1. Use keyword optimization. – This is NOT keyword stuffing, no matter what anyone tells you, keep your keywords down to around 1-2% of the content. Keywords should not be repeated more than 10-12 times on the page in total and try to keep page keywords to 3 or less main keywords.
2. Use unique page titles and descriptions. – Every page of your site should have its very own unique title that includes one or two of your main keywords for that page. Keep your title under 65 words and use real language and use the <Title> tag. Keep your page descriptions as concise as possible, but keep them below 150 characters if possible.
3. Write unique content based around your keywords. – Do not repeat content on your pages, you will do much better with fewer pages and better more unique content. Base each pages keywords and stick to them, do not ramble outside that range, but make another unique page and keyword if you find yourself going outside your original parameters.
4. Use the <bold> or <strong> tag on your keywords. – This does not mean everywhere on your page, but using a bold tag a couple of times, or even italicizing your keywords is a good idea.
5. Be sure your website addresses are consistent. – If any pages can be accessed by either www. or http:// without the www ask your developer to change these canonical issues & keep all URL’s the same by giving them a 301 redirect which is known as Permanent redirect. This will help search engine spiders & web browsers know that a page is moved to other URL and prevent duplicate content penalties.
6. Use tags wherever called for. -  You should use <h1> <h2> and other relative tags on your site, many crawlers use these tags to differentiate important content. Use alt image tags on all images so the search engines see them as well.
7. Do an internal linking map and structure your site accordingly. – Every page of your site should be accessable in two clicks or less to your visitors.
8. Validate your HTML & CSS. – Make sure you are using valid CSS and HTML that is cross-browser. There is not just one browser type out there and you want your site to be visible on all browser types. There are a lot of online tools that will help check this for you. A couple of good ones are the W3C CSS Validator and thier W3C HTML Validator.
9. Create a sitemap. – A sitemap gives crawlers a single page to look at for all of your pages. http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ will help you create a sitemap in XML to submit to the search engines.
10. Have a privacy policy. – Search engines are now looking for privacy policies as an anti-spam tool. Its not hard to create a privacy policy using The DMA Privacy Policy Generator.
11. Use no follow wisely. – The <nofollow> attribute should be used when appropriate as this helps the search engine not dilute your pagerank as it goes through your site.
12. Fresh, relevant content is king. – Some things should not have to be said, but it bears repeating here that fresh content is search engine bait. Search engines love fresh content, so update regularly and be sure the content is relevant to the site. Remember your keyword density when writing so as to keep the keywords down to one in 50 words at the very most. The ideal seems to be between 45 and 60 words to every one keyword.

Remember these 12 tips in your web building and you will not need to use any SEO companies or other “Black Hat” techniques to get your search engine rankings where they belong.

Getting your website to rank high on Google organic search result listings is like getting free advertising for your website. The organic listings cannot be bought and your website can only appear on it through proper optimization (SEO).  SEO is the bed rock for online marketing and all webmasters should optimize their websites right from the beginning.

By getting high Google rankings, it will bring you more visitors and probably new customers too. In this article, let me share with you 5 ways to get high Google rankings:

1. Develop the right keyword list. Targeting the right keyword is the key to SEO success. If you optimize the wrong keyword, there will be no conversion.

2. Use unique Title and Meta Description for every page of your website. The keywords that you place in your Title and Meta tags should be relevant to the content of the page. The Title tag is like a book title; it tells the search engines what the page is about. Therefore, it is extremely important for you to use relevant titles for every page of your website. 3. Write good content and place it on your website. Content is king in SEO. Good content can be in the form of words, videos, audio, widgets, etc. Your objective is to provide value to your visitors and turn your website into a link bait. With good content, other webmasters will start linking to you and this will increase your website link popularity. Link popularity is one of the key factors for SEO success, so do not overlook it.

4. Good SEO copywriting. Adding keywords in the right place will help increase the visibility of the keywords. But, you need to be careful with this approach. Stuffing too many keywords within the content will make Google thinks that you are spamming them. So no matter what, always consider the human element. Write for human to read instead of Google.

5. Build more back links. Link building increases your website link popularity which will help it to get higher rankings on Google. You can build links through article marketing, press release submission, link exchange with other webmasters, directory submission and social book marking.

These are some of the things that you should do to get high Google rankings. SEO takes time, especially link building. You need to work on it consistently to see results. Develop your link building strategy plan and work on it religiously. Good luck!

About the Author:

Cheow Yu Yuan is the co-founder of OOm, an online marketing agency providing SEO Singapore services. Find out more about SEO Singapore at www.optimalonlinemarketing.com

 

And the list of questions goes on and on…

 

Perhaps, the most annoying aspect for the struggling webmaster, has been Google’s secrecy in how it actually ranks links and pages. Even though many will tell you that they have the secret, in actuality Google’s whole PageRank and Ranking Algorithm is so complex that no one can fully boast they understand how the whole system works.

Google’s ranking secrecy and complexity has probably been well-planned mainly because there are millions of webmasters who would like to “game” the Google Algorithm and achieve high keyword rankings through manipulation with so-called “black-hat” SEO techniques and reverse engineering.

 

Wouldn’t it be ironic if this whole secrecy and complexity is more of a smokescreen rather than an actual deception on Google’s part. What if the keys to the kingdom are actually yours for the taking? What if the solution is hiding in plain sight for everyone to see? What if the secret to high rankings in Google is not a secret at all? Wouldn’t that be a hoot!

 

Actually, that’s not a far-fetched assumption to make, mainly because many of Google’s linking policies and recommendations are freely given by Google. Whether you can believe Google is actually giving you the goods is another issue that will be put on the back-burner for another day; but for now, Google’s advice on link building is rather generous and informative.

 

As a part of Links Week held recently, Google’s Maile Ohye gave some pointers on what Google is looking for and how it does its index ranking. No big surprise that content and inbound links are the two most important factors. This is what most SEO experts have been saying for years.

 

A site’s content is one of the main factors. Therefore, you should have a compelling site with interesting information and/or offer quality products, entertainment, opinions…

(Quoting Maile Ohye)

 

“One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site. As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking.”

“Given the user’s query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site’s content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user.”

“As many of you know, relevant, quality inbound links can affect your PageRank (one of many factors in our ranking algorithm). And quality links often come naturally to sites with compelling content or offering a unique service.”

(End Quote)

 

Then Maile Ohye explained further how to create unique and compelling content for your site:

 

(Quoting Maile Ohye)

 

– Start a blog: make videos, do original research, and post interesting stuff on a regular basis. If you’re passionate about your site’s topic, there are lots of great avenues to engage more users.

– Teach readers new things, uncover new news, be entertaining or insightful, show your expertise, interview different personalities in your industry and highlight their interesting side. Make your site worthwhile.

– Participate thoughtfully in blogs and user reviews related to your topic of interest. Offer your knowledgeable perspective to the community.

– Provide a useful product or service. If visitors to your site get value from what you provide, they’re more likely to link to you.

(End Quote)

 

SEO experts have been telling webmasters for years that creating valuable, unique, relevant useful content is one of the best ways to get your site and pages highly ranked in Google. If you create valuable content then other sites will want to link to you naturally.

 

Linking out to other sites should be done in a “common sense” manner and it’s a way of offering value to your visitor’s experience. We expect helpful relevant links when we visit other sites since it’s a natural way a good quality site should work; so be careful of linking out to spammy sites that only offer pages of links with very little or no unique content.

 

There are several things every prudent webmaster should be checking like making sure your site hasn’t been hacked and hidden links placed on your site without your knowledge; those with WordPress blogs should be installing the latest security measures and updates. Make sure you keep checking all your outbound links regularly since you may initially link out to a valuable resource, but over time this page may be closed or replaced with one of those spammy-links-holding pages. It can happen to the best of us.

 

What has confused things lately is all the “link buying” which Google greatly discourages and has shown its displeasure by de-ranking many paid directories. The size of your “wallet” shouldn’t be the determining factor in how pages and content are ranked. If you’re selling a link, it should have the “no-follow” tag so that it doesn’t pass PageRank along and confuse the system. Policing or deciding what is or what is not a “paid link” has become a major problem for the search engines, including Google.

 

You should not have more than “100 links on a page” as this can overload the search engine robots that regularly crawl the web, indexing pages. Likewise, your site’s “linking architecture” should be natural and easy for both your visitors and the robots to follow. Make sure your important pages are no more than a few clicks away from your homepage.

 

As to interior linking, the two main points being: Intuitive Navigation for your visitors and Crawlable Text Links for the search engine robots. Use descriptive anchor text links that explain your content to your visitors. The anchor text is the underlined clickable part of the link and many SEO experts suggest you place your keywords or variations of them in your anchor text.

 

Make sure your site is transparent. Do not use “link cloaking” on your site. Make sure what your visitor sees is what the robots are indexing. Use a 301 Redirect if you have permanently moved any webpages. Again, there is stressed the need for a sitemap as this can be very helpful for both your visitors and robots to see and find all your valuable content. Make sure you have a sitemap and all your important pages are listed on it.

 

One final note, many professional webmasters and marketers don’t worry about PageRank as much as they are concerned with SERPs.

 

Getting those top rankings for their sites in the search engine results is what really matters. Again, quality content and building quality links play an important role in achieving those top spots and maybe Google has already given you the formula for getting them.

 

Maybe, maybe not.

 

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About the Author: The author is a full-time online marketer who runs numerous web sites, including two sites on Internet marketing. For the latest web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools Discover more about linking and ranking directly from Google here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

Copyright © 2008 Titus Hoskins