Keywords

[shortd81]

I have my forum and was wondering whats does the search engines (google espcially) look for when ranking a site with a certain keyword?

[fryman]

Anchor text from backlinks

[shortd81]

So basically If I just need to worry about the anchor text?

And should I work on one keyword at a time or what?

[fryman]

You need to worry about a thousand things...

SEO is a science and many things are involved. However, it seems that anchor text is one of the main things Google looks at when ranking a site.
Maybe not one, but you could play around with a few different text. If you just use one you can trigger a penalty.

[shortd81]

Oh I see. So give me one more pointer when it comes to seo since it's a science. 2nd most important thing

[fryman]

2nd most important thing... don't ask questions... :D

This is a trial and error thing. You will see a post of some guy saying that if you put up a page with a green background it will rank well at Yahoo. Then another guy says that he is wrong, that you need to have a blue background. The only way you will ever find out if actually trying it.

Read around, make a list of tips you find interesting, and try them out. Seo takes time, so you need a lot of patience. Poeple think that they will wake up tomorrow and see their site #5 at Google. No, it doesn't work that way.

You need to understand all the terms (seo, backlink, anchor text, metatags, serps, etc). Once you know that, then you can ask specific questions. If you just ask something like "here is my site, what should I do to optimize it" you will only end up more confused. Specific questions are your key to a good advice.

[shortd81]

Thanks. I know what all those are except serps. I guess I'll go do some research