This document – Search Engine Ranking Factors V2 - represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. Together, they have voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google’s ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results). It also has a list of the Top 10 Positive Factors, Most Controversial Factors, and Top 5 Negative Factors.

The highest ranked factor was placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page’s HTML header. At the NSDL Middle School Portal we have been updating all of the content on our website with title tags that include important keywords. The Google indexer looks at the first 66 characters including spaces of the title tag so we have limited ourselves to 66 characters.

An example of how we have updated title tags can be seen in the Explore in Depth publication Geologic Time: Eons, Eras, and Epochs. Each Explore in Depth publication has sections called Introduction, Background Information for Teachers, Lessons and Activities, and National Science Education Standards. We used to use these very generic section titles for the actual title tag on each page. Now each page gets a title tag that includes important key words that are part of the content of the page. For instance, the Introduction page has the title tag - Geologic Time for Middle School Science Teachers. The Background Information for Teachers page has the title tag - Geologic Time Content Knowledge for Middle School Science Teachers. The Lessons and Activities page has the title tag - Geologic Time Activities for Middle School Science Teachers. The National Science Education Standards page has the title tag - Geologic Time for Middle School Science Teachers: National Standards.

One of the keys is determining what search terms or phrases searchers are using and making sure those terms are ones that are included in these title tags. This also means that we need to know what the needs of our users are so that we are producing content that meets those needs.

I am trying to practice what I preach in terms of the title that I gave this blog post - 63 characters and terms that appear in the blog post.