How to get a high search engine ranking on Google, Yahoo or MSN.
Many website owners ask "How do I get a high search engine ranking for my website?". There is no easy answer to that question since search engines all have different algorithms (formulas) for determining the search engine rankings of any given search query. They also change their algorithm on a regular basis. Why do they change it? Because years ago search engines primarily relied on the content and meta tags of a website in order to determine rankings. Many website owners simply filled their website and meta tags with a large number of keywords repeated over and over in order to earn a high search engine ranking. Often times these websites had no relevance to the search query. For example a gambling site would fill their meta keywords tag with hundreds or even thousands of a word like "Disneyland". So when someone ran a search for "Disneyland" this gambling site would pop up with a #1 ranking which of course has no relavance to the actual search. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN know that if the search returns results not related to that search phrase, a user will most likely switch to a search engine that will return accurate results. This is why Google, Yahoo and MSN currently rule the search world. They tend to produce the most accurate results most often. Google owns the market share in the search world with roughly 50% of people using Google to run their search. This is why so many business owners want to get a high search engine ranking in Google. So how do you get a 1st page ranking on Google, Yahoo, or MSN? Here are some tips that will help you to get a better ranking.
1. Get high quality original content: Website content should be plentiful, well written, free of grammatical errors, original (search engines do not like duplicate content) and filled with your target keywords. Website content should not be written for the search engines but for visitors to your website. If you are not skilled in writing, hire someone to write content for your site. It can help not only with your search engine rankings but also with conversion rate of visitors to your site. Having high quality, original content on your website can also lead to other websites linking to your site. We discuss that in more detail below.
2. Choose the right keywords: Often times many website owners choose the wrong keywords or keyphrases to use in their site. If you optimize for the keywords or keyphrases that aren't searched upon, you won't get any substantial traffic to your site. There are free tools like the Overture keyword suggestion tool that will help you research the most common keywords and phrases. Your content should include they keywords. Be careful however, as using them too much can cause your site to be penalized. Again, make sure your content is written for visitors and not for the search engine spiders.
3. Increase your link popularity: Search engine look at the number of links on other websites across the Internet that link to your site to help determine the quality of your site. If no other websites link to your site, that tells the search engines that your site is not worthy enough for other websites to have a link to it. If your website has a large number of links on the web that point to your site, this tells the search engines that your site is important and usually will help you get a high search engine ranking. However, that can potentially have the exact opposite effect on your website's ranking. Many website owners get involved in link trading schemes for building their website link popularity. Link farms are one way to get your website banned or penalized so avoid those schemes. Instead develop links from high quality websites and web directories that are related in content to your own website.This is most important to Google's algorithm. The other engines don't are as much about the quality of the links.
4. Improve your website Title Tags: A title tag is one of the few meta tags that can help you improve your website's ranking in the search engines. To a search engine, a title tag tells tells that engine what they web page is all about. Title tags should be filled with keywords or the key phrase you target (but do not stuff your title tag repetitive keywords as this can cause your site to be penalized and thus cause you to get a lower search engine ranking). Good title tags can make a big differance in your website's search engine rankings.
There are many more (even hundreds) of reasons why search engines rank one site higher than another. To earn a high ranking on the major search engines is not an easy thing. Especially for search terms and phrases that are extremely competitive. It also can take a great amount of time. New domain names will take even longer as Google and most recently Yahoo now require a site to be a few months to a year old before you can start to see high rankings for your main terms. Google generally takes around 9-12 months on average before you can start to rank for competitive terms. Yahoo requires around 2-4 months before you can earn a high ranking. MSN currently does not penalize new sites but as mentioned before, search engines change their ranking formulas on a regular basis so this can change at any time. However, if the tips for getting a high search engine ranking we listed above are followed, a website can earn a high position on the major search engines. For help getting your site a high search engine ranking on the major search engines, call us today. We specialize in getting websites high rankings in the major search engines. Contact us today for a free website optimization quote and ask to see the sites we've worked on that rank high in the search engines.
