Think of the engines like teachers handing out gold stars for everything that you do well. Google currently has about 200 factors in their algorithms that determine how your site will rank. Imagine your teacher with a clipboard and checklist with 200 items on it and she assigns you gold stars for each of the things you do well.
Remember, some of the items on the list are more important and you may get multiple gold stars. No one knows for sure how the algorithm works, but we test and monitor the industry to come up with a technique that works well for getting sites ranked.
The number of gold stars you achieve will determine how well your site will rank. There are no shortcuts and there are no tricks (none that are safe to use and won't result in trouble down the road).
If you plan on optimizing your own website, there are quite a few areas that you will need to focus on.
Here are the areas you will need to learn about (listed in the order I believe you should address them):
- Keyword Research
* Keywords are the foundation of your campaign. If you don't have the right keywords, you won't succeed.
* You should look for a balance of "low hanging fruit" (keywords that are very targeted, have low competition and less search counts) and some shorter more competitive phrases. That way you will see results quickly for the low hanging fruit, while you are waiting for your more competitive words to kick in.
* You should always select keywords that are relevant and likely to convert for you.
- SEO Friendliness - Diagnosis & Correction, plus Competitor Analysis
* You should look at the foundation of your site and make sure it is SEO Friendly. SEO Friendly means have clean code that the spiders are able to spider. Without a solid foundation and good SEO Friendliness your other efforts won't pay off as much.
* You should check out what your competitors are doing. If you see who has the top rankings in Google for your keywords, you can check out what they are doing and reverse engineer it to determine what you need to do in order to beat them out.
- On-page optimization
* This includes analyzing your content to make sure you are using relevant keywords within your text, as well as various other code tweaks.
- Google Webmaster Tools
* Google provides some great tools that allow you to learn how your site is doing. The XML sitemap submission is also available here. It's definitely worth spending some time getting to know Google Webmaster Tools.
- Links
* Step one is to determine how many links you have that the engines are recognizing and crediting you with. Step two is creating a solid plan to get links (that won't get you in trouble).
- On-going Content Addition
* You should have a plan to continue to grow your site. It's good for the engines and it's good for site visitors.
- Social Media
* Social media is a great way to increase traffic to your site, boost your link popularity and help you with branding, building a reputation, building your trust and credibility and forming relationships with clients and potential clients.
- Blogging
* Blogs invite interactivity, allowing your customers and site visitors a voice. They help you build relationships and they are picked up really quickly by the search engines. A Blog is a great tool in addition to your website. We strongly recommend WordPress with all its great marketing and SEO plugins.
- Site Maintenance
* SEO is not a set it and forget it kind of thing. You will want to plan on tweaking and updating your site. o Although you never want to (over) react too quickly to normal fluctuation in the search engines results pages you do want to address the issue if you continue to plummet.
- Industry News & Updates
* Things change in the SEO world so quickly. What works today may not work tomorrow. It is important that you stay current and aware and tweak your site as necessary based on the changes.
* You should also stay updated in order to be aware of new tools and opportunities.
This may seem like a lot of areas to focus on, but these areas are all vital to your SEO success. If you plan to handle your own optimization you should definitely arm yourself with the correct tools and information sources. If you decide it is too much to handle, you should definitely arm yourself with the proper knowledge on how to select an SEO Firm.
Now you've got a lot of work ahead of you and a lot to consider. Good luck!
What do you do when you have a brand new shiny web site and no way of promoting it? Well for starters you could hold an online press conference. This is actually a very simple process. You will either hire a professional to write out a web press release and have it reviewed by an editor, or you can be bold and take you chances by writing it yourself. When you decide to do it yourself you take a great risk of being either humiliated, or shut down entirely. There are other ways of promoting and marketing your new web site however, you could always go the route of affiliation. This is a good method of not only promoting your new site, but an easy fashion of making some quick money as well. How this works is you sign up for an affiliation to a site, generally you will want to find a site that has some relevance to the site you are trying to promote. When ever someone goes to the site you are affiliated with and they link on to your site by pay per click method it takes them to your site and right into the thick of your content. This is the unfortunate part, whenever someone clicks onto your site from your affiliate, you end up paying the affiliate for the transfer of sites. Although this could easily be a very small fee to the affiliate, the point to remember is if they come and you pay the affiliate, there is no guarantee that they will buy from you. This could easily become a very costly endeavor if you are getting many tire kickers and no buyers. This is where you will be paying for people to view but not pay. As you know this is no way to conduct a business. Sometime people go to the extent of hiring a service such as web1000traffic. This service states that they can increase traffic to your site, or generate hits if you will buy. The problem with this theory however, is that you cannot guarantee anything, you can never be sure that they will ever generate genuine traffic, let alone sales. This is in no way to impede the program that they offer, it is just that absolutely no organization or single person alike can truly guarantee that they can generate traffic for you to the point that you will see successful results on your site. Which leads back to the first mentioned thought, is it not worth the time, money and effort to ensure that you are getting the best exposure for your site? Don't waste your money, time and sanity wondering whether or not you will receive this exposure to your site. Do some research on search engines, attend seminars if you can and read ebooks on effective website promotion/internet marketing. Dont rely on these sites that promise you 10,000. 100,000. 1,000,000 guaranteed website traffic to any site of your's in 30 days or in less than 24hrs. Almost 80% of them generates poor quality traffic. Dont be fooled. Like i said, do some reasech and i bet you will find a good source for your website promotion and marketing. Go get it yourself. You can do it. To Yours did you find this article useful? For more useful tips and hints, points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques, and insights pertaining to Google Adsense, do please browse for more information at our websites.
Both Jennifer Horowitz & Surjeet Kumar1 are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jennifer Horowitz has sinced written about articles on various topics from Guided Meditation, Internet Marketing and Joint Venture. Jennifer Horowitz, Director of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com, has written a book on SEO and has been published in many SEO & Marketing publications. Over the past 10 years Jennifer's expertise in marketing & Search Engine Optimization has helped clients i. Jennifer Horowitz's top article generates over 14800 views. Bookmark Jennifer Horowitz to your Favourites.