4 Tips to Rank Well in Search Engines
I like things to be as simple as possible so if I can have one way to solve a problem then that is the way for me. Two is Two too confusing. If I were to write one Tip then I would say “Content” and I could go to bed but I know you want and expect more so here are 4 things:
1. Domain Name – If you sell spades then spades.com is pretty good. wcrupert.com is not so good. spades.com is better simply because customers searching for spades are likely to ask Google for spades and hey presto it is there in your domain name which suggests that your site is all about spades. Downside is that if your business is called WC Rupert then spades.com is questionable branding when trying to associate WC Rupert with spades. So you can take several courses of action. One is to have both domain names pointed to your site at once. The other is to set your domain as wcrupertspades.com which I think really targets both flying critters at once.
2. Page Titles – I would bet that the most common page title on the Web is “Home”. The page title appears on the blue bar up the top of the page in IE 7 (tell me you aren’t still using IE 6 – upgrade it now if you are). The page title should carry a lot of weight as it describes the contents of the page. If you sell home then by all means call your pages home but if not then consider the words that people may ask Google when they want what you do. WC Rupert Spades could try something like “Spades, Shovels, Minor Earthmoving : Kenmore Brisbane Queensland - WC Rupert Spades” so when someone asks for spades in Kenmore, Google will think ‘this page looks like a good match’. Aim to name each page for it’s content.
3. Content and lots of it – Google have already told us that they like to see lots of content and they are right. Lots and lots of lovely words on spades, shovels minor earthmoving and even methods for building sandcastles (people use spades for this all the time). There are no shortcuts here. Make your pages genuinely exciting for readers and answer every possible question they could ever have up-front. Skimping here will shoot you in the foot at Google ranking time. While users may choose not to read everything you write Google will read it. So don’t short change anyone or you are simply short changing yourself of customers. Did I tell you to have lots of exciting, customer friendly, honest, keyword-rich content already?
4. Links – Google loves connectivity or community. They figure that a popular document is more relevant than a Nigel-no-Friends document so you want to do everything reasonable to make your Web Site attractive for people to link to. Relevant inbound links count for more than unrelated links. Fred’s Accounting linking to WC Rupert Spades is worth about zip but International Spade Magazine and The Spade Guild are pretty good as they are relevant. The other thing to consider is popularity and traffic on the site that is linking to wcrupertspades.com A popular site with lots of links and traffic will carry more weight than a Nigel site. As I already said, you will want to do everything reasonable that you can do to encourage inbound links. Ideas:
a) Ask complimentary sites to swap links with you and set the anchor text to be something like “Spades for Sandcastles” instead of “click here” as WC Rupert don’t sell “clicks” or “heres” but he does sell spades for sandcastles. Google knows what to expect and so do users. Win Win.
b) Have such great content that other Sites, Blogs and Forums (including social media like Facebook) want to link to your site. Forums are often high traffic and users of one Forum are often users of 2-3 other Forums which means that if your message is interesting it will spread. Being active in one Spade Forum can easily bring you links from 10 Forums all over the world. Forums have etiquette so don’t just wade in swinging or you’ll get flamed.
c) Wikipedia is gold. Google loves them because they share ideologies. Lots of creamy information all waiting to be shared. Links from Wikipedia are not as hard to get as you might think. You need to take care, but because Wikipedia is user-created then truly informative sandcastle topics may benefit from your knowledge and a link to your patented super spade. Don’t "use" Wikipedia, but with a careful approach you might just find a place in the community of spade users. Whilst on the subject of Wikipedia, link to them often as outbound links count some too as they show that your document is referenced and Google likes that.
If you do the above and keep at it with regular enthusiastic maintenance then your site should naturally start to rank well in all but the most competitive environments – and one must question starting a business where you already have a lot of competitors. Who’d want to start making a Cola drink? If you do find yourself in a crowded market then start to differentiate yourself – just as Fanta drinkers are different to Coke drinkers.
Happy Web Traffic building and remember if you want to simplify this then the magic word is “Content”.
If you want me to work with your business then please visit BRM Web Consulting
