GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS & HOW TO IMPROVE THEM
Add an XML Sitemap & submit it to Google. If nothing else, this makes it a certainty that Google knows your website exists and as a result speeds up the initial spidering and indexing. As an added benefit, Google will also know when your site has been updated. While content may not necessarily always be king, fresh content definitely is, which is one reason that blogs have become so popular.
Set up, install and post regularly to a blog. When it comes to blogs, there are two schools of thought. With the first you create your blog as part of your existing website, for example, www.yourdomain.com/blog. With the second, you register the primary key phrase you want to promote as a completely separate domain, for example, www.crmsoftware.com Although both will ultimately improve your search engine rankings, the first will be a lot faster, but, because the second will contain your primary key phrase in the URL, it will probably be more effective over a long period of time.
Submit your site to Google Local – If your business is based on products or services in and around one metropolitan area, you’ll want to submit your site to Google Local. Local submission is free, so I say anytime you can legitimately sign up for a Google product or service, go ahead and do it. This applies to pay per click, xml sitemap submission and analytics as well.
Submit your site to directories, starting with dmoz, which is free. You can find an up-to-date list of other free directories at www.directorycritic.com. You should also submit your site to high page rank authority paid directories starting with Yahoo and including at least Business.com, Best of the Web, and Uncover the Net.
Target your pay per click ads to an optimized page that is part of your website (as opposed to a traditional landing page that is not) In other words, link it to and from pages that are part of your main site. This will help both your pay per click and organic search engine rankings for the targeted key phrases.
Create & Upload Metatags -Yes we know that Metatags are yesterday’s news and the SEO gurus are emphatically asking, “you mean you still create metatags? However unpopular the answer may be, that answer is yes, we still use metatags. Maybe we’ll even agree that at this point the keyword tags are relatively meaningless, and descriptions are more often than not, edited by the search engines, but to optimize page titles and h1 tags are still necessary to get decent search engine results.
While on the subject of Metatags, optimize each page for one or two primary key phrases. That means not 30 or 40. Use those primary key phrases in the page titles, h1 tags, urls and text.
In order to take your search engine marketing campaign where you want it to go, its important to generate metrics that will tell you where you are now. Use a combination of Google Analytics and Keyword/ Search Engine ranking reports to analyze your keywords.
Determine what keywords people are searching to find your website and then create two keyword lists. The first will be a list of keywords people use to find your site that you already have a web page for. The second will be a list of words people use to find your site that you don’t already have a web page for but would clearly like to rank for.
Create new keyword-based web pages for the phrases you do not already rank for but would like to. These web pages should include the primary key phrase in the:
- URL separated by dashes
- Page title
- H1 tag
- Opening sentence
- Last paragraph
- Rest of the text three or four more times
Write an article based on each key phrase that you do not already rank for but would like to and post it to your website. These article pages should use the primary key phrase in the title of the article as well as all the above. They may also be submitted to one or two article directories as well as the leading social bookmarking sites. Make sure to publish it on your website first because, believe it or not, Google can actually tell where it appeared first.
Write a keyword enriched press release and publish it on your website before you distribute it to the digital media. Again, Google is able to determine where it was published first.
If one keyword enriched web page, article or press release will improve your search engine ranking results, it stands to reason that multiple web pages of each will improve those results all the more. This is where a search engine marketing firm in Houston like Directory One enters the picture.
While it may very well be possible for you to create one or two press releases or articles in-house, wouldn’t your time be better spent doing whatever it is that you already do well and outsourcing the promotion of your website to professionals. Directory One, a full service, Houston, Texas search engine marketing firm, is made up of a team of professional web designers, content copywriters, search engine optimizers, and even video production experts. The Directory One 2008 Search Engine Marketing Packages include multiple articles and press releases. In fact, the higher the package, the more articles and press releases included.
Last but not least, while Google loves podcasts, it loves video even more! And well they should after spending 1.65 billion dollars to buy YouTube. Produce a video to play on your website as well as on YouTube. In addition to appearing in YouTube searches, with the advent of Google’s universal search, your videos will also come up in the main Google search results as well.