Crash course in getting a #1 Google ranking...

First, here's the rundown of some of the terminology I'm
going to use in this article -

Inbound Links - Links coming into your site

Outbound Links - Links leaving your site

Cross Links - Links that you have "traded" with another
site (ie, they've got a link from their site to your and
you've got a link from your site to theirs) PR (Page
Ranking) - Google's measure of how "important" your site is

SEO Is Not Dead

Ok, now lets talk about what you really want to hear - how
to get those coveted 1-10 ranks for your keywords. Remember
this - SEO is not dead. In fact, it is very much alive and
important.

The first thing to do in order to raise your site rank is
target specific keywords. I say specific, because you need
to target "keyphrases," meaning more than one word
keywords.

Some people use the words interchangeably (me included) so
just ignore one-word keywords altogether. You will waste
your money if you shoot for these, because chances are,
there are other, MUCH larger companies who already have you
beat, and will continue to have you beat unless you've got
a bottomless wallet.

Check Out Your Competition

Take this example, for instance, if you sell computers,
you should not try to optimize your site for the keyword
"computer" or "computers." First, think about all of the
businesses that do ANYTHING with computers. Yeah, that's a
lot. They'll all show up if you search for "computer." Now
try to think of who would show up at the top of that list.
I'll make it easy, it's Apple, Dell, Computer World,
Computer Associates, IEEE, Computer History Museum,
Webopedia, ASUSTeK, WhatIs.com, and HP.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I 99.9%
guarantee you that you'll never get into that top 10 list.
The HP link has almost 5,000 backlinks (discussed later)
and a PR of 7/10. Good luck.

Then What Should I Do?

So what should you try to target? Lets re-visit your
computer store. What types do you sell? PCs, ok, what
types of PCs?

Custom. Ok, that's a little better, "Custom Computers" is
still a vague keyword, though. (How many people build
custom computers?)

What kind of components do you use? Intel? AMD?
SoundBlaster? GeForce? There you go, that's a little
better - "Custom GeForce Computers." That returned 476k
results instead of our previous 633 million with
"Computer." Just a little bit less competition.

I Want More

Want to go further? Forget what types you sell, go for
what do your customers want. What do they use your
computers for? Gaming? Try "Custom Gaming Computers" -
There are 672,000 results here, but the #1 spot has a PR of
5/10 and only 41 backlinks. That shouldn't be too hard to
beat, we've just got to know who is linking to them, and
beat them at the backlink game.

Oh yeah, before we move on to beating the pulp out of your
competition, don't forget to SEO optimize your site for your
chosen keywords before spending any time on backlinks.
Otherwise, this next section won't mean much.

But I Digress.

Ok, now that your site is thoroughly optimized, how do we
find out who their backlinks are? Well, you can do it by
hand, or you can purchase a VERY helpful tool called SEO
Elite (http://www.GetSEOElite.com) that will analyze all of
the backlinks to a site (and more). But, since you don't
have SEO Elite yet, we'll do it the long way.

First, go to toolbar.google.com and download the Google
toolbar, this will save you some time. Ok, now type in your
keywords - "Custom Gaming Computers." The first link should
be overdrivepc.com (if it's not, then someone may have
already read this column and risen above them!) click to go
there.

When the page loads, go to your Google Toolbar, click on
Options > "More" Tab > Make sure the "Page Info" box is
checked. Then, click on the blue circle with the "i" in it.
(This is the aptly named: "Page Info") It should drop down
and allow you to select "Backward Links," choose it. Now
you should be looking at a Google search page again, but
this one is different, it only shows pages that link to
overdrivepc.com. (Wow, that's handy!)

At the time of this article, there are 41 pages that link
to the site, and you can view them all. Some are other
pages in the site, others are third parties.

Get Your Site Some Friends!

Follow each third party link and check out the page. Does
it have to do with your business? Would their visitors
benefit from coming to your site? (The answer is probably
yes) If so, email the webmaster - there should be an email
address somewhere on the site. Ask him or her if they would
link to your site. Be willing to trade links with them, or
to pay for a good link with a high PR.

That reminds me - look just to the left of the Page Info
icon on your Google toolbar, and you should see a green
bar. That is the Page Rank of the page you're currently on.
You want to target pages with higher page ranks than your
own, because for each of those sites that link to yours,
they effectively "give" you a little bit of their PR.

Kinda like in high school when the head of the
cheerleading squad flirted with the nerd in the hallway,
she "gave" him more popularity.

By the way, if you can manage to get a link from the #1 site
itself, do it!

Do this for all of these links you can, then move on to
the #2 listing for your keywords. Then #3, and so on. Don't
get discouraged if some webmasters don't reply to you, it
may take an email or two. If they say no, thank them for
their time and move on. I try my best not to burn any
bridges - you never know when you'll need to contact that
webmaster again, and if he remembers you were polite, that
will make you look good.

Whew, Finally Done.

This is a very easy way to move up the Google SERPS, no
"expertise" required, just good old-fashioned hard work. It
will take some time for Google to re-index those pages and
realize that they have a link to you now. And it will take
even longer for your PR to go up (from what I hear, it's
been around 3-4 months since the last PR change. But be
patient, get links upon links, and keep adding great
content to your site, and you will jump up in the SERPS by
leaps and bounds.

To Your Success, and Your #1 Website!

About The Author:

Jason a long time web developer and the owner of Premier
MicroSolutions, LLC. If you're looking for more articles
about getting higher Search Engine rankings, go to
http://www.Content-Articles.com and check out their great
directory of articles.

 

 

Not Getting the Profits You Expected? You Need to Get More Traffic To Your Website!

Discover the secrets of HIGH TRAFFIC websites and learn exactly how to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website so you can start earning a serious income!

Traffic is what determines whether you make $5 or $5,000 a month. Until you learn what it takes to get more traffic AND START DOING IT, you are NOT going to make any real money.

Discover How to Explode Your Income Now!