Year 2005 we have discovered that only ethical optimization tactics are the safe bet for stable ranking. Search engine bots, spiders or crawlers are getting smarter and intelligent. Google the king of search engines is becoming more accurate than ever, as well as producing the most relevant results. Year 2006 will be the year of Organic search engine optimization tactics which “Naturally” flow with search engines. A site will be naturally rank well if it is neat and clean.

Last month Google wrap-up its Jagger updates and we have seen changes in rankings of many sites. The three phase Jagger updates removed SERP’s of various sites which are mostly created by automated software with sole aim of spamming the search engines. Basically this is one indication before the beginning of New Year that crawlers are getting accurate, smarter and intelligent with much better filters than before, which produce maximum possible relevant search results for the search query.

Search engines are only developed to find information’s from web. They crawl the web and find out most “relevant” or “similar” search results for the specific keyword or key phrase. Relevant search results are the most important thing for any search engine. Popular SE’s like Google, Yahoo, MSN are working hard to update there search technologies and working more on upgrading the crawlers who has better abilities to filter the non relevant sites, so that it produces maximum possible accurate results for searched keyword or key phrase. I still feel organic SEO will have edge over others. In fact now there is no competition with other tactics like black hat as those are proven out from the competition.

Websites which are designed with valid HTML, CSS, neatly structured and have balanced contents will improve there rankings. Soon SE’s will filter out maximum sites which have involved in unethical SEO tactics. Below are few things which will hold the key of better ranking in Year 2006.

• Contents still hold the key. Get a unique copy from a professional copywriter who understands basic copywriting rules. Stay away with automated content generation software’s, after all humans can only write quality contents.
• Maturity of the site plays important role in attaining the better ranking. Sites which are older and having maximum indexed pages will significantly improve there rank. Upgrading an old site will not affect its ranking, but it will increase its chance to place better than others.
• Each search engine has its own guidelines, which clearly states what should not be acceptable to them. Site should follow the rules and guidelines and present a neat and clean site to World Wide Web.
• Easy navigation and Site structure are the most important factor in obtaining higher rankings. I am not debating the theme based sites or a journalized site, but talking about structuring the contents of the site in a proper manner. SE’s should know where your home page is located and can easily find all the pages of your site, just like humans.
• There should be more emphasis on the necessity for accurate meta-tagging which should maintain relevancy with contents. This is another important aspect and site owners need to work on it. Though debate is on for relevancy of Meta tags with present search technology and now they are irrelevant to some extent, but it still hold the forte if you want your site to be globally recognized. Effective Meta Tagging maintaining its relation with contents of the page will give site a proper reorganization.
• Site owners must work towards improving the usability of the site. Think of site which is designed for natural human visitors, not solely focusing the search engines. Usability aspect should be analyzed properly and more and more focus should be given towards comfort of human visitors so that they can stay more on your site.
• Write texts which are visible for humans. Many site owners used a farm of keywords as “invisible Texts”, that results ouster of there entire site from search index. Google who hold the majority of searchers come down heavily on that. Say no to invisible texts. This is a totally unacceptable practice. I still believe larger fonts which can be read clearly by human eyes. Invisible text or contents may lead your site to delete permanently from search index.
• You must submit your site manually to SE’s, avoid using any automated system. Stay away from those who offers submit your site to millions of SE’s for few $$, instead few manual submissions will work great.
• I am a strong opponent of Text link trade. This is my personal view. Few good incoming links from major directories can help your site’s performance in search engines. Even after you go for a link exchange or a buy a link from a broker, you need to find links from the sites which are higher rank than yours, legitimate site offering few outbound links and should be relevant to your site theme. Please stay away from sites which are made only for link exchange.
• Directories are still important and search engines give importance to them. To get your listings in major directories you need to submit your site manually choosing the categories which relevant to your site.
• Clean codes, meeting validation rules will rule the web this year. Do a review and updates your sites hiring a professional designer. Your designer must focus on designing clean codes. A monthly updates in your site will help a lot. Each month or biweekly you must review your site’s performance and act according to that.
• Don’t spread your keywords all over the body of the page. Use keyword rich contents, but overuse of keywords will kill the originality of contents. Avoid using too many anchor links or keywords in bold texts. Let the site have natural contents if you wish to last longer.

Conclusion: This year will be year of “relevancy”. Search engines will come out with more powerful crawlers which will be returning the relevant search results. Legitimate Natural sites with ethical SEO tactics will be better placed than those who are involved in fighting with SE’s to attain a short term gain. Site with clean codes will stay longer and rank well. Lets welcome this year with hope of gaining the maximum exposure by legitimate way.

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