Let me show you How to Get Top Listings for
every page of your
site and
Rank #1 for all of your Keywords in the Search Engines - Guaranteed.
Did you believe this?
If your like me you've probably seen a million pages and emails like
this that claim they can work miracles for you in all the search
engines. They claim everything from having inside information or
special relationships with Google and all the search engines.
The simple Truth is this: No one can guarantee top
listings on any search engine, in fact, no one can even guarantee that
you'll ever be listed. So beware of big claims and unethical SEO
firms as there are many out there.
So how do you get top listings in the major search engines. Let me try
to answer that as simply as I can without thoroughly confusing you.
CONTENT - yes that's right... content is still king... the more you
try to fool search engines the more damage you'll do to your rankings.
Search engines are getting smarter and smarter and they have seen
every trick in the book done by every unethical SEO/SEM firm and
spammer out there. So don't fall pray to the hype and false claims.
Here's the big Search Engine Secret
Well Written and Related Content, Relevant Page Titles and Meta-tag
Descriptions. So there you have it, the secret is out... if anyone
tries to tell you different or convince you otherwise - put away your
check book and run. Yes, there are other things you can do to help your rankings
using the 3 items above and a few more.
How to improve your chances in the search engines rankings:
-
Know your top keywords.. Use
Yahoo's Keyword Tool or
Goggle's Sandbox to find what users are actually typing into the
search engines to find sites like yours. Once you have all your top
keywords - don't loose them... you will use these over and over and
over again.
-
Use your top keywords in the content of your
pages, in your page titles and in your mate-tag descriptions. I
don't mean to use pages that are filled with nothing but
keywords, use them in Real Sentences. Pages that are nothing but
keywords will hurt you in the search engines, this is called
keyword stuffing and will hurt your rankings or worse yet, get your site delisted or banned from
the search engines. Simply take your current site content and use
your top keywords in appropriate places where they make sense in
real sentences.
-
Don't over use keywords or try to use to many on
one single page. Have your main keyword in the title, the
description and a couple times on the page content is usually
sufficient. Do this for every page of your site optimizing it for
the subject of that particular page using the relevant keywords from
your research. I see so many sites with the same Title and Meta
Descriptions on every page. Make sure yours are different.
-
Get as many high value links as possible. Best
way to determine High Value links is to install the Google Toolbar
at
http://toolbar.google.com/ and use Google's Page Rank to
determine link value. You can also use our
PR Tool. The higher the rank the better. You may have
to pay for links on PR7 or higher sites - but don't pay too much. You can also use
Alexa Traffic
Rank or their toolbar. The more High Value links you have the better
your Search Engine Popularity will be.
-
Install Link Exchange Software... but be
selective about the link exchanges you approve.
-
Add value added relevant content to your site,
such as articles, news, blogs or tools related to your business or
industry. This will increase your search engine saturation. A site
with 100 pages of good quality content has much a better chance of being
found than a site with only 10 pages.
-
Use
Google XML Site Maps or find and company that will create one
for you.
-
Offer a site map to your users with links that
point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger
than 100 or so links, break the site map into separate pages.
-
Try to use text instead of images to display
important names, content, or links. Search Engines do not recognize
text contained in images or flash content. If you must use images,
then always use the Alt tag to describe the link.
-
Check for broken links and correct HTML.
-
If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the
URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine
spider crawls dynamic pages. It helps to keep the parameters short
and the number of them few. Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your
URLs, as Google does not include these pages.
-
Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable
number (fewer than 100).
-
Make use of the robots.txt file on your web
server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be
crawled. Make sure it's current for your site so that you don't
accidentally block the spiders from content you want included.
-
Understand the difference between a Search
Engine and a Directory. A Search engine uses spidering technology
and will search the web for new sites. Directories will not seek you
out and you will have to be tell them about your new site manually.
-
Revisit your keywords on a regular basis. There
are a 1000's ways to search for the same thing, search patterns
change from time to time. You'll want to keep up with those changes.
-
Submit your site to the search engines if it has
never been submitted or you are not listed in that particular
engine. Most search engines still have a free submit for the
"Natural Listings", yet they may not be easy to find. You can find
Google's ADD URL here
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
-
Submit your site to the Directories including
Yahoo! and DMOZ. DMOZ is
the Open Directory Project and is used to power thousands of other
sites and directories - Inclusion in this directory gets you links
in 1000's of other sites. DMOZ is also the
directory
Google uses.
What NOT to do.
-
Don't Use hidden text or links
-
Don't Use doorway or gateway pages.
-
Don't Use pages that redirect users to other
places.
-
Don't use any type of cloaking technology - no
matter how great it sounds. It might work for a short time - but you
will get caught.
-
Don't use Flash content for important
information. Flash is an application that is completely invisible to
most search engines. Flash is good for animations and other page
elements - not for an entire site unless you also have an html
version.
-
Don't Use Misleading or overly repeated words
-
Don't Use Bait & Switch tactics... they don't
work.
-
Don't Use Duplicate sites or pages
-
Stay away from Free For All or Link Farms
schemes, as these will only hurt you.
-
There are many things that affect your rankings
then just the content on your pages, so DON'T obsess about being #1 - you may never get
there no matter what you do. Your time is better spent operating your business in areas
you have more control over.
Following the above guidelines will get you the
best results your site will achieve. That's not to say that there is
not more you can do - but these are the main items that will effect
your rankings in the SERP's (Search Engine Result Pages). The internet
is a huge place and technology changes all the time - so do the search
engines - a site that is #1 today might be #1001 tomorrow.
You can try to do all this yourself or you can
hire a company that specializes in SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimization
& Search Engine Marketing), however beware, there are many that will
separate you from your money quickly and leave you with little to no
results. We suggest you take some advice from Google concerning
selecting an SEO firm for your company.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/seo.html
Above
all else - remember this - There are NO GUARANTEES in any type
of marketing campaigns, be it on the web, in print, on television or
radio.
So spend prudently and select your Marketing firm wisely!
About the Author:
Robert Boilard is a professional developer, marketing strategist
and one of the principals' at i4Market, LLC. Since 1993 Robert has
been producing successful website and marketing campaigns for
companies from the 2 person office up to the Fortune 500's. Visit us
today! http://www.i4market.com
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Thank You
The
i4Market Team
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