The Budget Webmaster?s 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings in Google

The Budget Webmaster's 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings in Google

You know the scenario. You get an occasional click from Google for a certain keyword. You go to find out why you aren't getting more clicks, and you find out that you're ranked in the 30's, 50's, or heaven forbid, the 300's. "Great", you think, "I finally get ranked for a good keyword and it's a worthless ranking".

Not necessarily.

If you got ranked for a keyword you wanted At All, the game's not over yet. If your site's content is geared towards that subject, you can get your ranking in search engines increased, at no cost. How?

The first thing you want to do is find out how well you are ranked for this keyword. For Google in particular, this used to be a difficult chore. In the old days of 2003, you'd spend your valuable time doing a search on your desired keyword, then a sub-search for your site, and crawling through pages of listings to find out exactly where you stood.

Now there is hope in the form of the following website. Direct your browser to:

http://www.googlerankings.com/index.php

You can use this site to find out what number you come up for in the Google listings, which can be very powerful information if used correctly. If you're ranked in the top 1000, you have a shot at raising your listing for that page by tweaking the page to be a little more relevant.

So, secondly, you have to know how good a shot you have at getting a better listing. Go to:

http://www.searchguild.com/difficulty/

I posted a tip about this a month ago, and it's also in the free optimization Guide I released the week of March 7th. It tells you how hard it is to rank well for certain keywords in Google. You'll need a free Google API key to use it.

Now that you know your chances, the third piece of information you need to know is how much traffic you can expect. Digital Point has a free tool that gives an approximation of how many hits per day a good ranking gets. Access it here:

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Okay, let's say everything checks out so far. You rank in the top 1000. The term you want won't be that hard to get, and will get you enough traffic per month to justify your efforts.

Our fifth step is to take the term you chose and optimize your page.

This site does periodic reports on the search engines, and their February report gives their analysis of what the best ranking pages in Google have in common. And as a free bonus, it will also tell you what Yahoo wants. Follow the following link for details-http://www.gorank.com

Now that you know what to shoot for, you need to know how the page you want will measure up- you need to calculate your keyword density. You can also do the sixth step at gorank.com - it has a free tool that will calculate it for you. Prepare your page with that in mind, re-upload, and you're almost done.

Great, you're all set. Now you should submit your site to Google, right?

Wrong. Absolutely not. If you can help it, you should never, ever submit any page of your site to Google. Let it find you. HOW it finds you can affect your page rank. I don't mean that there is a standard penalty for submitting. There's been speculation on that for a while but I have yet to prove it matters.

What I DO know from personal experience and testing on my member's sites, is that getting the Googlebot search engine spider to happen upon your site shaves up to 6 weeks off the standard time it takes for indexing. You can show up in Google in as little as 4 days.

Which site links to you can also affect your Google Page Rank. While this is not as important as it once was, it still carries significant weight? my site didn't start getting spidered on a daily basis until my Page Rank increased to 5.

So even if the spider comes to your site on a Monthly basis, you're better off waiting for the spider to come back by. That's the seventh step, let your page be re-discovered with it's great new changes.

And yes, there's an even faster, better way to get Google.com's search engine spider to re-index that page, but that's another article, isn't it?

For more free traffic tips, subscribe to her newsletter at ftdsecrets-subscribe@topica.com or visit her feed enabled blog: http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/blog

If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen!

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the search

engine world of late and there are lots of conspiracy
theories as to why these things happen.

It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs of
intrigue.

You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts'
thoughts on bulletin Boards -� hey you probably even read
things in newsletter articles!

Well I hope so anyway....

The big driver for webmasters currently appears to be
content and link building.�

While link building is important I don't believe it makes
Queen.� Maybe a Prince.� Content and links DO go hand in
hand but, without relevance,� the Kingdom is doomed. Sorry I
will stop the analogy now! :-)

If your site is about finance, then finance content is best
supported by finance link exchanges.� Relevance!

If your site is about finance, then finance content
supported by casino link exchanges from a PR8 site while in
the short term may help,?but all the signs are saying this
is not a long term strategy.

Okay,so what is the best strategy?

Keep EVERYTHING relevant.� It is that simple.�

Make sure that you only swap or link to sites that are
relevant to the content on your pages.� Yes I am suggesting
link exchanging on pages of your site not a links page.

Links pages seem to be being abused.� There are rumours that
pages called links, resources or partners are not passing
page rank. You could be wasting your time building links
that are not giving you any benefits!

Delivering relevant links from relevant content is the
future.

Look at sites such as www.bbc.co.uk or
www.independent.co.uk.� News sites have the right idea.
They have 2 or 3 relevant internal links to other
articles on the same topic or links to internal tools that
are related. These usually can be found at the right hand
side of the article.

They also then have weblinks or external links to sites of
interest that are related to the topic.� These are relevant!

Another benefit of this is that with a content rich site you
can add hundreds of links quite legitimately and really add
some value both to your Rankings and your users.

With a content-poor site it is difficult, you have to add
link pages or create a links directory. A five page site
will need to add 10 or 12 good link pages to compete and
even then with algorithm changes, this may not be prudent.

Having a site with 400 pages means you can easily add 3
links per page, so you have 1200 link options straight away.

Hopefully this explains that relevance runs a close second
to content.

Always bear in mind when writing content that relevant
links will not only boost your search engine rankings,
but you will also add a service to your visitors.

2004 � J2 Squared Limited. All Rights Reserved.

�Jason Hulott is Director of J2 Squared, leading specialists�in Internet Consultancy��whose specific aim is to drive more revenue�to websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance,�finance, and automotive industries.

Get Better Search Engine Rankings with RSS

RSS is the latest craze in online publishing. But what� exactly is RSS?

RSS or Rich Site Syndication is a file format similar to XML, and is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be universally understood.

RSS allows publishers to "syndicate" their content through the distribution of lists of hyperlinks.

It has actually been around for a while, but with the advent of spam filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming the choice of ezine publishers who want to get their message across to their subscribers.

However, not much attention has been given to the advantages RSS provides for search engine optimization.


Why Search Engines Love RSS

Many SEO experts believe that sites optimized around themes,or niches, where all pages correspond to a particular subject or set of keywords, rank better in the search engines.

For example, if your website is designed to sell tennis rackets, your entire site content would be focused around tennis and tennis rackets.

Search engines like Google seem to prefer tightly-themed pages.


But where does RSS figure in all this?

RSS feeds, usually sourced from newsfeeds or blogs, often correspond to a particular theme or niche.

By using highly targeted RSS feeds, you can enhance your site's content without having to write a single line on your own.

It's like having your own content writer - writing theme-based articles for you - for free!


How can RSS improve my Search Engine Rankings?

There are three powerful reasons why content from RSS Feeds is irresistible bait for search engine spiders.


1. RSS Feeds Provide Instant Themed Content

There are several publishers of RSS feeds that are specific to a particular theme.

Since the feed is highly targeted, it could contain several keywords that you want to rank highly for.

Adding these keywords to your pages helps Google tag your site as one with relevant content.


2. RSS Feeds Provide Fresh, Updated Content

RSS feeds from large publishers are updated at specific intervals. When the publisher adds a new article to the feed, the oldest article is dropped.

These changes are immediately effected on your pages with the RSS feed as well. So you have fresh relevant content for your visitors every hour or day.


3. RSS Feeds Result in More Frequent Spidering

One thing I never anticipated would happen as a result of adding an RSS feed to my site was that the Googlebot visited my site almost daily.
To the Googlebot, my page that had the RSS feed incorporated into it was as good as a page that was being updated daily, and in its judgement, was a page that was worth visiting daily.

What this means to you, is that you will have your site being indexed more frequently by the Googlebot and so any new pages that you add to your site will be picked up much faster than your competitors.

How does this benefit you as a marketer?

Well, for example, let's says a top Internet Marketer comes out with a new product that you review and write up a little article on, and that your competitors do the same.

Google generally tends to index pages at the start of the month and if you miss that update, you will probably need to wait till the next month to even see your entry in.

But, since your site has RSS feeds, it now gets indexed more frequently. So the chances of getting your page indexed quickly are much higher.

This gives you an advantage over the competition, as your review will show up sooner in the search results than theirs.

Imagine what an entire month's advantage could do to your affiliate sales!


Why Javascript Feeds Are Not Effective

Some sites offer javascript code that generates content sourced from RSS feeds for your site.

These are of absolutely no value in terms of search engine rankings, as the googlebot cannot read javascript and the content is not interpreted as part of your page.

What you need is code that parses the RSS feed and renders the feed as html content that's part of your page.

This is achieved using server side scripting languages like PHP or ASP.

A good free ASP script is available from Kattanweb
http://www.kattanweb.com/webdev/projects/index.asp?ID=7

An equally good PHP script is CARP
http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/

So in conclusion, besides optimizing on page and off page factors, adding RSS feeds to your pages should be an important part of your strategy to boost your search engine rankings.

Satyajeet Hattangadi is the CEO of Novasoft Inc, a software
solutions provider, that specializes in affordable
customized software solutions. http://www.novasoft-inc.com
Get the Free Email Course "RSS Riches" and learn how to use
RSS to get high search engine rankings and monetize your
website at http://www.trafficturbocharger.com