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Get a Number One Google Ranking With This Simple Technique
You probably do this already - complete regular searches in Google for your key phrases and see how high you rank. It's well known that the first three results are far and away the sites that get the most clicks. If you can get one of the top three results in your key terms then you will have more targeted visitors coming to your site. If you can get the first result, well that is even better. Of course all your competitors want to do the same.
One of the great things about Google is that is updates quite frequently. That little GoogleBot is busy 24/7 indexing the web to make sure everyone gets the best answers to their search questions. I've recently been playing with a technique that I thought might be worth testing and because Google has updated so quickly I've been able to get a result within a few weeks, and I got the perfect result - a number one ranking for one of the key phrases I was after. In fact this technique worked so well that I got the number one result for a related search phrase too!
A Quick and Easy Google SEO Trick
The technique I used was to place an ad in a particularly highly ranked classified site. In this case it was the famous site Craigslist.org for London (http://london.craigslist.org/). This site is the original free classifieds trading community that has become a world wide phenomenon driven by word of mouth. But that's not important. What is important is that Craigslist is very popular and has a high PageRank, and most importantly you can place a free ad on the site anytime you want to. There are restrictions and limitations but it is easy to do, there is no reason you shouldn't make an ad or two. It's free promotion for your business that may happen to also help with your placement in Google SERPs.
Key Term: SERP - Short for Search Engine Results Page, the Web page that a search engine returns with the results of its search. The major search engines typically display three kinds of listings on their SERPs. Listings that have been indexed by the search engine's spider, listings that have been indexed into the search engine's directory by a human, and listings that are paid to be listed by the search engine.
A Practical Test
For testing I was after the search phrase "Thesis Proofreader" for my business site's thesis proofreading service. I entered the term into Google and noticed that a Craigslist entry was receiving a high result, but the subject and keywords were not highly targeted. However they were good enough to get a third page result in Google for that term. I went in and created a very simple ad in Craigslist that directly targeted my keywords and a week or two later I had the number one result for that term in the Google global SERP. Also because I had used the term "Essay" in the subject of the ad I managed to secure the first page result for "Essay Proofreader" as well. Not bad :).
A Bit Hit and Miss
I was surprised that it worked as well as it did but I know better than to expect that good a result every time. One important consideration in my test is that there just isn't much competition for my search phrase; hence it was easy to get the top result. If your market is more competitive your result likely won't be as good. Craigslist deletes ads in 45 days so it's not a permanent result either, you will need to keep going back to recreate your ad if you want to keep the result.
You should be sure to check the current results in Google to see if any free listing sites like Craigslist are pulling up high results for your terms. If you have some advertising cash to spend, see if any pay-for-entry directories or classifieds are pulling high results too. If there are then there is a good chance that if you create a well targeted ad you will have positive results.
It's important to do search research first so you know which city listings in Craigslist are pulling the high results. Ideally for an online business that can service the world you would have a Craigslist listing for every city, but that just may not be feasible and may break the Craigslist rules anyway. With search research you determine which city is pulling the best results for your terms, which could be caused by a whole number of reasons - backlinks to that particular Craigslist city, key terms - the amount of variables to consider are beyond human comprehension, let Google handle that and just take the results on face value.
Take the time to locate the best city based on current search results and place your entry in that city at the very least. If your business is specifically targeted at a geographical area then it is a good idea to do a comprehensive ad in your Craigslist city (if available) as well, it certainly won't hurt.
It's also important to note that there is nothing stopping competitors doing the same thing as you. The SEO war may spread into Craigslist and muddy the site, which would no doubt prompt a clampdown on commercial listings in Craigslist. Perhaps this technique is best for those operating in small or unique industries since it is unlikely that competitive action will ruin it for everyone.
Also note that Google itself is a completely uncontrollable variable in this equation. Google may decide that it will no longer count Craigslist entries. Maybe it will decide to only index for certain terms. Just accept that you can't control what Google decides to do, but you can test to see what results you can get. Not trying guarantees no results.
It's Too Easy Not to Test
There is no good reason not to use this technique. Classified sites want listings, it's what they do. You may or may not achieve better search engine results but at the least there is a chance that a browser may stumble across your ad and come shopping at your business. It takes very little time and usually is free so get out there and start creating those free ads. Just remember to use the right keywords and don't go overboard, you don't want all your incoming links to come from free directories because in the long run Google may penalise your results.
By Yaro Starak
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
Do you want to profit from your own successful home based Internet business?
Learn from Yaro Starak, a young entrepreneur from Australia. He works part time from home on several web based business that generate between $2,000 and $8,000 per month. Get your free articles and audio now - visit his Internet Business Blog.
SEOing A Flash Intro
Introduction
Get A Top Position In Google In Three Days!
So how do you get a top listing in Google and how do you get into Google quickly.
The Search Engine Showdown
If you're anything like me, you have a favourite search engine and you're loyal to it. You never use any others (which made this research difficult for yours truly), insist yours is the be-all and end-all and you even go so far as to deny any shortcomings it may have. But is your search engine truly the best? Inspired by a great article at the BBC News (BBC News: Search Wars), we decided to compare the major search engines. Here's what we found.
Designing a Better System for Search Engines
Designing a Better System for Search Engines and Information Distribution, information and knowledge are power. Having run out of things to study today, I thought about Researching and Research. Here are some observations on R and R. If you owned a body shop that would be remove and replace. For many Americans it is rest and relaxation, but for Wash Guys it is now researching Research (ing) and/or (ers). I believe that Search engines are getting better as that business model continues to perform before, during and after the Internet Bubble. However I believe they can do better.
The Google Phenomenon: Greatest Hits Collection
As my readers know, I've been one of Google's harshest critics. However, I'm also a firm believer that it's okay to criticize, as long as it's justifiable and fairly balanced with deserved praise.
Monitor Your Visibility in Google, MSN, and Yahoo with these DIY SEO Tools
This is the second part of an article series in which you'll find many tools that you can use to monitor your site's search engine position and see how your do-it-yourself search engine optimization efforts are coming along. The following tools are for monitoring your search results in the three major search engines. It isn't an all-inclusive list, but rather a highlight of some of the tools you can use. (I'll point you to one of the master lists when we get into more general tools in part three.) Using Your Google Site Information Page I've covered this in an earlier article, but just in case you missed it, we'll go over it again briefly here. (If you need more help following along, you can listen to one of my recent podcasts for a convenient audio walkthrough.) Open up your browser and go to Google's home page. Type in info:yoursitenameandsuffix. So if your site was ExactSeek.com you'd type info:exactseek.com. You can also use site:yoursitenameandsuffix to find out which pages have been indexed by Google's search engine spider. This search will tell you pages that Google considers similar to yours. It will also show sites that it considered linked to you, and show sites that carry your full url, hyperlinked or not. It's not 100% accurate as far as telling you all the sites that are linked back to yours, but what you can learn from this is which backlinks matter. From here you can also see the last day Google spidered your home page. To see this in action, click on the first group of information links, "Show Google's cache of yoursitename.com" If you look next to the word "cached" one the first line, the date is expressed also. Sometimes it seems that the cached time for yoursitename.com and www.yoursitename.com are different, so be sure and check both. Finding Information About Your Site In Yahoo http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/tips/tips-08.html This document will tell you how to find out what sites are linking to you, give you the results for how many pages of your site are in Yahoo, and more. Once you get to the results page, you'll be able to view your cached pages, etc. Discovering Your Site's Status on MSN http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx As the page in the help section states, you can use site:www.yoursitehere.com to find out if a document at your site has been indexed. The results page will also give you the date of last caching. Google Rankings http://www.googlerankings.com You'll need a free Google API key for this one, and the site has the direct link telling you where to get one. You'll have to enter this key in order to query the site for information on Google. With Google Rankings, you'll be able to see where you rank within the top 40-1000 results in Google for a given keyword. I recently noticed that it also displays results for MSN and Yahoo, with links to each search engine. They also have some other tools that will track your keywords over time, as well as one they call the "Ultimate SEO Tool" that will measure your site's keyword density. Google Backlinks Checker http://lilengine.com/tools/backlinks-tool.php LilEngine.com's Backlink Checker will measure the number of links you have pointing back to your site against competing sites. Handy if you just want a quick comparison of how many links you have versus others, though how much getting more links back will help varies, depending on other factors. Yahoo Search Rankings http://www.yahoosearchrankings.com/ From the same folks who brought you Google Rankings, using Yahoo Search Rankings, you'll be able to see where you rank within the top 1000 results in Yahoo for a given keyword. If you just want to see your Yahoo rankings, it's quite helpful. You can find more Yahoo tools that use the Yahoo Web API at their developer's site : http://developer.yahoo.net/wiki/index.cgi?ApplicationList.. In the next part of the article, we'll take a closer look at other tools that give you more specific information about the links pointing back to your site, keyword research, and more.
SEO for CEOs ? Search Engine Optimization Unmasked for CEOs
If you're like most other CEOs, the term "search engine optimization" will mean very little. Either that or it means expense! But it doesn't have to be that way? If you feel like you're standing in a dark room handing money to strangers to get you in the search engines, then this article is for you.
Your Top Search Rankings at Yahoo & MSN Search are Worthless
It seems I now do this rant every single year when traffic statistics are discussed in web industry news. Last week I posted to my Reality SEO blog that referred traffic numbers are the only statistic that webmasters should be concerned about when looking at their search engine rank. I wrote about this last year after ComScore Media Metrics statistics were relased discussing Search Engine Queries generated by each search property. http://searchengineoptimism.com/Google_refers_70_percent.html
How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 3
Question 1
Google Is Not Only A Search Engine!
When you now organize a street interview and ask people "What is Google", I assume more than 90 percent of the people answer that Google is a search engine. Indeed, Google is a search engine and it is probably its core business, but Google is much more!
The Power of Search Engine Friendly URLs
I recently invested quite some time into generating search engine friendly URLs for several of my websites to increase my ranking and to have more pages indexed. I can highly recommend to look into this if your own website does not have se-friendly URLs. Especially Google (the most important search engine nowadays) can be very picky in regards to URLs that are not se-friendly.
A Way for Search Engines to Improve
Wouldn't it be nice if the search engines could comprehend our impressions of search results and adjust their databases accordingly? Properly optimized web pages would show up well in contextual searches and be rewarded with favorable reviews and listings. Pages which were spam or which had content that did not properly match the query would get negative responses and be pushed down in the search results.
Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!
Don't share this with people of a nervous disposition because I really can't restrain myself any longer.
Beyond the Box with Googles Web API
Google, the most popular, and many say best, search engine, offers searchers many options to help them zero in on just what they're looking for. Although these search modifier features are documented on own site, many searchers, including experienced marketers and technically savvy people, simple don't know these features are available. But these features, along with the Google search box, are only available to human searchers, who can type in their search parameters, and perhaps some keyboard scripting programs as well. But there is a way for programmers and web site designers to access Google's database from their own sites, in the exact way they need. This is done by using Google's Web API (Application Program Interface).
Search Engine Marketing Simplified
All the great efforts made for making your own site, goes in vain when your site doesn't bring you business. The reasons can be anything right from less traffic, to less page-per-views, or lesser PageRank. Upon serendipity of elaborating all of the above said problems, I would land up in search engine marketing basics.
Supply & Demand - Stop Attacking Good SEO Companies!
As I read the latest news online about what Google has done to many webmasters all over the world, I am left discussed towards some of the comments people are making against SEO Companies.
Reciprocal Links to Boost Link Popularity ?
Link popularity means the number of incoming links pointing to your website. This is one of the criterical factor that rank the search results. If you are have link on website with high PageRank (PR4+), you will benefit from it and your ranking will boost.
Five Simple Steps to Getting Links to Your Site
Today if you want your site to survive in the search engines your going to need backlinks. Almost all the major search engines rank sites based on the number and the quality of backlinks. Besides getting a good search engine ranking with links, it also one of the most effective ways to increase a site's traffic. So, how do you build your link popularity? In this article I'll show you 5 simple steps that will help you build your site's link popularity.
SEO Expert Guide - Keyword Analysis (part 3/10)
If you imagine that building an optimized site is like cooking a meal, then keywords are the essential ingredients. Would you attempt to cook a complex new dish without first referring to a recipe? Would you start before you had all the ingredients available and properly prepared?
Reciprocal Linking Scams, What to Look for and How to Avoid Them
Reciprocal linking scams have increased immensely during the past year. Initially we thought that this problem only related to gambling and casino related websites but an audit of our commercial link partners suggests that it is a serious problem within the broader online community. Over the past eighteen months, we noticed that our page rank was slowly declining despite the fact that we were continually adding new link partners to our link directory. We had slipped from a five down to a two before we finally identified the exact cause of the problem. Out of the first 100 links on our anchor site, only seven were still being reciprocated. We recrawled the sites where no link was found with a second spider and got exactly the same result. Then we started manually checking the sites where no link back was found and started discovering patterns of deliberate link fraud. The scams in order of popularity amongst the scammers ? 1. The link on the home page to the link directory remained but clicking on it or specific directory links produced a template style page with a few casino banners or simply a page with no directory content ? This scam was most popular with the owners of multiple domains with the .co.za and .co.uk suffixes 2. The link on the home page to the link directory remained but clicking on gambling or casino related links returned a list of links to sites owned solely by the same person or company. The worst offenders in this group preferred domain extensions of .biz, .us and .md 3. The link directory index page remained but the link directory had been severely pruned and most remaining links were to the site owners other sites or to casinos. This one is common across all suffixes. 4. Links not clickable ? links to the directory and various pages within the directory remained intact. At the time of their link exchange campaign, their links were clickable but at some stage after that the code that makes the link clickable was removed and the site name was placed in bold text so at a glance it appeared to be a legitimate clickable link. This scam is most favored by sites that place a miniature screen shot of the index page of your site beside your back link. 5. A variation of the previous scam. When you run your mouse pointer over the page, the 'links' change color but no URL displays in the search bar at the bottom of your browser window. Right click has been disabled on the page so that most people looking at the page cannot see the code. If you use Dreamweaver MX or later, highlight the part of the page you want to look at and then using Control C copy it to the clip board and then use Control V to paste it into the design side of a basic Dreamweaver page. When you click on code you can see what they were attempting to stop you seeing. It may work in the later versions of similar authoring programs. Worst offenders are a poker room and a media company operating out of India. 6. One way link exchanges ? usually you are contacted by a search engine optimization company or the SEO person for a large group of websites offering you multiple one way link exchanges with half of their sites if you will link back to the other half of their sites. After a few weeks or months the links to your sites are deleted. The worst offender in this group is a prominent search engine optimization company located in India. 7. Your link starts out on a page with fair page rank usually attached to a domain with high page rank. But after a few weeks is moved to a boon docks page with no page rank that will never be indexed. ? common amongst higher PR sites. 8. The link directory is on another domain with no page rank. When you click on the link to the directory on the home page, always watch the bar in the bottom of your browser window and see that the link you clicked is in fact on the domain with which you are exchanging links ? watch especially for domain names that are very similar e.g. one letter different in the spelling or a .net instead of a .com and link pages that are hosted on the domain of a link management company. Also watch for redirects. If suspicious go back and click the link again. Often the redirected URL flashes up for only an instant or it just takes an inordinate time for the page to load compared to other pages on the site. If in doubt search for a site map - very popular with some owners of multiple bingo sites. 9. Sub domains of domains with no page rank. Sub domains are supposed to always rank lower than the parent domain. (Of late I have found a few sub domains with up to PR3 attached to a domain with no page rank) If the parent domain has a page rank of zero then link pages attached to that sub domain will almost always be zero so why trade a good link for a dud link? 10. We have never fallen for any in this group but many novice webmasters do so regularly. Beware of high PR sites offering you a link exchange on one of their inconsequential internal pages with the same PR as your index page in return for you placing a graphic link to their index page on your index page. This is a deliberate attempt to steal your hard earned traffic. A variation of this one is they have a number of new sites listed on their index page each month and visitors are encouraged to vote for the site they consider to be the best and you are asked to ask your visitors to vote for your site at the high ranked domain. The purpose is still the same as in the first example in this group. 11. We no longer trade links with sites using Linksmanager unless the link to our site is to be on a hard coded page. You can search in their search box for their link to your site and if they are still linking to you, your URL and site description will be returned but no information to show which page your link is on. Google usually indexes only a few pages in each category of dynamically generated link directories. If your link has not been added to an indexed page, it is unlikely to ever end up on one. When we had a large number of indexed back links, no link manager links were ever returned in a back link querry. 12. Be wary of link exchange requests from webmasters using anonymous e-mail addresses because when they delete your back link they also delete the anonymous e-mail address. 13. Beware of webmasters with PR 5 or above sites offering you a link exchange with a high PR site and an inspection of their link directory suggests that your link will end up on a non indexed page i.e. a useless link that is unlikely to ever improve. If the link exchange was with a PR 2 or 3 site there is at least reasonable potential for the PR of the page to increase if the link directory has been fairly constructed. Reduce exposure to link scams To reduce your exposure to such scams it is essential to carefully vet all potential link partners in the first instance. Enter link back partner details in a database. As an absolute minimum, enter their URL, the location of the link back on their site, the page rank of the page on which your link is located, the date of the link exchange and a real e-mail address for the contact person. Use a good link checking program monthly and contact offenders as soon as you find your link is missing from their site. This is now essential to keep link partners honest. This problem is a direct consequence of the current page rank system and fierce competition for top rankings. It is easier to retain existing link partners than to continually find new ones. Points to look for when Assessing Potential Link Partners Before trading links, look carefully at the other site ? 1. If there is no link to the link directory on the index page ?Reject. You will get no traffic from that site. 2. Look at the structure of their link directory and count the number of clicks from their index page to where their link to you is likely to be located and then deduct that number from the PR of the site's index page. If that page is PR3 and there are three clicks to get to the page on which your link will be located, that page will have a PR0. That link will be worthless unless the site gets a minimum of a PR4. 3. If you have not already done so, download Google's tool bar. If the page rank bar is grayed out, when you are looking at a site, never trade links with that site. The grey bar is said to indicate that the site is banned by Google. I do not know if that is true but I have only ever seen two sites produce grey bars. 4. A growing number of sites with dynamically generated link directories have no page rank on any link pages even though the directories are often constructed in such a way that you would expect the page to rank to be 2 points below the home page. I do not know how most are achieving this. The visible way is to have multiple folders and index pages leading to the links pages and the number of clicks from the home page destroys any potential page rank for the link page. A rare method is to add a no index command for the link directory in their robots.txt file. Just remember links to such sites are one way links from your site to their site. You give them a good link and they give you a worthless link. A link on a page with a PR0 is a non indexed link and carries no value regardless of the page rank of the index page of the site to which it is attached. When you do a back link check on your domain in Google, you will notice that very few links to your domain that are on Google indexed pages with a PR of less than four are returned in your list of back links. This is why I and others consider that Google now discounts the value of such links. For indexed pages, count the number of links on the page. The first factor in determining the value of the link is the page rank of the page on which it is located. The second factor is the number of links on the page. The value of the link to you is roughly the page PR divided by the number of links. Of course no one outside of a chosen few at Google knows the actual formula but that is a rough approximation and the reason most webmasters will not trade links with sites with more than 40 links to a page unless the page has a very high PR. A link on the bottom of a good content page is always better value than a link on a directory page as more people are likely to click on it. When on the receiving end of a link exchange request, do not hesitate to ask for your link to be placed on a specific page and do not hesitate to reject link requests from sites that do not adhere to basic acceptable linking practices. When considering link requests from new sites, look at any other sites that belong to or have been built by the webmaster proposing the link exchange. Most importantly, look to see if existing link pages have been indexed and the structure of the directory. This will be a good indicator of what to expect for the new site. When you create your own link directory, consider a hand edited directory with the links at the same level as the rest of the pages on your site. That way your link pages will be only one point below your index page and you will attract more link requests because of that. Many high PR sites will not trade links with you unless you can place their link back on a minimum of a PR4 page. That way you can start shooting for the top once your index page makes a 5 as opposed to a 7 with the way many link directories are set up. When you are shooting for the top, it helps you get those high pr links you need to make it to the top.