Ask John Smiley

Everyone that wants instant web site traffic simply heads over to a search engine, and registers to get pay per click (paid) advertising, so when people search, their website gets listed. It can add up to quite a bit of money when you use ppc traffic.

Using search engine optimization, you can make your web pages appear higher in the search engine results pages, so people will find you, and click over to your website, without having to pay the search engines a dime.

Page Rank is this thing from Google (where Larry Page works), where each page on your site gets a ranking from 0 to 10, and supposedly, the higher the number, the better it is for you and everyone else. Getting a better pagerank usually means you get better search engine results on the search pages, so I am going to show you how to do some things to your pages that will increase your pagerank and give you better results on those search engine results pages (they call them “SERPS” ).

Sound cool? Then lets dig into things you can do to get good rankings in the search engines.

1. Have other sites link to your pages using keywords.

I mean, do stuff to get other sites to point to your site, using a link phrase that people actually search for.

A fantastic way to get a lot of these links is to write an article and submit it to the article banks on the web. There are thousands of them, and the more that get your article, the more likely other websites will syndicate your article, and include that link back to your website, with the keyword you have chosen.

2. Include your keywords in your title tag.

The title tag is what you read at the very very top left of your browser. Make sure your keyword shows up there.

3. Start your headline with your keyword.

The headline is the big text on your web page. It is the “H1″ tag, if you look at the code for your page. Your page should have only one big headline, and your keyword should be in it.

4. Include similar keywords on your web page.

Putting related words on your web page means it is designed to be read by others, and the search engines love these kinds of pages, and include them in their results pages.

5. Remove the programming jargon from your main html file.

A lot of web page tools stuff a ton of programming junk at the top of the generated html file, and it confuses the heck out of the search engine spiders. Be sure to have any javascript or “css” stuff moved into separate files and linked from your main html file. That way, the spider bots can read plain english without tripping over squiggles and backslashes.

6. Use full domain names to link to your pages.

This is quite easy, and just means of linking to the HTML page, you link to it like it was on another site, using the fully qualified domain name (that http colon slash slash stuff). When you do this, the search engines know that these other pages are worth indexing too.

7. Maintain your site.

If you page is old and stagnant, the search engines will drop your rankings, since they don’t know if it relevant any more. By keeping your site fresh and changing, they know it is a vibrant, living site, and that makes it worth listing higher in the results pages.

Put these steps to work, and you will see a remarkable improvement in your search engine marketing efforts. It is easy, once you know exactly what to do.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the most overlooked and under utilised means of website advertising, and even many web development businesses seem to stuggle to understand it, and apply it to the websites they design and develop. SEO is simply the process whereby a website is designed and developed with a view to it being found on one or more search engines.

Search engines are the cornerstone of your website marketing campaign because the majority of websites are still found via search engines. Here are some commonly asked questions about SEO:

Is it free?

Generally still free, although with the huge number of websites now going live the wait for your site to appear on that search engine can be long (several months). This is especially true of International search engines, many of whom have introduced paid “express submissions”. These can be value for money, but be careful.

Submit to 15,000,000 search engines for free?

Don’t you believe it. I do not recommend any company use these tools to submit their website to search engines. These services can spam search engines with your URL, an effectively get you banned or certainly prevent you from submitting your site again under controlled conditions. Submit your site to search engines one at a time. Remember: do it once and do it right!

What are the tricks then?

There are several key things, which need to be considered:

1. Domain name. Perhaps the most easily overlooked, a domain name that “says it all” about your business is really the first step 2. Meta tags. While not the answer to your prayers, they are vital to good search engine rankings 3. Keyword density and layout. Attention to keyword density in your both your meta tags, and site text is essential.

Another thing to remember: search engine optimize every page in your site separately, and relevant to the topic of that page.