5 Easy Ways To Improve Your Search Rankings

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#1

Just forund this in my email inbox from eLance.com :

Search engine optimization continues to be one of the most crucial methods of generating direct traffic and increasing your websites monetization. However, SEO isn't something you can just pick up and master overnight â€” it's probably best to leave it up to the search engine pros. However, there are quick and easy ways to improve your search ranking from dead last to back in the pack. Alex McArthur, Vice President of Search Strategies at OrangeSoda, outlines five tried and true ways of pulling in more Web traffic.

Getting your website listed in Google, Yahoo and MSN isnâ€™t a mystical process that should be left to the geeks, techies or the pimple-faced kid down the street. For most small business owners, getting ranked simply comes down to ensuring youâ€™ve done the basics. While this isnâ€™t intended to be the end all, be all of Search Engine Optimization, we find that youâ€™ll get the biggest bang for your buck with the following 5 things:

1. Make sure your â€˜Titleâ€™ tags are related to the content of the site. Huh, title tag? Whatâ€™s that? Well in a nutshell, your title tag is a line of HTML code that specifies the title of an individual webpage. If you look in the upper left hand corner of your browser and in the first line of an individual search result, youâ€™ll see the product of a title tag. Specifically, a title tag in HTML looks like this:

<title> San Jose Plumbing | Clean Plumbers, Inc </title>

Most search experts agree that having correct title tags is one of the top three factors that determine where a search engine will rank you. Where many people fail with their title tags is they use the same text for every page on their and they fail to properly describe the page with their title tags. Imagine going to a book store and picking a book up off the shelf with the title â€œTrue Spy Stories of the Cold Warâ€. However, to your surprise, inside the book is a steamy romance. You, the reader, would want your money back. So spend a minute and look at the title tags of every page on your site and see if you have accurately described the page with your title tags. A good title tag will include the keyword you are trying to rank that page for, and donâ€™t forget to add your companyâ€™s name as Iâ€™ve done in the example above. Be aware â€” brevity is a virtue; Google and the rest will truncate your title tags after 65 characters including spaces.

2. Your Meta Description Tags Count Too! If your title tags are the cover of your book, your meta description tags are the back cover telling your reader whatâ€™s inside. If you were to look at the search results of any query, the text underneath the link but above the URL of a search result comes from what is in your meta description. (If you donâ€™t have anything in the meta description, the search engines will typically pull a couple lines of text from the page and place it in the results.) To find your meta description tag pop open your siteâ€™s code and search for the following:

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Describe your site with Keyword Rich Text Here.">

As I indicated in the example above, you should write a couple sentences that describe your site and/or your page. In your meta description, you get a bit more room to talk but you should use no more than 200 characters. Just like with your title tags, every page should have a unique meta description.

3. URL and File Names Matter. Now what looks better?

a) http://www.yourwebsite.com/catalog/index.ognc?CategoryID=7497

OR

b) http://www.yourwebsite.com/myproduct

You might have noticed I keep talking about keywords. Your URLs and page names matter for the purposes of generating a click to your site as well as improved search rankings. Several studies, such as a MarketingSherpaâ€™s 2008 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, clearly demonstrate that short, descriptive URLs like example B increase the propensity of a searcher to click on your search result. Google search engineer Matt Cutts also says that having short, descriptive URLs is a factor in better rankings. Specifically, this means having a URL that has no more than 5 words after the .com/url extension. One of the best places to look for an example besides what Iâ€™ve put above is at Amazon.com. Do a search from their homepage for anything and you will see a solidly formed URL.

4. Let People Know About Your Site. Many business owners miss the opportunity to brag about their online home, especially after theyâ€™ve spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars to have a site created. Google is the ultimate democracy and works by looking at the number of people who link to you. While there are some caveats to this, you can prime the pump a bit. If I were a business owner, Iâ€™d take a couple minutes to create profiles on social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Merchant Circle, InLocal, and Google Maps. These will give you a handful of strong links to your site and let the search engines know you exist and start the process of getting your site listed.

5. Check the Text of Your Site. One of the things OrangeSoda runs into frequently is websites with relatively little text, content that says nothing about the business and/or fails to use keywords related to the business. When the search engines visit your site, they download a page and look at the text trying to make a determination of what the website as a whole is about and where it belongs. If you are trying to get ranked for â€œSan Jose Plumberâ€, you should have at least a page with that keyword in it a couple times. Itâ€™s also important that the copy appear natural and be understandable because after all, a website that captures the interest of the search engines but fails to capture the interest of your customers can hardly be justifiable.

These five methods are a great start for getting your website on the search engine map, but people, this is just the beginning. Since the SEO game is constantly evolving (some go so far as to call it an arms race), it can be difficult to stay on top. Hire a Search Engine Optimization expert, and you'll be pulling in new traffic while smoking the competition now and in the future.

About Alex McArthur

Alex McArthur is the Vice President of Search Strategies at OrangeSoda. Utah-based OrangeSoda specializes in online marketing for small and medium sized businesses.
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BLK-Staff, May 21, 2009 IP

pichalee Active Member

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#2

nice info sharing, the main element to improve your ranking i think would be backlinking

pichalee, May 21, 2009 IP

titidirect Active Member

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#3

i vote backlinks

titidirect, May 21, 2009 IP

Patch Peon

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#4

Great share of needed info, need to get this done for my sites, contact me with more details so I can get this done please.
Thanks,
Patch

BLK-Staff said: ↑

Just forund this in my email inbox from eLance.com :
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Patch, May 21, 2009 IP

rajbak2707 Peon

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#5

Great Post. Thanks For Sharing the Info.

rajbak2707, May 21, 2009 IP

siflur Well-Known Member

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#6

That's a quite nice article.

siflur, May 22, 2009 IP

makemoneyfromgoogle Peon

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#7

i want to know how can i increas my adsense revenu

makemoneyfromgoogle, May 22, 2009 IP

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#8

Decently put together seo article, heard it all before though

R2-D2™, May 22, 2009 IP

usapatriot Peon

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#9

Definitely some great info.

usapatriot, May 22, 2009 IP

makemoneyfromgoogle Peon

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#10

thanks about your uinformation

makemoneyfromgoogle, May 22, 2009 IP

Fareast Banned

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#11

thank you nice post

Fareast, May 22, 2009 IP

JohnUK Peon

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#12

Thats good. Didnt consider the length of my URLs before. Links to your sites are number 1.

JohnUK, May 22, 2009 IP

marekas Active Member

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#13

Great Post. Thanks For Sharing the Info.

marekas, May 22, 2009 IP

kaulainais Active Member

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#14

very usefull info ..i think if you use wordpress. there are all the tools you need to get good rank on google

kaulainais, May 22, 2009 IP

yenerich Active Member

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#15

Good article, thanks for sharing it.

yenerich, May 22, 2009 IP

Javapro Peon

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#16

That is a nice article from elance.com, thanks for sharing it here...

Javapro, May 22, 2009 IP

myblog Peon

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#17

Great share my friend, I really appreciated that. Thanks

myblog, May 22, 2009 IP

Patricianian Well-Known Member

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#18

I love this post, the article written in a very interested way
Thanks for sharing

Patricianian, May 22, 2009 IP

lycos Well-Known Member

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#19

That pretty much covers on the basic of seo. There are certainly more things to go into. By the way, you have checked out the official seo guide released earlier by google? That would explain further in details.

lycos, May 22, 2009 IP

kahanidesi Active Member

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#20

really nice & interesting post buddy keep it up.

kahanidesi, May 23, 2009 IP

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5 Easy Ways To Improve Your Search Rankings

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pichalee Active Member

titidirect Active Member

Patch Peon

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siflur Well-Known Member

makemoneyfromgoogle Peon

R2-D2™ Peon

usapatriot Peon

makemoneyfromgoogle Peon

Fareast Banned

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marekas Active Member

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Patricianian Well-Known Member

lycos Well-Known Member

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