Search engine optimization does not have to be complicated but it does require some work if you plan on having your Website in the top 10 on the major search engines. Many Webmasters want their Websites on the first page of Google, MSN and Yahoo when their keyword is put in the search. Unfortunately they believe one of two things. The first being that it is too difficult for them to do it themselves and the second is that there is a secret trick that will have to perform in order to get high rankings. Both of these statements are false.
Some Webmasters will pay thousands of dollars to a so-called professional SEO expert to have their Websites on top in the rankings. The truth is that you can get top Search Engine Rankings spending a little bit of money and doing the work yourself or paying a professional SEO company thousands of dollars to get your Website on the first page. Both will work the choice is yours.
There are many myths about SEO but I want to tell you the plain truth. The do-it-yourself person can accomplish just as much as the professional. You must be willing to do many tasks of Website Optimization if you want to succeed. There is much information on the Internet on SEO. Some will tell you that the secret to high rankings is creating and submitting many RSS Feeds. Others will tell you that you need quality reciprocal links. Is there just one way of gaining first page on Google
What is required of Webmasters in order to achieve Top Website Rankings Some believe that if they perform 3 major tasks of Website Optimization that their Website will soar to the top. I believe that you cannot just do a few works of optimization or come up with a secret trick to achieve a high site ranking on the search engine.
Complete Website Optimization is your best guarantee to having a high ranking on the major search engines. What is complete optimization Using all of the information and tools to get your site noticed on the search engines with a high ranking for your keywords. If you really want a top ranking and only want to spend a little bit of money I will tell you the many things you will need to do in order to have the first page on the search engines.
Having complete Website Optimization will require many working tasks, tools and much researched information. Im going to give you the many tasks that you will need to perform to accomplish high rankings.
1. Accurate Description of Website.
2. Clear Metatags relevant to your content.
3. Having your Text Body descriptive of your main Topic.
4. Finding reciprocal links.
5. Quality search engine submission.
6. Proper wording of document title.
7. Building high traffic Web Pages.
8. Tools for validation.
9. Creating and submitting RSS Feeds.
10. Writing and submitting effective articles.
11. Writing and submitting Press Releases.
12. Creating and submitting Blogs.
13. Building and submitting a site map.
14. Proper use of FFA sites.
15. Submitting to Web Directories.
16. Classified Advertising.
17. Effective email advertising.
18. Traffic boosting tools like toolbars.
After you complete all of the above then you can be sure that your Website will be on top.
Bill Naugle has been writing articles, press releases and ebooks to help Webmasters achieve success in search engine rankings. He has written on many subjects. He started writing on the internet in 2001.
Youve made a website, spent a lot of time writing about your chosen subject, designed graphics and tweaked the layout so it looks goodin Internet Explorer and Firefox but its just sat there on the hosting server, you keep checking the web stats but no ones visiting
Getting visitors to a website can cost huge amounts of money, you can put adverts in the press, spend out on click based advertising orsponsor a boat in a transatlantic yachting race. Many of us simply dont have that kind of money; the website could be a few pages aboutyour family and pets or a local wedding photography and portraiture site youre trying to get off the ground. This is the situation welldeal with, its possible to spend no money and get your website lots of visitors.
Probably the best way for most of us to get traffic to our websites is by using search engines. Literally millions of people are searchingthe internet on a daily basis, theyre looking for everything from Cleaning Aquatic Hamster Cages to hiring a Professional Dorset WeddingPhotographer (more on this later!). Getting your website listed in the search engines isnt too hard but getting your pages anywhere nearthe top for a particular search term takes time, effort and a little know-how, the latter is the subject of this article.
Some of the things well touch on are listed below:
Understanding SEs (search engines)
SEs from a user of view are simple, their aim is to provide the most relevant results possible based on the fewterms entered into the search box (e.g. Profesional Photographer in Hampshire or Dorset Just how theygo about determining which results to show is far more interesting, knowing a little about how they do this canhelp us get our website near the top of the results and get more visitors.
Most of the large SEs use a number of methods to determine a sites placement in the search results. Theres really only threemain ones we need care about; popularity, content and keywords. All three can be determined when a SE looks at your website,all SEs spend a great deal of resource spidering the web. They send out page requests using automated page viewingsoftware (or robots) and analyse the content of millions of web pages daily.
Popularity of a website can be measured in a lot of different ways, most peoples idea of popularity is how many visitorsa site regularly gets, this is not always easy for SEs to determine so they use a different method. The most important measure
SEs use is to work out how well linked up your website is in relation to other websites which are themselves linked up.
Think of it this way, a city like London has 1000s of roads leading into it as well as many train tracks and airports, its wellconnected in lots of different ways. A sleepy village in rural Dorset has perhaps one main road and no railways or airports,from a SE point of view the equation is simple, London is far more popular. If we wanted to increase the popularityof our Dorset village we could build a railway link directly from London. SEs calculate the popularity of a website based on how manylinks it has from other popular sites. If Ebay placed a link on their front page to your website not only would visitors click onthe link but the SEs would see the Ebay front page, follow the link and determine your site was popular simply because anotherpopular site linked to it directly.
The other important factors taken into account by the SEs are page content and keywords. If your page is about people photography thenthe chances are youre going to mention those exact words a few times within the page, you might even make it part of the title oruse a related term such as Portrait Photography. The amount of times you mention a specific term and where in the page thatterm appears tells the SEs what the page is about. Of course SEs can be fooled but in general a page about weding photography is goingto mention that term in various places. Using a term in the title of the page and spreading the term around the page will determinethe keywords, you can further hint to the SEs what the page is about using a meta keyword tag (see example later).
Submission
You may have noticed that some hosting and web design companies talk a lot about submission to SEs, heck some willeven try and make you pay them to submit your site to 1000s of SEs. They are selling snake oil; submission of yoursite to multiple search engines is free, of little value and can actually harm your sites position. Theresperhaps only one place you should try and actively get your site listed and that is . DMOZ is an editor maintained directory of websites,
many SE robots use DMOZ as a starting off point for spidering the web. To submit your site; find the relevantsection of the directory fill out the form and wait, dont bother to keep re-submitting. DMOZ will only acceptsites they feel are relevant, useful and of a certain standard.
Linking
There is no quick easy option, this is where the effort has to be put if you really want to get near the top of a SE for aparticular search term. A good way to get linked up is to have a quality website that is useful to people, anyone who finds itmay like it enough they add a link to it on their site or perhaps link it from a forum in response to another users question.
One way you speed up the process is to create a links page, find other sites with topics related to your site and emailasking for link exchange. They put your website onto their links page and vice versa. This can be a long process but it does payoff over the medium term, finding the right sites to swap links with will not only give your visitors a valuable resource but getyour site improved SE results.
Example: Wedding Photography in Dorset
A good friend asked me to help get their website listed in the SEs, Ive written a few websites in the past and I know somethingabout making a website easier for visitors to find. The site is for a husband and wife team who specialise in event and portraitphotography based on the Hampshire Dorest borders.
The first thing to do was change the site slightly, putting keywords into page titles and page content as well as using meta tags.I also included some mis-spellings of words on purpose. SE users are often in a rush and mis-type words, sometimes you can takeadvantage of this. A lot of sites spend time spell checking and removing any errors but introducing them deliberately is a way to getto the top now and again even if your site is not as well linked up.
Once the site was pretty much completed I submitted it to in hopes it wasgood enough for them to list.
Im currently in the process of creating a andemailing other sites which are in related businesses locally. One good way to find the right sites is using a search engine, thesearch engine will give you results containing popular websites, just the kind of websites we would want to exchange linkswith in fact.
Getting the site linked from well known sites is really the key to getting near the top, try to include some keywords in the actuallink text. You are very welcome to take a look at the page source at the site is new butthe photographers are old hands, very experienced and professional.
With any luck youll find their site in the SEs within a few months!
James Clifford designs websites and codes web applications for . You can read his blog @ .