The answer to this disparity may lie in a factor known as link popularity. When search engines determine rankings, many things are taken into consideration and one of them is how many sites are linked to your site. The quantity and quality of these incoming links is weighed heavily by some search engines, such as Google. If many sites are linked to yours, your site is considered to be an important resource in that particular field and that is why search engines would like to give such a site a high ranking. Also if links to your site are coming from "important" or high ranked sites, then your web site is considered still more important.

In this factor of link popularity, new sites are somewhat at a disadvantage as older sites have been around a while and have acquired more links over years. However, with a bit of "elbow grease" (sustained effort) it is possible to boost your site's link popularity and position in search engine results.

What is keyword density?

This is ratio of a keyword or keyphrase to total words (depth) on a page. It is one of most critical aspects of search engine optimization. To improve search engine ranking, your keyword density must not be too high or too low.

Try to aim for a keyword density of 1% to 7%. To achieve 1% you would need to insert your keyword or keyword phrase once for every hundred words. If you only used your keyword once in one thousand words, this would result in diluting your keyword density.

Don't try to stuff all your keywords together, separated by commas. Search engines may see this as spam, penalizing your rankings.

How to improve your search engine ranking

The best way to achieve good rankings, is to research appropriate keywords or keyword phrases related to your web copy before you even begin building your site.

If your site is already built and it's on Internet, you may want to consider reviewing keywords and make necessary changes to your meta tags and web copy. It makes no sense to have a site that is not targeted to right audience and expect high search engine rankings.

If your site has a lot of graphics or flash and is short on content, you should consider redesigning it. Search engines love content rich pages, so use images and flash sparingly.

1. Use Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) or overture suggestion tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion), to research your keywords. These tools will show you how many times a particular keyword was searched for each month. It's no point including keywords in your web pages that nobody searches on.