I recently did a project analyzing and comparing some of the top 10 websites indexed by Google with certain key phrases. The purpose of this study was to figure what key factors affected a high page ranking in Google, and how to tweak my own website to gain a competitive edge over the competition.

In taking each website, running it through Website Grader, validating the code, and reviewing the results, a few factors were consistent. The top sites had hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands of pages and inbound links, and maintained top positions in Google despite of missing or too many keywords and descriptions. Also noted were sites with an older domain age and longer time until expiration were given higher priority in Google indexing. These factors seemed to affect a website in a positive manner, despite imperfections in code.

Regardless, my theory is that optimizing the source code for as few errors as possible and correct numbers of characters and keywords contained is important to obtain a winning website. Combining this with a pleasant layout, color scheme, and effective business strategy can turn more of your visitors into repeat customers.