How to Rank High on Google?

To rank high on Google, your website has to be measured by
“500 million variables and 2 billion terms” of Google’s equation,
as stated on Google’s Corporate Information Technology Overview
page. Google’s ranking system is based on a democracy, and the
citizens are the links on the worldwide web that vote for
each other. Not unlike our government today, many of these
“links” are paid for, and some are of greater value. Ranking
high on Google is playing politics. Links and Keywords are the
key players in the ranking game. Google also takes into
consideration the full content of the page including HTML
codes, fonts, subdivisions and the “precise location of each
word.”

Links are votes. You must develop a link strategy. Google
likes linking things together. Create a rich network of links
with distinct quality content. Your website must have quality
links going out and coming in. Quality is the key word. Links
from reputable pages (which ironically includes .gov pages)
are given more weight than links on “link farm” pages. Linking
to a “link farm” is one of the worst things you can do and can
potentially get your deported off the web. The better the links,
the better your ranking. Google will factor in your page content
and the content of the pages you link to. Do your research.
Google has a free page rank tool on their toolbar. Use it to
find out the page ranking and visit the site.

Google also gives more weight to one-way links that lead to your
site, and less weight to reciprocal links. How do you get these?
Buy them. List yourself in a reputable directory
listing. Make sure you are listed in the Open Directory Project
(DMOZ.org). If you can’t buy links, write good content. Give
someone a reason to link to your site. Again, the keyword is
Quality. Submitting articles and press releases are also
strategies in the linking game.

Keywords are your platform. They are what you stand for. Words
count. Graphics don’t. Make sure your words are not in graphic
form and make sure you have relevant titles under your graphics.
Start with your title tag. Put everything you stand for in ten
words or less. Make your URLs short and keyword specific.
Brand yourself. If you type in soda, Mountain Dew will not show
up on the first page. If you type in Mountain Dew, it will
be on the first page. Brand yourself so users know what they
are searching for. Do not put the same words in every heading
and every tag. Be descriptive. Sell yourself. There are
multitudes of free keyword rank and suggestion tools. Use them
as a supplement to your knowledge of your company.

Think of every element in your website as words and pages
in a presentation that is going to be up for a vote. Does
everything fit? Is it all related? Are you a reputable
company with a quality product? Does it sell? Now sell it.
Google is waiting for you.

Avoid These 7 Link Building Mistakes

Everywhere you look today, there’s some SEO Guru trying to tell you what to do and what not to do when building links. It’s no secret that SEO experts agree on very little. A recent survey at SEOMoz proved that point.

If the top SEO experts around the World can not come to an agreement about what should or should not be done when building links, then what is the every day Joe supposed to do?

Rand surveyed the Top 37 SEO experts in the World. Basically the Survey is a series of questions asked to each expert. This group of experts could not come up with an agreement rating more than 1 on many of the questions!

So now that we know the experts can’t agree, I might as well tell you the mistakes I’ve made plus the ones I see done by many Webmasters.

Failing to procure reciprocal links. I’ve seen so called SEO Guru’s say that reciprocal linking is dead and they will hurt your site. This just isn’t so. The important thing to remember is to make sure they links your trade are from quality sites. It doesn’t matter if they’re PR0, just make sure they’re not from a spam/adult/pharmacy/hate type site. Reciprocal links can be on a resource page if you run a website or a Blogroll for you bloggers. Just remember to trade!

Failing to acquire low PR links. For some reason, many Webmasters do not want PR0 sites linking to them. This is link building suicide! One day, those PR0 sites could be the next PR5 or better. Frankly, I don’t care who links to my sites. I can’t control it and if they’re passing any amount of authority, which even PR0 pass some, I’ll take it. It also looks natural when you have many more low authority sites pointing to your site than all high PR sites.

Failing to link out. Once again, we’re talking about making your site look natural to the Search Engines, especially Google. Authority sites link out to other authority sites. Google expects to see this. I can’t tell you how many times Ive had a site stuck in the SERPS only to get a little boost when I linked to a higher authority site. So link out to authority sites!

Failure to check your reciprocal link partners websites. Once you exchange links with someone, you need to follow up on a routine basis and make sure the link back to your site is still there. Some sites go down, accounts are closed, domains let expired and purchased by someone else, Webmasters changing website topics and some Webmasters simply taking your link down after you exchange links. I’ve seen people put the “nofollow” attribute on the links after they’ve made a trade. I’ve seen it all happen, that’s why I monitor my link partners and you should also.

Failing to use Anchor text in your link. If someone gives you the opportunity to use Anchor text in the link back to your site, use it! In my opinion, anchor text in a backlink is the second biggest off page ranking factor for seo. Only the relevancy and authority of the page where the backlink originates is more important in my experience.

Failing to cover up your paid link footprints. Look, from here to the end of time, people will sell links. And from here to the end of time, Google will be trying to find paid links. And from here to the end of time, you’ll see blogs, websites and blog networks (think Backlink Solutions) get de indexed for selling links. If you’re going to buy or sell links, you’d better be hiding your footprint or Big Daddy G is going to find you one dark, cold and stormy night. There are several ways of hiding your footprint, I covered one way in my link laundering article a few weeks ago.

Failing to build links. I see people on the forums all the time asking how they should go about link building or how to get started link building. Many say they don’t know how and so they don’t even try. People! I hate link building as much as the next person, but it’s not Rocket Science. You may be able to rank high in a low competitive keyword niche with on-page SEO, but for a competitive niche where’s there’s money to be made, you’re going to need some relevant backlinks!

TIP: One of the most effective link building strategies you can perform is to find out who’s linking to your competition and get links from them. You simply go to Google and type in link:yourcompetitorssite,com. You’ll then get a list of sites that are linking to your competitors site. Browse that site to see if there is a place to put a link to your own site at. If not, simply Contact the person running the site and ask kindly for a link. Many times they will not respond, but some will. Now, out of those sites, do the same thing. See who’s linking to them and get links from those sites!

This is probably the easiest way to get relevant backlinks but it’s a technique very few Bloggers and Webmasters use!