So
how do you get the coveted top positions with the search
engines? Here are some tips, resources, links and services
that may help.
First,
you will need to decide on a single
theme
for your site. If you want to achieve high search engine
ranking, being focussed is essential. Next, you will
want to focus on really serving the needs and interests
of your visitors. If you keep their well-being in the
forefront of your mind at all times, your website will
prosper.
Sponsored Links:
TIP
#1 Start
with your single theme, make sure it is fairly "nichie,"
and then research possible target keywords for your
home page and other pages. Several useful tools
for this , such as Wordtracker, can be found on the
Website Design page of our NetLocal
website.
TIP
#2 Build
your website with the keyword (s) you settle on in the
proper positions in your URL, filenames, Title, Description,
Body and Links. This is called "optimization."
You
can learn more about this procedure at www.searchengines.com,
www.searchenginewatch.com,
and www.101searchengine.biz.
All three of these websites have lots of wonderful information
and tools to help you build and optimize your site.
TIP
#3 Build
relevant content into your website. The
search engines are weighting content more and more as
the battle for position continues to intensify. Try
to find ways to give your visitor a real "bang
for their buck" when they visit your website. Search
engine ranking and high-value content are very tightly
coupled. Work at this, and a high ranking will be your
reward.
TIP
#4 Where
possible, avoid using flashy website features such as
Frames, JavaScript, large graphics, Image Maps, CGI
or other structures that will cause the spiders to stumble
and fail to index your site.
One
way to be sure that your website is "clean"
is to use an HTML checker, such as NetMechanic www.netmechanic.com.
This website has several tools to check your code and
help you refine it for better search engine ranking.
Another
tool that is really helpful is IBP from Axandra www.axandra.com.
This
software program has three wonderful utilities
that really do the trick when it comes to search engine
ranking.
The
first is a Top 10 Ranking Optimizer. This little beauty
asks you for your website URL, the search engine you
want to rank in, and then goes out and finds out who
is ranking ahead of you. It then produces this amazingly
detailed report, telling you exactly what you
need to do to re-design your code and improve your ranking
position.
The
second and third tools at IBP
are
no less valuable. They will analyze your keyword density
(remember that the search engines are looking for focussed,
relevant content), and check and confirm your ranking
position in hundreds of search engines. Highly recommended!
TIP
#5 After
you get your website optimized, and build some relevant
content, don't be surprised if nobody comes to visit.
Why?
The answer is that it takes awhile for the spiders from
the various search engines to go out and index your
site.
If
you do not want to wait, there ARE a few things you
can do.
First,
you can use a submission service to speed up the process.
The fact is that many of these companies have special
feeds into the databases of the major engines and directories.
They can get you listed is a matter of a few days.
So
what's the catch? Price.
In
order to have this kind of service, you will need to
pay - sometimes up to a few hundred or even a few thousand
dollars, depending on how fast, how well and how often
you want to be seen.
If
this is for you, I recommend the following companies
to get you started.
TIP
# 6 Don't
try to trick or spam the search engines. Trust me, they
are way ahead of you on this.
If
you want to work HARDER, do it by producing first-class,
relevant content. Stay up at night. Knock out another
page each day (or week). And be patient. Eventually,
if you are careful, you will find yourself listed at
Alexa www.alexa.com.
And when you start ranking high with the natural
search engines, you will feel satisfied that you did
it right.
TIP
#7 Track
your results.
This
may seem obvious, but it takes work, and a system. Here
are a few companies that may be helpful to you.
- Submit
Director www.submitdirector.com.
This
website offers a very clean interface, a reasonable
pricetag ($149.00 per year for sites with up to
50 URL's), and a quartet of steps that work very
well together: Analyze, Optimize, Submit, and Monitor.
It's the monitoring that will help you here. And
it is all included in one program.
- Net
Tracker www.sane.com/products/nettracker
This
website offers products and services to analyze
and track visitor traffic. It may be outside your
scope, but you can REALLY get into how, when, where,
and almost why each visitor comes in and leaves
your website. Overkill?? You decide.
- Position
Pro www.positionpro.com.
Want
to know if your optimization and submission service
is doing its job? PositionPro
would
be for you. This web-based service will do all the
work for (or with) you, and then give you a detailed
submission history. I haven't personally used this
service, but it ranks pretty well at Alexa, and
looks very impressive.
- Hitslink
www.hitslink.com
If
you want tracking, and a ultra-clean website to
boot, Hitslink
is a very solid performer. Not only do you get traffic
reports, by the day, hour, whatever. You can also
see what domains people come in from, what pages
they visit, and where they leave from. If conversion
ratios are of any interest to you (and they
should be), the information available at Hitslink
is worth looking into.
TIP
#7 Find
a way to create incoming links to your website.
The
reason this is essential now is that, as the
battle for search engine ranking intensifies, the search
engines are using link popularity more and more to establish
relevancy and therefore page rank.
What
can you do about it?
Develop
a reciprocal link campaign and work it. What this means
is to find and fulfill opportunities for joint ventures
with other websites similar to your own. (More on this
soon at our "Joint Ventures" page).
One
program that is specifically designed to assist
in this process is Arelis
from
Axandra
www.axandra.com.
Another
program, SiteBuildIt
from SiteSell
www.sitesell.com
offers a fully integrated joint venture program.
TIP
#8 Finally,
there is ClickTracks
www.clicktracks.com.
This
website is almost too good to be true! What you get
is a visual interface that lets you see website visitor
behavior right on the pages of your website, and in
real time. I am not sure this amount of scrutiny is
necessary to get high search engine rankings, but it
certainly can't hurt.
Additional Subjects of Interest
[CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO LEARN MORE
ABOUT SEARCH ENGINE RANKING]
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