SEO Information

How To Improve Your Search Engine Ranking


With search engines like Google currently indexing over 8 billion pages, it is becoming more and more difficult to get a top search engine ranking. Type in a popular search phrase such as "Internet Marketing" into Yahoo or Google and you will be returned over 8 million results!

Unless your website is in the first two or three pages, it is unlikely that you will receive many visitors from search engines.

So what should a webmaster do to give their website the best chance of ranking high in the search engines?

All search engines work slightly differently and have ever changing algorithms for ranking web pages, but these tips can be applied when planning, developing or marketing a website to help you reach that top page of search engine results.

(1) Choose your keywords carefully

It's extremely important to set aside time to research your keywords. It's best to do this in the planning stages, before developing your website, but many of us start a website without knowing a thing about how the search engines work, so you may find yourself doing this weeks or months later.

Try to choose phrases that are searched on frequently and if possible have a low number of competing websites.

To get an idea of the number of times a keyword is searched for per month, type a keyword into the box at

Overture Search Suggestion Tool

This will tell you how many times your keyword was searched on in the previous month (based on Overture's partner search engines) and give you a list of similar keywords.

Another useful tool to help you choose your keywords is Word Tracker. This tool will help you choose your keywords and give you a "KEI" for each set of keywords based on the popularity of the keyword (number of searches) and the amount of competition.

You can try this out for free on Wordtracker

If you manage to pick your keywords in the planning stages you may even be lucky enough to find a domain name that contains your keywords.

(2) Optimise your pages

Once you have decided on your keywords you will need to optimise your pages for those keywords. Here are a few tips.

- Ensure that the Title of your page contains your keywords.

- Mention your keywords inside the meta tags. Most search engines no longer use meta tags, but some make use of them so it is still worthwhile using these.

- Try to make sure that the first occurance of readable text on your page contains your keywords

- Ensure that your keywords are mentioned in the initial paragraph of your page

- Use your keywords throughout the text of your page - but be careful not to overdo this. Your page should still be readable by humans!

- Use your keywords between the headline tags on your page ("H1" tags or H2/H3 if H1 is too big)

- Occasionally bold or italicise your keywords

- Make sure that links pointing back to each page on your site contain the keywords for each page

- Give all your images an "ALT" tag and put your keywords in here too - again, don't overdo this

- Try to put some of your keywords in your outbound links

(3) Start Linking

One of the most important criteria in getting a good search engine ranking is the number of backlinks you have to your website from related websites.

Type in your chosen keywords to Yahoo or Google and take note of the top 3 sites returned to you.

Now go to Link Popularity Checker and put the URLs of the top three sites into the linking tool, along the URL of your own site.

Have a look at the difference between your site and the top 3 sites and this will give you an idea of how many links you need in order to get a top search engine ranking for these keywords.

The best ways to get links back to your site are:

- By writing articles related to the subject of your website and getting them published on the internet

- Reciprocal Linking with other related websites

- Posting on newsgroups and forums that allow you to have a signature attached to your posting (with your uRL in it)

- Submitting your site to directories.

Try to make sure that the anchor text (clickable text) that links back to your site contains your keywords.

(4) Add Content Regularly

Another thing you may have noticed is that top ranking websites have lots of content.

Regularly updating your website and adding fresh content will also help your site to rank more highly in the search engines.

If you don't have time to create your own unique content there are plenty free articles available Just type "Free website content" into Google and you'll have your pick of the 18 million results that it returns to you!

To improve your ranking, follow steps 1 and 2 above and repeat steps 3 and 4 regularly.

Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of http://www.homebiz-direct.com To learn more about how to promote your website visit her Beginner's Guide to Internet Marketing


MORE RESOURCES:

PR Web

SEO, Why You Are Doing it Wrong
Search Engine Watch
What follows is a cautionary tale of missteps towards the complex problem of ranking on search engines and an examination into why small businesses are completely at a loss as to what constitutes “ethical” SEO. Before he was worried about Google and ...
Google Releases New Penguin Update, Numerous Online Sites AffectedSan Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Microsoft And Others Serve Up Google Panda And Penguin AdviceMediaPost Communications
Google Penguin - A Lesson It Teaches [Infographic]SubmitinME
Travolution -Hit Search -Search Engine Land
all 17 news articles »


SEOReviews.co Offers Consumer Reviews of Leading SEO Services
Seattle Post Intelligencer
In today's marketing environment, many businesses find it essential to invest in an SEO service, but finding the right SEO service can often prove challenging. A new site, called SEOReviews.co, is seeking to provide objective information and customer ...

and more »


SEO Miracle Presents Platinum SEO Service Package
Albany Times Union
SEO Miracle has decided to present its new and final SEO service package for this year called the Platinum package. An SEO service has taken a totally different meaning since Google presented its PageRank algorithm. Ever since then, website owners are ...

and more »


SEO Positive Announce Acquisition with Leading Snail Racing Company
PR Web (press release)
The search team at SEO Positive are pleased to announce the acquisition of a new contract with the UK's top snail racing firm Fundeo Limited. Based in Edinburgh, Fundeo specialise in providing their customers with a new and entertaining way to enjoy ...

and more »


PR Leap (press release)

SEO Advantage Barack Obama Over Mitt Romney
PR Leap (press release)
The amount of traffic to Barack Obama's website as opposed to Mitt Romney's can be attributed to the SEO of the candidate's websites. Mitt Romney's website has only 16% of the amount of external followed link Barack Obama's website has.

and more »


SEO & SMO Technology Masterclass 'On Demand' at One Wimple Street
ITCM
One Wimpole Street's latest free technology masterclass on Thursday 17th May gave event organisers the opportunity to find out how social media optimisation benefits business and why search engine optimisation (SEO) is so important when it comes to ...



ExtremeSocialMedia.org Combines SEO and Social Media to Bring Businesses ...
SBWire (press release)
One company that has been helping other businesses achieve consistent page one rankings is an Austin SEO company called Extreme Social Media. Extreme Social Media have seen firsthand what page one listings can do for businesses.
COSTA RICA NEW MOBILE APP BECOMES YOUR PERSONAL TRAVEL AGENTTravPR.com (press release)

all 3 news articles »


Entrepreneur

SEO vs. PPC: Knowing Which Is Right for Your Website
Entrepreneur
BY AJ Kumar | May 21, 2012| When it comes to boosting traffic to your website, you have two basic options: pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or search engine optimization (SEO). You can pay for traffic using the PPC advertising programs provided by ...
Learn: SEO Lingo DefinedSearch Engine Journal
29 Prime Enhances Client Websites with New GPS Location FeatureSan Francisco Chronicle (press release)
SEO Miracle Allows Users To Check Google Rankings In CanadaRedOrbit
Albany Times Union -iTWire (press release) -Search Engine Land
all 24 news articles »


Fusion SEO Launches SMART Capture SEO™, Striving to Expand Upon the Maryland ...
Virtual-Strategy Magazine
Evan Featherstone, President of Maryland-based Fusion SEO, has launched SMART Capture SEO™, with the vision of having Fusion SEO be the future benchmark of local, results-based web marketing consulting. Baltimore, MD, May 22, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Evan ...

and more »


SEO Project Manager
Bizcommunity.com
We are seeking the skills of a self-starting SEO project manager to manage and build an SEO team with an aim to rank our websites for multiple highly competitive casino related keyword terms and phrases. You must have strong people and project ...


Google News

home | site map
© 2006