Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO – It’s all the rage and why wouldn’t it be? How many times do you actually click through the numbers at the bottom of Yahoo or Google’s search results? After you type in your search string you probably click on one of the links that pops up on the first page or you try a different search string to get a better result.
So how do search engines work? How do they rank sites? How do you get your website listed at the top of those results?
After doing some research it is clear that this is much more complicated than just adding a few key words to your meta data. It actually involves a lot of work and know how and like all things technological, it is constantly changing. However, Google and Yahoo both have published tips for better ranking in their search engines.
Check Out Webmaster Tools from Google – These tools are free, but they do require some technical savy since they require you to upload content into your websites in order to verify that you own the site. There is also a few additional features such as setting up a Sitemap. Google also has Google Adsense where you can purchase ad space and increase site traffic, but their system isn’t as easy to use as Yahoo’s. You can also sell ad space relatively easy but I have had mixed results with my monetary earnings, but I have had friends that have been quite successful with earning some extra income with Google Adsense. Google also has a website optimizer tool which will allow you to run tests on your site based on where you place content such as images, links, etc.
Check our Yahoo Search Marketing Tools – I can’t seem to find any ways to improve your search ranking on Yahoo’s tool without becoming a paying customer. They have a lot of great tools but most of them seem to reference ads that you are selling and how to improve their performance. I used this feature to promote an event http://08ball.com and the results were pretty good. However, you better be sure to setup your credit card not to auto-renew for payment or else the system will bill you excessively! Customer service is excellent though and when I submitted a trouble ticket I got an almost immediate call from a real person.
Other ways to increase traffic to your site is to become involved in social networks. This concept has been around for quite some time but only recently seems to be getting the attention it deserves. A Recent article published in February of 2009 states, “if you want to be effective in getting the word out about your content to a community, you need to understand the community.”
I’m often surprised by the number of individuals who don’t understand the power of adding a blog to their business website. Sites that are updated often can use Technorati Pings and Google Analytics to notify various services that their site has been updated, not to mention RSS Feeds and other services that tell users, “Hey, we’ve updated our site!”
Lastly, don’t ever underestimate the power of a simple domain name. If you are doing “Affordable Web Design” then get the domain name http://www.affordablewebdesign.com because if your domain name is the search string that a user enters, well, most likely it will be at the top of the list and you don’t have to do anything to get it there. Try typing in my name Eddie Renz or my blog Posted Note and see where they rank in Google.
So I’ll end it for now with this post, but check back as I continue to scour the web for the best ways to improve your search ranking.
