[thelist] SEO

[Jay Blanchard]

[snip]
We haven't dropped a dime in SEO companies or advertising efforts to any
of
those type of companies, yet when you search our industry terms (not
product
names) we're always within the top 4 or 5, usually #1. What are ALL the
criteria for high rankings? Is it cross linking? meta tags? pure
context?
what?
[/snip]

There are a combination of things including all that you have mentioned.
The fact of the matter is that the company that you work for is highly
specialized and your potential customers do not go to the web looking
for your products. Your website is primarily used for information,
education, and  support, as are the others in your industry. New
customers come to you via other channels, using your website to gather
more information about the products and services that they need.

Sometimes we lose sight of the things that websites are meant to do
dependent upon our niche. SEO placement is not always as important as
web devs make it out to be. In your industry you want to do it well, but
it is not likely to bring you new customers. That is very different from
some other site that is in a market where new customers are gathered due
to their ability to demonstrate, sell, and ship the product via the web.
Perhaps a product that is more ubiquitous, such as kitchen gadgets or
books or DVD's. Those require higher (and sometimes 'paid for') SEO
placement because potential customers aren't going to go to the next
page or maybe even half way down the page. 

FWIW I did a basic search and your company came up first. What surprised
me is that when I view the entry page of the site and look at the source
of that page that there are no meta keywords. You do not get those until
you have selected a geographic region.