How To Take Your Rankings Straight To The Top
Written by Michael Fleischner   
Wednesday, 26 August 2009 16:02
Don't believe it when you hear that search engine optimization is totally free. The truth is that organic results themselves don't cost a whole lot but the effort required to achieve those results are expensive. Whether you are paying someone to optimize your website or build inbound links, achieving top rankings for your website require time and money.
by MichaelFleischner


Don't believe it when you hear that search engine optimization is totally free. The truth is that organic results themselves don't cost a whole lot but the effort required to achieve those results are expensive. Whether you are paying someone to optimize your website or build inbound links, achieving top rankings for your website require time and money.

Before undergoing any changes to a website, you must determine what keywords people are using to search for your programs. You want keyword terms that are frequently used but have little or no competition from other websites. This improves the chances of increasing web page ranking significantly. Marketing professionals can research possible keywords by talking to current students and using free online tools such as Google's Adwords External Tool which provides estimates of search volume and advertising competitiveness.

After choosing a keyword or set of keywords you'd like to optimize for, it's time to do a little research. Do a Google search for the keywords you are considering and evaluate the websites in the first three positions of search results. Take a look at each website and determine their page rank, web site age, number of inbound links and other ranking factors. After doing so you'll have a good determination as to whether or not you can out rank them based on your SEO efforts.

The next step is to do additional using Alexa. This site provides additional details that can help you determine whether or not the keyword you've chosen can bring you success. While researching your competitors, Alexa will provide additional details on site strength including age and sites linking in. If the number one ranked site has less than two million competing pages and few in bound links, then you have a good chance of outranking them.

Upon deciding which keyword phrase is ideal for your search engine optimization campaign, the next step is to design your site in a way that is both easy to read and highly accessible by all search engines. Consider breaking up your search engine optimization campaign into on page optimization factors and off page optimization factors. By addressing both, you can quickly influence rankings in a positive way. Consider starting with site design that integrates SEO best practices including meta tags, headers, and typeface. Once complete, turn your attention towards building links to your web site.

The most heavily stressed factor for Google is the PR of those sites linking to your website. The best links are those from highly ranked pages, particularly in relation to your chosen. A hundred links from strong web pages are worth more than 1,000 weak ones. So concentrate you link building efforts on sites that are in your niche and have a high Google PR. Links should also use your keyword phrases as the link text instead of your URL.

As you focus on search engine optimization your chances of improving rankings increases twofold. Search engine optimization is ideal for anyone who doesn't want to spend a lot of money on performance based advertising like Google Adwords. Instead of spending cash, spend time and energy on improving organic rankings. Pay attention to on page optimization factors and start researching and contacting other sites for link building. This will enhance website PR value and improve rankings.

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