On my blog I talked about the ‘low hanging fruit‘ system of researching keywords and driving free traffic from the search engines to your website/webpage which will subsequently make you more passive income if monetized correctly. In Step 5, I wrote: 5. Submit that article to article directory sites, like ezinearticles.com, aritclecity.com, etc. The main purpose of submitting articles to article directories is to gain backlinks to your website or webpage. If you have tried to reverse engineer and figure out why some websites rank higher than others in the search engine results, you will find that there are 2 dominant factors that the search engines use to rank your website against others: On-Page optimization factor, and Off-Page optimization factor. On-Page Optimization On-Page optimization has to do with how well the site is structured, internal linking, and how content is relevant to a keyword. For example, let’s say you have built a webpage on “dog training†and there are millions of other webpages that also has mentioning of “dog training†on the page (just go to Google.com and search for “dog trainingâ€) - how are the search engines to say that your webpage should be displayed first, above the rest of the other millions of pages? This is where On-Page optimization kicks in. The more “relevant†your webpage is for a specific keyword, the search engines will give you a higher score on this factor. Here are some tips on how to improve your On-Page optimization: 1. Put your keyword (in our example, it is “dog trainingâ€) in the <TITLE> tag. 2. Give descriptive META DESCRIPTION tag and try to mention your keyword in it. List your keywords along with relevant keywords in your META KEYWORD tag. 3. If possible, try emphasize your keyword in a <H1>, <H2>, or <H3> tag or give it a large font size - a good place for this would be in the content label or section heading. 4. Try to mention your keyword in your page content a few times. Many search engine optimists have different findings as to what percentage of keyword density it should be, but I tend to just make sure that the keyword is mentioned while keeping the content informative and engaging to my readers. Do NOT keyword stuff your page. Most of the On-Page optimization can be done by the site operator or webmaster - and it’s something that can be easily done. Off-Page Optimization This factor is based on everything else that’s not content-related. Namely, how many other websites are linking back to you, and if your domain/URL contains the keyword that you are targeting. Domain name does play a ranking factor. As a rule of thumb, you want your domain/URL to be as short as possible, and containing your keyword phrase. Generally speaking, more websites link that back to your website, the search engines will deem your site as more “important†and “authoritative†than others, thus gives you a better search engine placement. Search engines have also evolved to not only count the number of backlinks (number of other websites linking back to your website) your website has, but have also accounted for the quality of backlinks. Here is what I mean by quality: 1. How long has the site been around - longer the site has been around, more weight it carries when linking back to you. 2. How relevant are the sites linking back to you - if your site is on dog training, then you would want to find other dog training sites to link back to you. 3. What link text other sites are using to link back to you - if your site is on dog training, then it wouldn’t make sense (both to humans and the search engines) to have other sites link back to your site using “bird watching†as the link text. 4. The rate of other sites are linking back to you - you don’t want to have a spurt of links going back to your site in a month, and no links going back the next month. The search engines are very keen (at least Google is) at detecting backlink manipulation, and this is what buying a 10,000 directory submission package will do to your site - red flagging your site and possible send your search engine ranking to the bottom of the ocean. Off-Page optimization takes time. It is not easy to ask for other websites to link back to you. However, there are certain type of websites out there (often times directory type sites) that will let you submit a piece of content in exchange for a link back to your site (ie. article directories). It’s truly a win-win situation, because the article directories get fresh content from you, and you get a link back to your website, which helps to improve your search engine placement (and ultimately your traffic). — I hope this will shine some light as to what you can do to your website to get a top 10 ranking in the search engines. Start with the On-Page optimization, because that can be done by modifying your content/site layout. Then focus on steady link building. The Off-Page optimization will require constant promotion, thus making it a deciding factor for the search engines to rank you first as opposed to ranking your competitor’s webpage first. I have just launched a One-Stop-Shop Backlink Building Service. It's a full-service for $25/month (regular $35/month) only for DP. It also comes with a 60-day guarantee. However, my team and I can only take on 20 members at a time, so check out the salespage at http://www.backlinkshop.com and if you like what you see, secure your spot today (use this discount order link http://www.backlinkshop.com/special) Thank you, Steven
Here is what I read on Seomoz and I wanted to share it with you all (It was initially posted by Matt in DP): Sorry I can't post the link as I still don't command that privilege "why-reputable-seo-firms-dont-promise-guaranteed-search-engine-rankings" I know it may be a bit offtrack but then I thought it will make more sense here. I agree with Steven on the points he has mentioned and would certainly help you achieve high ranking, how high, well you would know it by having read the article.
You are definitely right about that (why reputable seo firms don't promise guaranteed search engine rankings), luckily my company is not very well known yet All jokes aside... you have 60 days to decide whether you would like to continue with the service or not. Depending on how competitive the keyword you are targeting, I'm personally comfortable guaranteeing results based on our own testing and experience. Thanks, Steve
Thank you for this nice article ....... I really got useful info from it and I'll do your advices to have top 10 rankings
Good tips for the seo beginners. But do you think meta tags are still useful specially meta keywords.
Yes, most definitely + it won't hurt that you have it available for other search engines. Don't limit yourself to just Google. Thanks for the good feedbacks! Steve
Well in all certainty, you could link your services to results or other performance metrics like unique visitors, but guaranteeing rankings should be avoided at all costs. I could guarantee you ranking on some obscure keyword that no one searches for and if that is what I promised, you can't help but pay me. The point is rankings will come if an SEO firm knows what they are doing, but then ranking does not equate to visitors or more sales.