Last I talked about the idea behind links being a kind of coolness factor and about the number of links you might need to get to the top. This week we will talk about where and how to get the links needed to climb the Google ladder.
There are 4 types of links out there:
There are a few different was yo can get links to your site.
If you want to add your name to 300 directories you can do so by heading over to ADDURL.nu. Or for a small fee I will do the tedious work of adding your info to these sites for you.
It is generally a good thing to be listed in directories. And there are 2 that you absolutely should be included in and 1 that if you can afford it should be listed in.
It is generally held that you should get listed in these directories. Zoominfo and DMOZ are free and will take a long time to get listed, but they are important so get listed. If you have $299US per year to spend then get listed in the Yahoo directory.
Last week we I showed you what Keywords were and how to use them in the meta tags and main content of your site. Optimizing the keywords for your site is only half the battle of climbing the rankings in Google.
This we we are going to talk about how to get your site to become the first search result.
There is only one way to make it to the top of the Google standings and that is by making them think you are the coolest kid on the playground. Ultimately ranking in Google, or any other search engine, boils down to a popularity contest. That’s right you have to make it look like you’ve got more friends than the other guy.
So, how do you gain coolness? Coolness is calculated by incoming links to your site.
Coolness is based on the number of friends (links) you have. A single link from a uber cool site, might just make all the difference and propel you to the front of the pack. On the other hand it may take thousands of links to make it to the top.
The more uber cool links you have the easier it is to move to number one. But if you are getting links from the ‘not so cool’ crowd it will take you much longer.
So to make it to the top you will have to learn how to tell the cool kids from the not so cool kids. The cool kids are #1-10 on the search results for your keyword, the not so cool kids are #11-50. You need to make Google think that you’re in their circle of friends.
There is no easy answer to this question, it all comes down to the keyword you are searching for. For a keyword that is not competitive it might take 2 links to be number one, but for an uber competitive keyword it could take you 100,000 or more links.
If you would like to figure this out for a specific keyword this is how I do it:
This is not a hard process, but depending on the the number of inlinks to each of your competitors, it could take quite a long time. If you are looking for an automated approach you can head over to SEO Elite ($167 US) and it will automate this process for you. The other alternative is to contact me and I can do the work for you as well. I won’t cost as much as SEO Elite.
So this is a start to understanding link building, next week we’ll talk about getting sites to link to your site.
KEYWORDS play an important role in search engine results. Today we are going to discuss where and when we should use keywords on our site.
First, what are KEYWORDS?
On the web, a keyword is a reference to the content and/or the type of meta element included in a given web page‘s HTML code to aid in the page’s indexing. A keyword meta element may include several comma-separated keywords (or keyword phrases, each of which may contain several individual words). Source wikipedia.
Using the right keywords in your title will help produce the results you are looking for. The title is the first thing your searcher will see in the search results.
If your title includes keywords they are looking for they are more likely to click on your link.
How do you use keywords in your title. You need to use the most important keywords in your title. For instance, for Simone Wittenberg Photography, we used the KEYWORDS ‘Kelowna Wedding Photographer’.
In HTML the title would look like this:
<title>Simone Wittenberg Photography / Kelowna Wedding Photography</title>
The second thing a searcher sees in the search results is your description. Using keywords won’t help in your search engine ranking, but it will give your searcher a better idea of what your site is about or has to offer. The description should be a short explanation of your site and of your title.
In HTML the description would look like this:
<meta name=”description” content=”Kelowna wedding photographer”>
You can also specify keywords you want to be ranked for by using the <meta> tag in your HTML. This is in addition to the keywords that you have used in your Title and description. (Google doesn’t use these, but Yahoo and MSN do) The Keyword meta tag looks like this:
<meta name=”keywords” content=”Kelowna, Wedding, Photographer” />
Each individual term is separated by a comma.
Having keywords in your content is not something that is very important to you reader, but it is important to have because this is what the search engines look for. This does NOT mean that you should only use keywords in the body of your website, but they should be interspersed throughout.
It is believe that only 1 in every 20 words should be a keyword. If you use more than this you could be punished by the search engine for keywords stuffing.
Search engines read the HTML code of the pages they are read. In order to make your webpage more SEO friendly, you should use your h1, h2, h3, and h4 tags. There are meanings to each of these tags:
You can also use bold and italic commands to add importance to words in the content of your site.
Another place to use tags is in your images. When you add an image to a webpage, you can add <title> and <alt> tags. These are important because search engines cannot see images and rely on these tags to index image content.
This is what I have learned about keywords and I hope that this has been helpful to you. Next week we will look at link-building.
Over the past couple of months I have been learning as much as I can about SEO. There is a ton to know and I am still in the process of learning, but what I have learned I am going to share with you. I will share some tricks I have learned and will share links with important information. We’ll talk about link building, keywords, page rank, and more.
Each Friday evening, I am going to try to post on a specific topic on SEO. In the event that I forget one night, don’t worry, I will post on Saturday.
If you want to get started and to learn a bit of what I have come across subscribe to my RSS feed and get automatic updates of my posts.