The three main search engines Google, MSN and Yahoo allocate different importance to various elements of your site and web page. This is driven by their different algorithms which they constantly refine as they seek to bring the most relevant search results to you and compete with each other.

One result of this is that you will struggle to successfully optimise your site to achieve top rankings in all of these search engines at the same time.

At this point it is worth a moments reflection on the most important part of your business, the customer, and to note that the site should meet their needs not just a search engine.

The consensus from my discussions within the industry is that the relative weightings they currently seem to attach to three of the main components of your site and page are as the table below.

1. Site url and title contains the keyword

MSN 10 Google 5 Yahoo 1

2. Relevancy of the content to the search phrase

MSN 9 Google 9 Yahoo 9

3. Links inward and anchor text used

MSN 5 Google 9 Yahoo 7

Please do not focus on these ratios for too long. A week is a long time in the search engine world and algorithms change over time. Also, as stated earlier, you need to place a large focus on the customer and the customer experience on your site.

Optimising a site, search engine optimisation, for the search engines may deliver traffic to you but a poor customer experience for the visitors will not produce any significant revenue for you.