How do you plan for future changes in search engine rankings?

It would be great to have a crystal ball, prying into the plans of the search engines and how they may change weights of algorithms and the like.

For those of little SE understanding, algorithms are formulas or rules set up by SE's to determine ranking. Each rule then has a different weight or percentage of importance assigned to it. A good example of this is currently Google's high weighting of linking over all other factors or rules.

So knowing this how do we get ahead of the game?

Do we simply keep up with the Jones (Google) in current time and not worry about future changes? Or do we allow for future changes in algorithms so we don't have to go changing thousands of pages later on?

For me I will take the later.... and this is how it's done...

We simply build in all factors that the SE's currently rank sites on, a few they may use into the future and concentrate on ones that are the most sensible.... here is a list

domain name >> the name itself, length of registration past and future

domain hosting >> good hosting network. different ip range for mininets/virtual real estate

meta tags >> title, keywords, description

on page >> keyword density, headers, alt tags, outbound links, outbound link text, site map, less graphics, no flash or frames

visitor usability >> fast loading, good content, good navigation, search equipped, site map

html >> w3c compliant

directories >> dmoz & yahoo, local, industry specific, large generic

linking >> inbound links, reciprocal links, domain & text linking (spread), same/similar industries (semantic latent indexing), no linking for bad neighborhoods or sites, quantity & quality of links, where links are placed on the page, link density, ip class/range

I'm sure there are a few others that I could add to this list however on the whole currently this is it.

If you include all of these items into building your next web page and sites, no matter how the SE's decide to change their algorithms by giving one factor a higher importance over another, you will be in good stead to keeping up top rankings.

Like anything else, high search engine ranking is not rocket science! You just have to know the rules and then do the work.

Start with one keyword or phrase, do the research, implement a plan, do the work, get the high ranking and then move onto the next keyword or phrase.....

And if you want a huge head start, there's some great info out on fast SEO ranking.

Happy rankings....