did not like Frames, Java, and Flash. That is no longer true.

What has changed? Search Engines have become more sophisticated as the Internet has grown. The ability of Search Engines to determine how valuable your site is based on the only metric that really counts. If you boil all of the different things that search engines look at down to the fundamentals what they want to know is whether or not other people value your site when then need information about a search topic.

How do they make that determination? Simple. They look for three things, in roughly this order:

1. How many inbound links does your site have?
2. How many people travel across those inbound links?
3. What is the relevancy quotient of the source sites for those inbound links?
4. How long to people stay on your site when they visit?

The theory here is that the more websites that have links to your website the more likely your website is to be a valuable destination for content in general. The more people that travel across those inbound links the more likely those people are to consider your website a valuable destination. The greater the level of content relevance that exists between the link source and your website the greater the value. The longer that people stay on your site the greater the perceived value of your site will be considered to have.

So, how do you turn the above information into an improved site ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP)? By addressing each of the above theoretical constructs individually and collectively. As you address each construct you will see improvement in your SERP ranking.

How do you build links? The easiest way is through the use of a BLOG. Many people are reluctant to clutter their primary website with links to other sites. This is not as much of an issue with BLOG pages. BLOGs can offer you the opportunity to develop a cross-link network without cluttering your primary website and can also be used as great sources of relevant inbound links to your website. People who write BLOGs are often very willing to place links from within their BLOG articles to other websites and you can negotiate with BLOG owners to have them make such links to your site in exchange for you doing the same.

Social network sites are also great vehicles to generate inbound links, both directly and indirectly. The fact that most social network sites give you a direct inbound link source platform that you control is valuable. More valuable is the fact that you can use the social network platform as a tool similar to the BLOG described above whereby you can negotiate with your Friends to generate inbound links to your primary site and to your BLOG. Your main cost is the reciprocal relationship that you provide to others in the social network.

A good article about Social Networks as Links Source Platforms can be found by readint the Michael Grey article Do Social Media Links Translate In Organic Rankings?