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A veritable who's who of SEO have contributed to this list, that evaluates a whole whack of factors that contribute to a site's search ranking. Thanks SEOmoz!

I've included the score, and added a few comments about each factor.

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag (4.9)
If there is one simple task that any business or organization can do to help optimize their Web site, it is to create unique page titles for each page of the site.

2. Global Link Popularity of Site (4.5)
This refers to the overall quality and quantity of incoming links. One of the judges, Lucas Ng (aka shor), had a comment that puts it all into perspective, "Think of a web page as a town. If a city has freeways, airports, train stations, bus shelters and a port, that's a good indicator that it is an important hub. That orphaned web page with no links pointing to it? It may as well be a hidden tribe of Amazons that no one has discovered."

3. Anchor Text of Inbound Link (4.4)
This is still hugely important, but as many of the judges point out, the quality of the site providing the link is extremely important as well.

4. Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure (4.1)
This was ranked among the judges as a factor with "exceptional importance", and I cannot agree more. It is a factor that is completely within your control, so make the most of it when structuring your site.

5. Age of Site (4)
This does not refer to the original registration of the site, but rather to the first date of the indexable content. So, once your site is launched, make sure you submit it to the search engines but also start the fun job of building quality inbound links.

6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site (3.9)
This means that the subject of the page providing the link to your site must relate to the topic of the page on your site.

7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community (3.9)
Building links? This Top 10 search engine ranking factor reminds us to get quality links from "authority sites" - high quality links from a well-respected site with thematically related content. So, if you are building incoming links, check out professional associations or industry organizations that you belong to - do they offer links to members? If so make sure you're listed.

8. Keyword Use in Body Text (3.9)
My personal favourite, natch. Use your keyword phrase throughout the page, and make sure there are natural variations of keywords. This helps search engines determine relevancy.

9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site (3.7)
As judge Marcus Tandler points out "the better the linking site, the better the link."

10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page (3.6)
Again, another example of keyword tunneling - how the subject matter on another site affects your site.

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