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Five and a Half Ways to Amp Up Your Search Engine Optimization
by: Dave Carlson
Statistics show that 85% of pages visited on the
Internet come from people who have gotten there from a
search engine. Statistically, people look first at the
top of the first page of the regular search results,
then the bottom, and then they go to the sponsored
listings.
There is an art and science to being ranked highly on
the search engines. The science is formatting the
pages with the right meta tags and submitting them in
the right way to the search engines. The art is to
make the site look and read normal in spite of filling
it with key words.
Here are five and a half ways to get a higher ranking
and more visitors:
1. Pick the right Key Words and Phrases
These are the words and phrases that people will put
into search engines to try to find your product,
business or organization. Having good key words and
phrases is foundational to have good optimization.
This takes research using such tools at Wordtracker
and Overture’s Keyword Suggestion Tool. They give you
a good idea of what people are searching for and what
you should focus on.
2. Use Good Header Tags
Header tags are hidden in the code within your Web
page. The most important one is the "title" tag, which
isn’t considered a META tag. It tells what’s within
your page and it’s important to have your keyphrases
in it. It is also good to have keyphrases in your
"description" META tag, though it doesn’t rank nearly
as high as the "title" tag.
3. Use Keyphrases in Your Visible Page Title
Provide a unique title to each page on your site that
is chock full of key words and phrases. Search engines
like this because it means that there is a higher
probability that your site is a good match for what
people are looking for. This is should be placed
within the H1 tag (top heading) of your page and is
visible to the visitor. It also pays to have your
keyphrases in subtitles on the page.
4. Provide Plenty of Content on Your Site
Shoot to have at least 450 characters on your page.
Concentrate on putting key words and phrases in the
first paragraph and last paragraphs.
5. Secure a Lot of Related Incoming Links
The more sites linked to your site, the higher you
will be ranked by the search engines. These links can
be from strategic partners, vendors, directories or
other types of sites with whom you exchange links.
If you are a web site developer, put in your contract
that you are going to put a developer’s link at the
bottom of the site, such as, "Web site design by Green
Chair Marketing Group," with an active link to your
site. This will help your site grow in its link
popularity.
5.5 Keep Optimizing Your Site
The more content on your site, the better. I suggest
adding a couple pages a month, whether it’s case
studies, more product information, testimonials,
articles, press releases, etc. If you add just five
new pages a month, you will have 60 new pages by the
end of the year, and over 100 pages by the end of the
second year.
You are bound to catch some people you would have
missed because there is more content to choose from.
And your site will be more highly ranked by Google,
because they highly weigh sites that have more
content.
While you’re at it, continue to get relevant links
coming into your site. Google loves incoming links.
And you might have people click through to your site
from these other places.
If you don’t have time to work on the optimization or
would feel more comfortable having someone else do it,
consider strongly hiring a professional to do your
search engine optimization. That way you can focus
your energies on sales or creating more and better
product.
One caveat, I would stay away from companies that
initiate contact with you through emails or phone
calls. They often use techniques that can get your
severely penalized by the search engines. Ask people
you know who have been successful in their search
engine positioning who they use.
About The
Author
Dave Carlson owns Green Chair Marketing Group, an
Internet marketing firm specializing in driving
visitors to web sites by search engine optimization,
pay per click, and web design/redesign. 720-427-5660
Visit his site at http://www.GreenChair.net
links@greenchair.net |
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