The No. 1 SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tip
e-Marketing Company
What's the number-one business killer on the internet?
The answer is obvious, but many people miss it. The answer is: not
being found on the first page of Google.
I refer to Google often, since the search engine accounts for
approximately 50 percent of search traffic. In February 2007, Google
sites garnered 47.5 percent of the U.S. search market, with Yahoo!
coming in second place at a distant 28.1 percent, according to
comScore. Preparing your SEO strategy around Google makes your plan
work for other search engines, as well.
Write Away
So what's the number-one tip for search engine ranking? Articles. With
articles, even a brand new domain--some call this the "Google sandbox
hell"--can get updated into the search index quickly. Many sites are
spidered or crawled, but not indexed, a major problem for new sites.
Let's first take a look at recent content strategies you can use to
write stronger articles. If you're not familiar with the next wave in
quality content scoring and relevancy for search engines, you need to
understand a little bit about search engine technology.
Google contains more than 100 algorithms that make it the world's most
popular search engine. One of those is PageRank, a complex voting
system I'll cover in a future article. Another important secret, which
has been around for a while, but not utilized by most webmasters, is
latent semantic indexing.
"Context" is the new buzzword for SEO in 2007. While you should still
write good, natural, user-friendly and relevant web copy, using some
simple LSI techniques can elevate your search engine ranking.
When using LSI, engines try to determine what the content or page is
about without specifically matching the search term text. It looks at
the document collection as a whole and examines which other documents
contain some of those same words. In simple terms, this means that as
you write and link to and from other pages and sites, search engines
using LSI will look at words and phrases that are contextually related
and try to figure out what you're writing about. So, if you're writing
about bait, poles, lures and tackle, you're probably addressing
fishing.
If you want to be ranked higher in the search engines, you should
write content and link profiles that have supportive text and anchor
text (links) using this "theme" approach. To find related keywords and
phrases, use a keyword research tool, like the Google AdWords Keyword
Tool. First type in your key terms into the Google search engine and
pick the first site that comes up. Then go to the Google AdWords
Keyword Tool, click the "Site-Related Keywords" tab and paste the URL
there. Study the results and use groups of related keywords with links
on your page to develop strong on-page factors.
Distributing Your Article
Writing an article that is topically related to your business and then
submitting it to article directories like ezinearticles.com,
goarticles.com and buzzle.com will pay off big.
Imagine the effect of getting a link from the Los Angeles or New York
Times. There isn't a sure-fire formula for achieving this, but
providing quality articles and adding your link in the resources box
of the article will allow search engines to find and index you faster.
If the content is interesting and newsworthy, the journalists may
start calling.
Yes, this could be a lot of work. But one option is to find a service
that can distribute your articles for little or no cost. I like
isnare.com; for a few dollars you can get your own distribution
credits. Once approved, they'll submit your article to hundreds of
directories. Watch your server logs for traffic and spider bots;
you'll see domains and search engine referrers very quickly.
Continue these efforts by writing press releases using similar
distribution mechanisms. I use services like prweb.com and
marketwire.com. SEO firms have developed a complete marketplace for
the SEO compliancy of press releases. They clearly understand the
power of submitting and distributing content and press releases. If
you don't know how to write a press release, hire somebody to help
you. You can go to sites like elance.com and guru.com to have
something written for $50.
If you haven't pursued these simple tactics for your SEO strategies,
you've been missing out on important traffic and business. There are a
number of resources for traffic acquisition and how-to-books on
building an internet presence. Outside of articles, press releases,
SEO and pay-per-click, there are social networks, blogs, paid links,
affiliate marketing, paid advertising, viral marketing, co-
registration and banner ads--certainly enough to keep you busy for a
while.
Jon Rognerud is a recognized authority on the subject of search engine
optimization and has spent more than 15 years developing websites and
marketing solutions at companies like Overture and Yahoo!. His
website, www.microsaw.com, provides a wealth of informative articles,
resources and complimentary e-mail courses on everything you'll ever
need to know about SEO and search marketing.
Sincerely,
Scott Richard Adams, CEO
e-Marketing Company