5 Things To Do To Get Better Rankings In The Search Engines

Getting to the top of the search engines is a daunting task. Just when you move up the ranks, the search engines change their algorithms to stay ahead of the people trying to trick their way to the top. This can cause your site to plummet – even if you are a legitimate company.

What can you do today to help increase the odds of your site staying in the top rankings?

1. Linking is king.
Linking your site up with other relevant sites gains you higher positioning. Don’t just link up with friends and acquaintances. Find quality sites within your field of the wedding industry that will link to you. Search engines concentrate on text. If your site is primarily selling wedding photography, linking up with a florist or a bridal consultant would be a very relevant link.

2. Create new website pages.
A website should grow and change over time. Add articles to your website. Add relevant information that will provide a better quality website to your viewers. Be sure each page, and all information, adds relevance to your overall business plan.

3. Placement of your keywords.
What words best describe your business? Use those words liberally throughout your website. Place them in your meta description and your meta tags. Is your keyword a part of your URL? All the better. Anywhere you can legitimately use your keywords, use them to add relevance to your website. One word of caution. Use your keywords throughout good copy. Just repeating your keyword over and over again may actually penalize you from a search engine’s database. Search engines look for good quality information that will provide searchers with value each time they conduct a search.

4. Get listed.
Are you in all of the search engines? While Google and Yahoo make up about 70% of the total search engine databases used, there are still many other engines out there to list your URL. Also list your site in major directories, like DMOZ.org, About.com, and DirectoryGuide.com.

5. Keep building.
When you have one site up and running, consider adding more sites to break out your product lines. Breaking out your product lines give you more control over who you’re marketing each line to, and provide you with an automatic linking mechanism. The more specific you can make the text on each site, the higher you will rank overall. So, if you are a florist and you specialize in weddings and corporate accounts, consider making a website for each, catering to those specific parts of your business.