.: Getting to the Top of the Search Engines
By:Carl Hoffman
Category:Home / Internet Marketing / Search Engine Marketing
If you have surfed the web then you have most likely used a search engine. Search engines are a great way to find what you are looking for in an easy manner. 85 to 90% of people online use search engines to find information for which they are looking. When you do a search on a search engine you get many pages of links, but most people only look at the first three pages. This is why it is very important to get your website at the top of the search engines list.
The first step in getting your website at the top of a search engines list is to understand how they rank websites. The criteria for ranking websites vary between search engines and has changed in many ways over the years. There are two basics rules, though, that most search engines follow.
1. Content. They want good content, meaning something a person would want to look at or read. It should be well written and put together. This also includes links to other sites.
2. Optimization. Making good use of META tags is important. Using the title and description META tags is a must. Be sure to use keywords, but keep it readable and content driven. An example of this is linking all your pages together, like in an index on each.
The best way to see what a search engine wants is to look at some their top ranked websites. See how they have used content and optimization to get to the top of the list. Use these websites as a loose guideline on how to set up your website.
On the other hand of things there are some things that search engines do not like. These things should be avoided because not only will it hurt your ranking, but could get you banned from the search engine.
1. Do not use keywords unnaturally. This means loading pages down with keywords or throwing them into content in hard to read ways.
2. Do not use hidden messages. Hidden means that the text is written in the same color as the background. This makes it unreadable to the naked eye, but can still be picked up by the search engines.
3. Do not submit multiple address for the same site. Simply submit your main page and leave it at that.
4. Do not use gateway pages. Search engines are starting to look down on these. Some people use them as a hidden-type of optimization where they submit a gateway page to the search engine that has been filled with keywords, but when the user clicks on the link to the site they are redirected to the “real” home page. This practice is called cloaking.
It is best to avoid anything devious when designing your web page.
So what can you do to get your website to the top of a search engine ranking? Monitor your site often and make sure it doesn’t slip down. This may require doing occasional maintenance to make sure your site stays in its rank. Links are now becoming the best and easiest way to get your site to the top rankings. Use links that are to sites that are related to your site. Try to get links to top rated sites. Avoid links to sites that contain questionable material or rank very low. Take advantage of the META tags. Work on good content and make your site something someone would want to visit. It will take some work and maintenance, but driving traffic to your site is highly based upon where you rank on the search engines.
Article keywords: search engines, ranking websites, Carl Hoffman
Article Source: http://www.articles32.com
Carl Hoffman is a retired Army Sergeant Major who has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience. He has many online ventures and author of many articles on sales, leadership and marketing.
Looking for a online business or building upon an existing one visit him at:
http://www.CEHoffman.com
.: New Search Engine Marketing Articles
1). How To Market And Make Money Online
Learn how to market and make money online. See the steps you should take so that you make money with your home business.
2). Making Friends With Google
Overwhelmed by the experts talking about SEO, PPC, Black Hat and all the other terms associated with search engine marketing? This article offers a straightforward approach to boosting your web traffic, without the alphabet soup!
3). Search Engine Marketing Company Can Make Your Company Boom
A search engine marketing company can provide your business with the right tools to increase web traffic and generate income for your site.
4). Website Marketing Strategies, Discover Innovative Ways To Boost Traffic To Your Website
Website Marketing Strategies should be a constantly evolving component of your total marketing campaign. If it is traffic that you want, and lots of it, your site must be search engine optimized. At the very least this is a foundational step. Without this step you would be well behind the starting gates.
5). How Important Is Your Domain Name?
Domain name is definitely very important for website marketing and the promotion of your business.
6). Email Marketing Secrets
Creating a successful email marketing campaign will help increase the profitability and visibility of your website by attracting new customers.
7). Ethical Practice with MySpace Marketing
MySpace has long been hailed as the next big thing in high volume websites, and for good reason. But, given the nature of the site and other Web 2.0 phenomena, is it ethical to treat MySpace as just another prospect to make money? This article examines some of the dilemmas of MySpace marketing that seem to present themselves.
.: Top Search Engine Marketing Articles
1). Learn To Use The Free Major Search Engines to Your Advantage
Even though most Search Engines have adopted Pay-Per-Inclusion programs, it is still entirely possible to receive plenty of free traffic...
2). Data Entry Pro Review
Review of the Popular Data Entry Pro Product
3). The Madonna Approach to SEM
What in the world does Madonna have to do with Search Engine Marketing? Well, at first glance, probably not much. Stay with me for a few moments, and I think the analogy will become clear.
4). (SEO) Will Make The Difference to Your Success!
SEO - is the latest in techniques used by web masters for making the overall layout, structure, and keyword patterning of your website relevant to search engines and web directories where the site has been submitted.
5). It’s Simple Math No Traffic Equals No Income
Do you know what I learned the hard way when I starter a little business in my home town? It takes just as much time to build great business as it does a bad ...
6). Driving Traffic To Website - Free Resources
Some free resources to help webmasters get more traffic to their websites.
7). Search Engine Algorithms: It Has Always Been A Cat And Mouse Game
I remember ten years ago when we were designing websites for our clients that we used to play around with the keywords, descriptions and a variety of content related methods to help our customer get a high ranking on Yahoo. In some cases we were successful enough that not only were all the pages indexed, but they would come up consecutively. Why would we spend so much time trying to beat the search engine algorithms?