By Ryan Simpson (c) 2008
There's no shortage on advice regarding what people should do to improve a web site's position in the search engine listings. It is easy to become confused when you consume all the information that is available, because some folks agree with others while some totally disagree and offer dissimilar advice.

You should be extremely suspicious of any advice given by someone that tells you to use search engine submissions, employ traffic exchanges, or use FFA sites. That is so out of date it's not funny.

What is pertinent for excellent rankings in the search engines was highlighted not too long ago via a survey done by SEOmoz of a collection of SEO professionals.

In short, below are the 4 most important search engine optimization ranking factors, in accordance with the experts' consensus views.

Keywords that Appear in the Title

Using the correct keywords when crafting the title tag of a page is of extreme importance. It does not only promote higher rankings, it also helps with the click-through from the SE listings to the destination page. It is of lesser value to be listed high in the results without receiving that many clicks. The ultimate purpose is to gain as many targeted visitors to your site as possible.

The keywords that were used by the searcher are bolded in the results of the search. When the right keyphrase of the page title is bolded, it gives the listing a higher opportunity of being seen and receiving a click. Nevertheless, highlighted keywords are not the only thing to think about when writing the page title tag.

Lots of additional clicks can be attained from a smartly written page title tag, especially when it invites the searcher to click. It is better to attract a hundred clicks from position number five with an eye-catching title tag than fifty clicks from position number three with a badly written title tag, correct?

Anchor Text used by Inbound Links

The anchor text that is employed in the link that points to your web site from an external site counts a lot in the search engine algorithms to figure out what your site is all about. Additionally, what your site is all about defines to a large extent what keywords it will rank for in the search results.