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10 Ways to Improve Your Google Ranking

By Terri Seymour in Featured

Google is the world’s most popular search engine. Shortly after its creation, Google’s popularity skyrocketed and it soon became
the dominant search engine for finding information on the internet. This is why, if you own a website, you want it to be high in the Google ratings.

Google is constantly changing and evolving so you need to keep up with the changes. Their recent changes, called the Panda Update, caused many sites’ rankings to drop significantly. Google’s mission is to provide the highest quality information for each search done and in doing this, many sites get lost in the endless pages of search results.

To get your website increased ranking there are many things you can do and many things you should not do. I have tried to list some of the more effective things you should do and a couple things you should not do for better placement in Google.

1. Limit Your Advertising – If you have a hodgepodge or cluttering of advertising on your site, this can decrease your ranking. Google considers excess advertising to be a sign of a low-quality spam site. And remember, Google’s goal is to provide the highest quality sites at the top of the search results.

2. Google Toolbar – The Google Toolbar is an important tool to have because of all the features that will help you improve your ranking. The Google toolbar can help you monitor your page rank, help you find sites to link to and help you find which sites are linked to you. You can also keep tabs on how your site is doing with targeted keywords. Get it for free at Google.com.

Reader Rescue : Can You Track Search Rankings With Google Alerts?

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Dear Kalena

I have a question regarding google alerts. I have used them before to follow a topic or to stay informed about other articles regarding my website/blog niche. But can you find out your web ranking with this tool? I have had a look but I can’t get my head round it.

Thanks
Luis

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Hello Luis

You can’t really track your search rankings using Google Alerts. Such alerts are really only useful for tracking a specific topic or mentions of a brand / company that then get listed in the Google search results. They’re really handy for keeping track of a company’s online reputation.

For example, I have a client for whom I prepare a Social Mentions report every week. These social mentions consist mainly of web sites, blogs and social networking posts (e.g. tweets, Facebook status updates etc.) that mention their brand name. I use a combination of Google Alerts and Raven Tools for this purpose.

Speaking of Raven Tools, they DO offer a way to track your search engine rankings, as well as powerful historical ranking charts that can track your position in the top search engines for a particular keyword/phrase over a time frame set by you.

They have a 30 free trial and then a $19 per month option for tracking up to 3 websites – might be worth a try?

I should note here that I am a BIG fangirl of Raven Tools and a Pro member. I am also an affiliate, so the link above is my affiliate link if you want to use that (I get a small percentage of any sales that result) or you can use the normal link which has no affiliate ties.

The other (more time-consuming) way to check your rankings is manually, conducting a live search at a set time period on each of the main search engines and keeping a record via spreadsheet. Just remember to log out of any Google account before you check Google rankings, or else they might be skewed by Google Personalized Search.

Another very useful tool I’ve been using a lot lately is Google Insights for Search. With this Google tool, (still in Beta), you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. This type of data can tell you a lot more about your web site performance / niche potential than your search positions can.

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Got a Reader Rescue question of your own? Post it in the comments and you might see it featured here on the blog.

Maintaining Your Top Rankings In Google

By Titus-Hoskins in Featured

Top Rankings Maintenance For Google

Over the many years of marketing online, one point has been driven home to me time and again, you must not only get those top rankings in Google for your chosen keyword phrases – but you must maintain them. In other words, you must not only get those top rankings but you must keep them at the top.

Rankings maintenance, link maintenance… call it what you will, for most competitive keywords in Google, if you want to stay at the top you will have to constantly build quality links to your featured web page. Now, there are exceptions, if your domain contains exactly the keyword phrase then this ranking factor alone will probably keep you at the top of the pile.

However, in most cases, my own experiences have shown, if you don’t regularly add links pointing to your promoted web page it will fall off the first page in Google. For very lucrative keywords, this can prove very costly.

One of the easiest ways to build quality one-way links to your web pages is to write keyworded articles and submit them to the many free online article directories. This alone will usually keep your top rankings in Google – I have been doing this for over 7 or 8 years and have consistently kept my listings at the top of Google. If I don’t regularly write these articles, my rankings will fall off the first page in Google.

But article marketing has lost some of its muster in recent years, mainly because of the growng importance of social bookmarking sites in search engine rankings. Obviously, another marketing strategy is to constantly build links to your promoted pages/content through these social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace.

Most times this is as simple as making it easy for your visitors to bookmark your content. Providing handy bookmark logos and icons will make it easier for your visitors to bookmark your content for you – in the process they’re building valuable one-way links to your web pages and boosting your rankings in the search engines.

Another avenue is YouTube videos… lately I have noticed just getting an active video which receives many comments and good ratings will raise your rankings in Google or rather Google will list your video at the top of their search results which means more targeted traffic to your site or page.
The viral nature of these videos will also help in your link building efforts, since webmasters will often feature the video and also mention/link to your site in the process.

Same goes for Twitter, constantly getting tweets will also keep your page or site in the limelight. Of course, some subtle bribery goes a long way, just offering a free ebook or course if someone tweets your content is a simple, yet very effective way of getting your content noticed more, especially with the search engines.

Another effective tactic is regularly adding keyword related content or pages to your sites and linking back to your promoted page. Don’t overdo this, just naturally add content to your sites as you would normally do and in the process you’re building links to your page, helping you stay at the top in Google.

Regardless of how you go about it, constantly adding links and maintaining your top rankings in Google is a major part of your online marketing. While all this may seem obvious to the professional online marketer, many beginning webmasters and marketers believe once they reach the top in Google, they can sit and relax. They can but after a little while if they don’t maintain and build further links, in most cases these top rankings will soon disappear.

Reader Rescue: How can I check keyword rankings reliably?

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Hi Kalena

A client asked me to check results on about 30 of her company’s list of search terms, (terms like breast augmentation L.A.; breast augmentation Beverly Hills; nose job L.A. etc. etc.)

Question: am I going to get reliable results by just typing those terms into a Google search box on my computer — 90 miles away from the client — and noting the SERPs?

Charles

————————————–

Hi Charles

With Google Personalized Search, Google Social Search and Universal Search thrown into the mix, these days the SERPs that one person sees may not be the same SERPs another person sees – even if they are located in the same room!

If your client wants to know specific rankings, make sure you are logged out of any Google accounts and then run the checks. It might be faster if you use an online rank checking tool – you can find these listed under the tools category at SearchEngineWiki or by running a Google search.

BUT, if I were you, I would run those search terms through keyword research tools to make sure your client is targeting the right terms in the first place. Try some of the keyword tools I mentioned in my post about how to choose keywords.

It might be that your client is targeting terms that very few people type into search engines, OR terms that are too competitive for her to achieve high rankings. Your keyword research might pinpoint better choices for her.

Good luck!

Kalena

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Got a Reader Rescue question of your own? Send it to kjordan [ at ] sitepronews [ dot ] com and you might see it featured here.

Masters Of The Google Universe: How To Achieve Top Google Rankings

By Bill Platt in Featured

For years, it has been well known that Google’s search algorithm is driven by the number and quality of links pointing to a particular URL. And as a result, it was all the rage for some time to buy links on web pages that had a high Google PageRank (PR).

But in March of 2007, Google’s mouthpiece Matt Cutts declared that Google was going to fight back against Paid Links. Google put a shot across the bow of many online marketers, letting them know that the days of easily buying links from high PageRank pages in order to influence a website’s ranking in Google were over.

Search Engine Marketing Strategy – How To Get The No. 1 Spot On Google!

By John Lynch in Featured

Marketing your website to highly targeted customers can be accomplished most effectively by following this powerful search engine marketing strategy.

This search engine marketing strategy is working quite well for me…

First thing to do is find your keyword niche and base your search engine marketing strategy around this keyword phrase.

My search engine marketing strategy does NOT cost me a red cent!

First I went to wordtracker.com and used their free trial…

I then entered into the wordtracker tool my keyword “Internet Marketing” to get other related keywords along with each one’s KEI (keyword effectiveness index).

To maximize your search engine rankings look for keyword phrases with a KEI of 25 or higher. The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition they have. This means you have a great chance of getting to the top of page 1 on Google…

The Search Engine Marketing Strategy Holy Grail!

The keyword phrase I chose was the one at the top of wordtracker’s list with the highest KEI, in my case “online job search affiliate internet marketing program”.

Because Internet Marketing is highly competitive I like to use long tail keywords – or keyword phrases with 5 or more words.

I then wrote an article around the keyword phrase “online job search affiliate internet marketing program”. I put this keyword phrase in my article with just under 2% keyword density. This means my keyword phrase appears roughly 2 times for every 100 words in my article.

Anything higher than 2% keyword density might get flagged by Google as spam and kill your search engine rankings so try and keep it under 2%.

I then optimized my article by using the keyword phrase in the title, the first paragraph, the body, and at the end of the article. Don’t just stick the keyword phrase in your article to get it in, make sure your article makes grammatical sense otherwise it will appear “spammy”.

I posted my article on my blog and submitted it to the following 2 sites, for free:

=> squidoo.com

=> digg.com

My article titled “online job search affiliate internet marketing program” now occupies the top of page 1 on Google – and this all happened within a matter of minutes after posting it!

So in a nutshell all I did was write one article around the keyword phrase “online job search affiliate internet marketing program”, then posted it on Squidoo and Digg!

Then like magic in less than 30 minutes my article got listed on(and still is as of this writing)the first spot on page 1 of Google!

And this Killer Search Engine Marketing Strategy is totally FREE!

Want proof?

Type in the following phrase on Google: “online job search affiliate internet marketing program” (without the quotes), and you will see my article titled “online job search affiliate internet marketing program” in the no. 1 spot on Google…

A truly beautiful thing!

Now that you have a powerful Search Engine Marketing Strategy that won’t cost you a penny, all you gotta do is find some quality Affiliate Programs to promote.

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John Lynch is an accomplished writer and has published hundreds of quality internet marketing articles. To find the top Affiliate Programs on the net, John recommends you visit => How2MakeMoneyOnline

3 Quick and Easy Ways to Monopolize Google Rankings!

By Michael Small in Featured

I got into SEO back in 1998. Back in the day, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was much simpler than it is today. Most tricks like blatant keyword spamming and hidden key phrases worked like a champ. Even better, little tricks like these were usually OK to use. Not anymore.

In fact, most old-school tricks don’t work today and many can get your pages banned. This is great news for you. Over the next few minutes I’ll show you how to make Google absolutely LOVE your web pages and help you jump to the top!

Here is what you need to know… Google places about 90% of its ranking priorities on content and links. Keywords are still important, but only in your pages’ content (not the META Tags.)

Sounds simple, right? Definitely! And it really is. First you find the best keywords and place them just right in your web page text. Next you get great inbound links. Then finally, you monitor your progress closely (and competition’s progress.)

Step 1: Find the Best Keywords

Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type in any keyword or phrase you think your target audience is looking for.

Tip: Use specific keyword phrases whenever possible. If you have a Web page dealing with floral delivery, think beyond just the word “flowers”, with its 257,000,000 competing pages on Google and try “sending flowers”, which has fewer than one percent the number of competing pages (at 1,940,000 pages) but plenty of people searching for it each month (“flowers” = 24,900,000 searches last month while “sending flowers” had 9,400,000.) Think about it for a minute… You can compete against less than less than 1% of the pages for about 40% of the possible targeted visitors. Now that’s impressive! You have a huge advantage over 99.5% of your competition with just that single tip.

Now list the top three keywords and keyword phases in order from best to second best and so on. You’ll need this for your content.

Step 2: Develop Killer Content

Content is your most important on page optimization resource. Don’t ever forget that. It is what Google bases your ranking on, AFTER linking that is. Developing search engine friendly, “people optimized” content is vital to your success. Google can read a Web page just like a person does, thanks to natural text algorithms. And they can tell if you are writing your pages for real people or just trying to get higher ranking. Relax. With this tip, you will do both!

First, grab a pen and pad and call a friend. Tell him all about your product or service. You’re talking to a friend so be natural and let it flow. Forget grammar.

Now end the call and write it all down. Write it word for word, as close as you can remember it. If you can record the call, that’s even better.

Next, go through your newly developed page content and fit your top keyword somewhere near the beginning of the first sentence. Now try to find a natural place to insert your number two keyword; hopefully also in the first paragraph. If possible, try to get your third keyword somewhere in the second paragraph.

Now place each of your three keywords in the next three paragraphs; one keyword per paragraph. Just work it in naturally. If it doesn’t fit, don’t force it.

Avoid repeating any given keyword more than four times per page and mix it up a little. Use one of the keywords a little more or less than the others so it does not create a visible pattern.

When you get to your final paragraph at the bottom of the page, be sure to use your most important keyword in the latter half.

Step 3: Get Great Links and Monitor Your Progress

Today, quality inbound links typically account for more than 85% of your Google ranking success. Getting the best possible links is the critical step that will put your Web pages over the top. But don’t stop there! Finding and landing these links is an ongoing task that needs to happen every couple weeks, at the least. Once you are on the right track you need to monitor your progress and your site’s status (how any given search engine actually sees it). This will tell you not just where you are, but also where you are most likely to be. Years ago we had to do all link work and monitoring by hand, and it took a long time. I averaged about 16 hours per week for each site! My advice is to find a good SEO tool and let it do that work for you. If you get hold of the right product, it’s the best money you’ll ever spend.

I used WebPosition for almost three years but switched to another with automated linking, which I personally find the most time consuming part of any SEO project. Both are excellent products for tracking and reporting however (Please note that Google has since banned Web Position due to abuse but it still works great on other search engines and has very nice reporting features and worth considering if you own an SEO company with many clients.)

#1 Pick: http://www.SeoEliteWeb.com

Cost = $167 (actual cost: lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees)

Personal Results: 121 top 5 rankings on Google in 3 weeks; Mostly 1′s and 2′s.

Top Features: Finds best link partners; Automates the link building process; Provides great Site Monitoring on the major search engines including Google.

Comments: The linking alone was enough reason for me to buy it but I have since learned it does a whole lot more. I’m on version 4 after purchasing version 2 in 2005 and getting the free updates since.

#2 Pick: http://www.webposition.com

Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (actual cost: add $99 per year subscription fees for either)

Personal Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in 8 weeks; Mostly 3′s and 4′s.

Top Features: Site Monitoring; Excellent reporting (but now banned on Google); Site Critic

Comments: I stopped using this one because there were no automated linking capabilities. I did however enjoy the reporting. If you own an SEO company the reporting is great to have but be advised that Google has banned the use of this product against their site and blocks it.

Now you are ready to take on the best of Google and win. Good luck!

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Michael Small is the founder of the free SEO site http://www.SEOpartner.com and author of numerous search engine optimization books including the SEO Notebook, available at http://www.theSeoNotebook.com

How to Dominate Google Rankings; Easy as 1, 2, 3!

By Scott Jason in Featured

Search engine optimization has changed a lot over the years. What worked a few short years ago can get your site banned from Google today.

Actually, let me rephrase that… Search engine optimization tricks have changed a lot over the years. But in truth, good solid SEO practices have remained stable and work better today than in years past. Why better? Because so many others keep trying to win with tricks that Google hates. This leaves you to reap the rewards of methods that Google loves!

The most important thing to realize is that Google, and other popular search engines place 90% and MORE of their ranking preferences on content and links. Keywords are still important, but only in the content of your pages; not in META tags like the old days.

It’s that simple. And just as simple is how to accomplish that top ranking…

1.) First you need to find the best keywords and place them just right in your page’s content.

2.) Next you need to find, get and manage great inbound links.

3.) Last, you need to closely monitor your progress (and your competition!)

Goal 1: Find the Best Keywords

Let’s use Google’s own keyword database to see what search terms are best to target. Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and enter any keyword or keyword phrase you think your future customers are looking for. Now get ready for a LOT of great results!

INSIDER TIP; Use specific and “long tail” keyword phrases whenever possible. One of my client’s is in national floral delivery. Here’s a real example of how my business partner and I put that business at number on Google with the perfect keywords…

The client had been paying per click for the term “flowers” and barely breaking even after spending tens of thousands of dollars per month in PPC costs. We not only gave him much better targetd keywords for his pay per click campaign, at one tenth the cost, but also made jim number one for his new primary keyword using the methods described later in this article. Before we go too deep however, let’s look at the new keywords and the logic used to get there…

Instead of just the word “flowers”, which has 233,000,000 competing pages on Google, we looked at what he really wanted to attract visits for. Although there are lots of possibilities, we will stick with just one example that saves him about $35,000 per month in PPC expenses and gives him another $100,000 per month in profit. We first evaluated “send flowers”, which has 1/10th the number of competing pages. Then we asked him to try “think like people speak” (I.E./ I’m “sending flowers” to my mom.) As it turns out, a lot more people are searching for “sending flowers” than are searching “send flowers” and “sending flowers” has less than 1% of the competing web pages as the search term he started with, “flowers”. Now that’s impressive!

Use this method of keyword determination (get exact and use longer keyord phrases when appropriate) and you have will have an instant advantage over about 99% of your competitors.

Once you have your keywords selected, take the top three or four and list them in order for best to second best and so on.

Goal 2: Develop the Best Possible Content

Content is King! The ability to create search engine friendly web content, optimized for real people, is the key to your success. Modern search engines (especially Google) can read a page just like any person would thanks to natural text algorithms. Now Google can tell in nanoseconds if your web pages were pages for real people or just to get better ranking. With the following tip, you can easily do both!

Step A.) Call a good friend and tell him or her what you want to tell your web visitors. Then immediately write it down as close as you can remember it. If you can record the conversation it’s even better.

Step B.) Now simply review your text and place your top keyword as close to the beginning of the opening sentence or two as possible. Then place your next most important keyword someplace else toward the beginning of that same first paragraph. Try to get your third keyword into the last sentence or two your first paragraph or at the beginning of your next paragraph if it fits better.

Step C.) Now place just one instance of each keyword in the next few paragraphs, anywhere they fit well. So if you have six more paragraphs before the final, each keyword should be three times total (once in paragraph 1, twice in the remaining 6 paragraphs with one mention of a single keyword in each paragraph.)

Step D.) For the last paragraph, do the opposite of what you did for the first paragraph and place your least important keyword toward the beginning of the paragraph and your most important toward the end. This shows the search engine consistency of topic.

Step E.) Last but not least, don’t repeat any keyword more than four times per page and always let the text flow naturally.

Part 3: Get Great Links and Monitor Your Site

Getting and maintaining high quality inbound links typically accounts for more than 75% of today’s search engine optimization success on Google. Getting these links is the crucial step that will get you over the top and keep you there! But you also need to monitor your progress and your site’s status (not just ranking but how search engines REALLY see it). This will tell you more than just where you are but also where you are likely to be. Back in the day we did all link work and monitoring by hand. And I can telly you that it took a long time (My business partner and I spent about sixteen hours each week, per site!) My advice to you is to do what we did and find a good SEO tool that does the heavy lifting and time consuming work for you. Buying the right product is easily the best money you’ll ever spend on your site’s marketing and publicity.

As for products, there are some good ones out there. I used one called WebPosition Pro for a couple years. I ended up switching to another called SEO Elite because it has automated linking, which is the most time-consuming aspect of my SEO efforts. However, both are fantastic products for tracking and reporting.

Number 1 Pick: SEO Elite

http://www.SeoEliteWeb.com

Cost = $167 (lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees)

Personal Results: 121 top 5 rankings on Google in 3 weeks; Mostly 1′s and 2′s

Favorite Features: Finds the best link partners, including special “Authority” link partners that count for more with Google; Automates link process; Provides great Site Monitoring

Comments: I bought SEO Elite in 2005 and have used every upgrade (all are free.) I got rid of my other products since this one did a better job for me and does not have any ongoing fees.

Number 2 Pick: WebPosition

http://www.webposition.com

Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (plus $99 per year subscription fees for either)

Personal Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in eight weeks; Mostly 3′s and 4′s.

Favorite Features: Site Monitoring; Great reporting; Site Critic

Comments: I stopped using WebPosition because there were no automated linking capabilities and did not want to continue paying the $99 per year in ongoing fees. I did however really like the reporting.

That’s about it. Now you’re ready. Good luck!

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Scott Jason has been an SEO professional since 1999 and is the founder of BestSEOcopywriting.com. Over the past nine years he has worked with hundreds of clients he has secured thousands of top placements on Google, Yahoo, MSN and more.

Top Google in Record Time in 2 Simple Steps!

By Michael Small in Featured

I got into search engine optimization back in 1998. It sure has changed a lot since then. Back in the day you could use invisible text, load keywords to the point of overflowing and fill META tags with anything even close to what you had on your page. And you could do well on Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista; all the biggies. Not anymore.

Today SEO is about a 75% / 25% split between links and content, with inbound links being the most important thing. Especially on Google. When all is said and done, you can get to the top of Google in just two simple steps. Seriously. I’ve done it hundreds of times and it’s easier than you’d imagine.

Do This and OWN Google’s Top Spots!

By Michael Small in Featured

Ranking well on Google takes two things, good content and great links. But it’s not an even split. Because Google assumes only a page with good content would get great inbound links it puts about 70% of the importance for ranking on links and only about 30% on content. That little tidbit alone will put you head and shoulders above all those competitors still messing with META tags and spamming keywords.

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