With the end of the year just around the corner and the holiday rush almost upon us you might be thinking that there isn't enough time left in the year to boost the search rankings of your website. That isn't the case. Follow these five easy steps and watch the love Google will give your site.
1. Structure your site properly. Make sure all of the pages of your site are within two clicks of your home page. Include your keywords in title tags and descriptions and always link your pages together using your main keywords in your links. We geeks call this 'anchor text' and it is what Google uses to determine what that page is about.
2. Submit a sitemap to Google and the other search engines. It is shocking how many sites Google doesn't even know about. If your site is built on Wordpress or another major CMS system, this will be done automatically for you. If it isn't you'll have to submit your sitemap manually. Either way, make sure it is done.
3. Get more links to your site. The number and quality of other sites that link to you is the primary factor that Google looks at when ranking your website. It is important to get both a lot of links through social bookmarking, social networking sites and directories but also to get high authority sites to link to you. Press releases and guest blogging both work well for getting high quality links.
4. Get social. Many SEO experts don't believe that links from sites like Facebook and Twitter count for much but they're wrong. All links to your site count and leveraging social media is smart. If one person with a large following likes your site it can be passed along through thousands of followers. This doesn't only increase the number of links to your site but also immediately boost the direct traffic to your site.
5. Be helpful. Offer suggestions on forums and provide helpful comments on blogs. Drop in links to your site when they are relevant but provide value to the community first and foremost. Yes, links are important but you'll be shocked to see your links and direct traffic soar as a result of just being nice.
At the end of the day, the Internet is called the Information Super Highway for a good reason. People are snooping around the web looking for answers to their problems, questions and concerns. When you provide the best solutions you'll quickly become recognized as the expert in your particular area and guess what? People love to do business with experts. They will come to you and they'll pay your asking price. They'll pass around the information you provide to their friends and colleagues and all of this buzz will continue to increase the number of links back to your site. As a result, your search rankings will improve AND you'll discover than helping people feels pretty darn good too.
1. Structure your site properly. Make sure all of the pages of your site are within two clicks of your home page. Include your keywords in title tags and descriptions and always link your pages together using your main keywords in your links. We geeks call this 'anchor text' and it is what Google uses to determine what that page is about.
2. Submit a sitemap to Google and the other search engines. It is shocking how many sites Google doesn't even know about. If your site is built on Wordpress or another major CMS system, this will be done automatically for you. If it isn't you'll have to submit your sitemap manually. Either way, make sure it is done.
3. Get more links to your site. The number and quality of other sites that link to you is the primary factor that Google looks at when ranking your website. It is important to get both a lot of links through social bookmarking, social networking sites and directories but also to get high authority sites to link to you. Press releases and guest blogging both work well for getting high quality links.
4. Get social. Many SEO experts don't believe that links from sites like Facebook and Twitter count for much but they're wrong. All links to your site count and leveraging social media is smart. If one person with a large following likes your site it can be passed along through thousands of followers. This doesn't only increase the number of links to your site but also immediately boost the direct traffic to your site.
5. Be helpful. Offer suggestions on forums and provide helpful comments on blogs. Drop in links to your site when they are relevant but provide value to the community first and foremost. Yes, links are important but you'll be shocked to see your links and direct traffic soar as a result of just being nice.
At the end of the day, the Internet is called the Information Super Highway for a good reason. People are snooping around the web looking for answers to their problems, questions and concerns. When you provide the best solutions you'll quickly become recognized as the expert in your particular area and guess what? People love to do business with experts. They will come to you and they'll pay your asking price. They'll pass around the information you provide to their friends and colleagues and all of this buzz will continue to increase the number of links back to your site. As a result, your search rankings will improve AND you'll discover than helping people feels pretty darn good too.