The Three Factors That Play A Role In Search Engine Optimization

The search engines are a secret, mysterious bunch.

It is true that none of us know the exact algorithms that Google uses to determine who pops up where in the search engine results pages. But, what we confidently know is that the formula is made up of only three factors.

In an attempt to create a better user experience they will often switch up the formula and weigh heavier on one factor over the other BUT the factors themselves remain the same.

The three factors are Links, Activity and Content.
The most important factor by far right now are links.
Links are the bond that binds the Internet together. It if weren't for links, the Net would be like stars in the night sky, just floating there without connection to other stars. Links create the Internet and without links, there wouldn't be any Internet.

Hyperlinks form the path that SE spiders take to crawl the web and quickly index every webpage in the world.
Each link casts a vote to the search engines saying which webpage is the most relevant/popular to a specific keyword or phrase. The more high quality links a webpage has voting for it, the higher that webpages Google rank will be for those keywords.

I say high quality links because all links are not counted as equal votes. A backlink coming from a PageRank 9 site is much more effective than one coming from a PageRank 0 site. This is the reason everyone in SEO puts such a high value on links coming from .edu and .gov sites. Unfortunately, you cant go out and use only one tactic or get links from only one source because that would not look like your websites popularity was rising naturally. Over using this tactic is specifically why JC Pennys website got de-indexed by Google last year.

Content is the second ranking factor.
Content means optimization done on your website and basically how well organized your content is.

Googles mission is to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful. *

The organization of your content either makes it easier or makes it more difficult for search engines to find and suggest you as teh most important to any given keyword.
The amount of content on your site also plays a role. In theory, the number of pages a site has the better.

Activity is the final search engine ranking factor.
There are two types of activity to look at, on-site and off-site. The frequency at which your site is updated, the amount of traffic your site gets, how many comments are published by visitors are all part of how active your website is and play a role in your Google search ranking.

In closing, the two smallest factors in search ranking are Activity and Content. These two factors can be pretty much handled for us by various Wordpress plugins. Right now and into the distant future, the number of backlinks is the most important factor in determining search engine rankings.

*Source: http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/