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Site ranking: need traffic improved? Do search engines ignore you?
Site Ranking: What everyone needs! Included here are articles that will help your thinking on the issues around improving your site ranking through higher traffic. It's certainly a hot topic. But improving your site traffic is a little like looking for the holy grail. But such difficulties never deter the willing. Searching for traffic can be very illusive, but it's part of the challenge that we all face.
Many experts, but who has the substance to deliver? The articles below address what for many is a conundrum. Many issues but how do you get the results that you want, in terms of greater traffic to your site! We trust that you will find the site ranking and traffic articles thought provoking, and worth a try to see what results can be delivered.
No instant solutions: But many options to explore! On site traffic and ranking, many claim instant results are possible, often at a high cost that delivers very little by way of tangible outcomes that we can see. Indeed few are able to deliver on their exaggerated hype and promises. High promise is the norm, with little if anything delivered. Like most things, you have to be prepared to try out a few possibles and see what will work for you.
Site Ranking Improvement: How to Get the Ranking You Always Wanted! by: Matt Colyer Is your web site well ranked (In the top ten search results) in the results? If not, you need to read this and get the ranking you always dreamed of getting with your web site! I will show you how to get your web site a top ten ranking in the search engines with these few easy-to-do steps. Site Design - The web site's structure will decide how the spiders read your web site and the speed of them indexing the web pages. There should be more text content then HTML content. You should avoid programs such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Such programs will add coding that isn't necessary and also they may add coding errors. The pages should validate and be usable in all of todays leading browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, etc.). Also look at your web site in a text browser, this will give you good idea of what the spiders see and if it can work with a text browser, it can work with just about any other browser. Stay away from using Java, Flash, Java script, scripting such as that can trap the spiders, which will result in them not to index your content. Go external with scripting languages if you need them that bad, use something such as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Your web site should respond almost instantly to requests. If you get into 3 to 4 seconds delay until it loads, you need to cut down on the images and overall web page size. Keep the web page under 20k if at all possible, but keep it at least at 5k. Don't use frames, neither the visitors nor the search engines like it and shouldn't be used for any reason. Content - Web pages should have 200 to 1500 words. Put your target keywords in bold, underline, heading and italics text. Spiders reads web pages top to bottom and they also know that the main keyword should appear in the first few sentences. Which means your targeted keywords should appear high on the page, within the first few words, also they should be in the middle and towards the end of the articles. The keyword density should be between 5 and 15%, but don't lose sleep over it, just make sure you get a density of 5%. Meta and Title Tags - Meta tags are thought by many SEO experts to have little impact, If any at all, but it's still recommended, just in case it's still a factor. The description tag is still sometimes used in the search engines as description of the web site, so try to be creative and describe your web page's content and not just for the search engines, but for the visitors as well. Also remember not to use the same description tag for each web page, some search engines may think the page is too much like the other pages and end up banning you. You should place your top keywords in keyword tag, keep it to 5 to 15, make sure your most important keyword appears first though. The title tag is very important part of the web page. Both the search engines and visitors will see this, so be smart and creative with it. Try to have your most important keyword to appear first and keep it short, there isn't any need for 20 or 30 words to appear in the title tag. Links - Look around your keyword sector in DMOZ or Yahoo!, you will find many web sites that are useful to your visitors and to your ranking. Try to exchange links with one web site a day. Almost every topic has an on-topic directory, go submit to them. Don't forget DMOZ, Yahoo! or other big name directories. When you receive requests for link exchanges, check the site out before giving the OK. Check to see if they are using any spam techniques and make sure they are listed in the search engines. Also make sure it's a web site similar to your web site's topic. One way backlinks are the best backlinks a web site can get because most reciprocal link exchanges are only for link popularity and search engines are aware of this growing problem. But they are hard to get, one way to get them is by buying them or an other is by writing articles and allowing others to use them on their own web site for content, along with a link back to your web site. Insite Cross Links - Link to on topic content across your web site. If a web page is about games, then make sure it links to PS2 games and Xbox games web page. Web pages shouldn't be no more then 3 clicks away from the home page. They should be close to the root as possible. Submission - Once you have insured you have done all the above, you can submit to the search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves. Really, if you get enough backlinks you won't need to submit to any of them and instead they will find you. There is some debate that submitting to the search engines instead of letting them find you can hurt your ranking, so you may choose to sit back and let them find you. Also note, that by submitting will not speed it up any and in fact the fastest way to get in the index, is by getting backlinks.
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by: John Gergye Okay I admit it. I was kidding. I can't guarantee top 10 search engine rankings any more than the next guy. But hold on. Before you click away in disgust I believe I've got the next best thing. That all but guarantees you'll get top 10 rankings. Lots of them. For next to nothing. So you might want to stick around and find out what this is all about. You see to hear some tell it a top 10 ranking is a shoo in. A gimme. A piece of cake. Must be since Google Adwords are crammed with all sorts of beckoning, come hither ads that suggest as much. Now admittedly in any food chain even the bottom feeders play a role in the big scheme of things. But I don't know. Such pitches may be hard for the typical traffic starved newbie to resist. I mean these ads suggest for a mere $49, $69 or $99 you'll be rolling in top 10 rankings in no time. The sad truth is you may indeed land some top 10 rankings. But they won't be for keywords that produce much if any traffic. And if you don't get any traffic what good are the top 10 rankings? Still, let's not be so hasty. While I'm not advocating anyone plunk down hard earned cash in the hopes of landing high search engine rankings for competitive keywords, hidden in the hype is a low cost strategy. In other words there's a way to make this work. If you know how. And you will in about 60 seconds. Here's all you do. Simply fire up Wordtracker. (A subscription is about $8 for a day.) Start looking for related keywords by doing a search for a broad, general, generic keyword in your niche. Then drill down and dig up all the related "exact" keyword phrases that have 9 or fewer competing pages. All that's left is to optimize a page on your site for each one and presto chango! A top 10 ranking! See? A surefire formula for guaranteed top 10 rankings. Brain dead simple too. Now I call such search terms "orphan keywords". Orphans because the search volume is so low they are all but ignored by the fat cats intent on landing the big fish -- a.k.a. high rankings for terms that get hundreds of searches a day. That fact makes these orphans super simple to rank in the top 10 for. Especially since many of the competing pages aren't even optimized the least little bit. But hold on. Let's not high five all around just yet. There's a tradeoff. As I suggested lack of competition is a sure sign such terms aren't searched for often. Maybe no more than a mere handful of times each day in Google. Okay so how do we make lemonade out of those lemons? The best way to make this tactic work is to find a ton of these terms. And don't worry. Most niches are loaded with orphan keywords. Then here's your next step. Simply create content pages that each focus on two, or at most three, of these small fry. Put up 100 such pages and you've probably got 250 of these 9 or fewer competing pages phrases covered. To get to 100 pages all you do is create four pages a day - five days a week. If you miss a day make it up over the weekend. But by the end of five weeks you'll have 100 pages hard at work for you. Now that's not so hard now is it? Even better these orphans come with a collective traffic jolt you wouldn't expect. I'm looking at one list of orphan keywords that shows 309 daily searches in Google. Another came in around 513. While the orphans for a third niche had over 1876 Google searches each day according to Wordtracker! Given all that I casually suggested this micro traffic idea to a friend with an already successful web site. In other words he wasn't hurting for traffic. Which made this a no lose proposition for him to test. About four weeks later he excitedly reported his traffic had doubled! That's right doubled. That got my attention. Should get yours too. Because this orphan keyword strategy is a surefire way to get top 10 rankings for a whole host of lesser keyword phrases. Giving you near exclusive access to the traffic that comes with them. While leaving the bruising battles for the hyper competitive terms to someone else. Pretty clever, huh? Absolutely.
Next Article on Site Ranking below: or Return to home page Site Ranking Improvement: Generating Traffic – The Text Link Prevails by: Michael Medeiros The Internet is growing at an exponential rate, resulting from greater masses attempting to earn an income from the Computer Revolution. It doesn’t take long for a developer to realize the magnitude of increasing competition, when attempting to obtain more visitors. How much competition exists? The fact is, when this article was written, “Whois,” reported 65,443,044 active Domains existed. Additionally, 446,308 Domains where, “on-hold,” and 1,184,180 Domains where created by 18:00 EST (1). While this information does not illustrate direct competition for a given niche, it’s apparent that any type of Website created will have modest rivalry. The Business model of an Internet Website is relatively simple; increasing traffic means increasing revenue. However, with the growing number of Websites, it will become more difficult to obtain greater traffic. So how is traffic disbursed on the Internet? Traffic disbursement can be isolated to two primary sources: Search Engine Queries and Incoming links. Search Engines have evolved greatly in the past few years. However, the principal is still the same. A Search Engine Spider travels through virtual space analyzing Webpages’ encountered and assessing their premise. Spiders can quickly route through deeply routed pages within any given Website and index them within a Database. In addition, they can assess which Websites change frequently, and retrieve new data on a scheduled basis. Because of their ability to quickly assess pages and their changes, they offer the internet community one of the most valuable resources, “The ability to accurately locate documents of interest”. Based on the fundamentals of Search Engine’s, developer’s can increase Search Engine traffic by offering more content and resources. As relevant pages and resources are added to a Website, the premise of the Website becomes more apparent. In addition, expanded queries will match relevant pages displaying new content. The other source of Internet Traffic, “incoming links,” can benefit a developer in several ways. First and most obvious, we can achieve greater traffic from the visitor of Websites displaying the incoming links. Also, if used properly, incoming links that are text based (Anchor Text) help Search Engine Spiders determine the premise of a Web-page. Finally, the total number of incoming links improves rapport with Search Engines (2). Because some Search Engines poses the tools and resources to quickly archive numerous pages and their data, they have begun to utilize, “Anchor Text,” to leverage their Search Engine Results. The most famous example, of this technology being implemented, is the Apple QuickTime Download page showing as number one in Google for a search query of, “Click Here”. The term, “Click Here,” cannot be found anywhere on the visible page or Source Code. So why is it number one? Because the Developer linked the words, “Click Here,” to the download page from many pages with good rapport (High Google PR). Naturally, this is pure speculation, as only the Google Engineers could explain exactly why it is number one accurately. However, most are probably familiar with the famous Google Bomb of, “Miserable Failure”. A large number of people linked, “Miserable Failure,” to the Official White House Web-page of President George W. Bush. As a result, George ranks number one on Google for the search term. Text links can be acquired through paying for placement or through exchanges with other Webmasters. For the most part, paid links will generate a lot more traffic then exchange links. This is due solely to placement. In a typical link exchange, the incoming links are placed on, “Weak,” pages that receive little traffic. In contrast, advertised links will be presented on prominent pages with a lot of visitors. Moreover, a lot of speculation exists regarding how the major three Search Engines treat reciprocal links. Some believe they cancel-out one another, as a vote. This speculation suggests that, “one-way,” incoming links provide the greatest benefit. Bombing, as illustrated in the above examples, has created a large market for the purchase of Text Links. As a matter of fact, text link advertising is soaring right now. A number of people now offer broker services, connecting text link publishers with people wishing to advertise. It has gotten so big the Major search engines are beginning to demonstrate concern. Matt Cutts, a developer for Google, has offered some insight on the matter (3). Acknowledging that many Websites rely on the sale of ad space for income, he explains how this method of calculating the premise of a page has greatly improved Search Results for all the major Search Engines, and selling links hurts this technology. Matt suggests that sold links should include an additional tag, “rel=nofollow,” to tell Spiders not to count the vote. The Consequences of not including the tag means that Google may not pass PageRank with links coming from the site selling the links. Essentially, purchased links that do not include that tag will eventually become worthless for Search Engine recognition. Outside of paid advertising, it would require something really special to acquire incoming links. With practical reasoning, a developer would have to either create something very useful to the Internet community, or offer valuable information that will be referenced by others often. What ever method is conjured, it’s obvious in this point of time, the text link prevails for traffic generation. (1) Whois Source: Detailed Domain Counts and Internet Statistic (http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/). (2) Google: Google Technology (http://www.google.com/technology/). (3) Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO: Text Links and PageRank (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/).
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by: Rick Hendershot Most web-savvy people quickly learn why they need "links" from other sites pointing at theirs. Your inbound links are one of the most important ways of getting yourself known in your field, generating traffic to your website, and influencing the search engines to notice your site. "Traffic" is what linking is all about. Without traffic your website is useless as a tool for selling your products or communicating your ideas. Getting links from other websites is not the only way to generate traffic, but it is probably the most important one. But how do links generate traffic? **Direct traffic from links** First, links generate direct traffic. Links from sites that share your target audience will be an important source of traffic to your site. A visitor to the other web site sees the link to yours, clicks on it, and becomes your visitor. Some estimates put the percentage of internet traffic resulting from this kind of link as high as 21% of total traffic. Why do people click on these links? One reason is they may view a link to an outside source as an endorsement. They assume the webmaster is saying "Here is a source you will find interesting or helpful". They are looking for the kind of service you provide, so they click on the link to check you out. But just as important is simple curiosity. Someone sees a text link with intriguing wording like "Powerful Cheap Advertising" or "Win a Free iPod" or "See Pamela Anderson Video" and, depending on their interests, a certain number of people are likely to click on it. This suggests at least three things about your links. First, you should get as many links as possible on pages your target audience is likely to be visiting. The more people see your links, the more traffic you are likely to get. Second, your anchor text (the words that are linked) should be intriguing. It should be short and sweet, and suggest a benefit -- a reason for people to click on it. Third, your links should be on pages that people actually look at. Having hundreds of links on pages that nobody ever looks at will not result in traffic -- at least not direct traffic. Putting your link on a link exchange page containing hundreds of services similar to yours is not likely to generate very many clicks. This is why exchanging links with link directories is such a questionable waste of time. Web visitors rarely look at these directories. Finding good pages where you can place your link is not always easy. One method is to systematically do searches for your most important keywords -- the search phrases people are likely to use when looking for your kind of product or service. Many of the results will be competitors of yours. But one or two may be secondary sources such as directories or reference pages. Getting your link on some of these secondary sources is almost guaranteed to result in traffic, so it is worth the effort -- and sometimes the cost -- of getting listed in the resources that score high for your keywords. **Traffic from Search Engines** The second reason for getting inbound links is to impress the search engines. Most search engines use the quantity and quality of your inbound links to evaluate the importance and relevance of your site to specific keywords. For instance, if you sell a product like "Full Color Vinyl Banners", or you are a Real Estate agent servicing "Kitchener Real Estate", one of your objectives is to rank high for searches done on your primary search phrase (and other similar ones). This will result in traffic because when people search for your important keywords your site is more likely to show up in the search results. The more inbound links you have that relate your site to full color vinyl banners or web promotion services, or "fill in your keyword here", the higher your site is likely to rank for these terms, and the more search engine traffic you are likely to receive as a result. **Using Articles to get traffic and impress the search engines** Embedding your links in articles is one of the best methods of rapidly increasing your inbound links. Many times a well-written article will show up in hundreds of places on the web. And if it has your link embedded in it, that will obviously increase your inbound links. Webmasters pick up these articles because they want content to enhance the value of their sites. Articles will also generate direct traffic because people who read them are already interested in your subject matter, and are therefore more likely to click on your link. This suggests that the most valuable place to publish your article is in a themed or categorized article resource. For instance, if your product is "health" related, having it published on health-oriented sites will be more valuable than having it published on generic sites. You can even take this a step further. If your article is about something more specific like "mesothelioma advice", then getting it published on sites that focus on "mesothelioma" will get more "reads", and have a greater influence on the search engines. Second, when embedding your link, try to use anchor text that contains one of your important keywords, not just your URL or web address. Remember that search engines are dumb. One of your objectives is to have them relate your website to specific search terms (keywords or key phrases). And the best way to do that is to use them as your anchor text.
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