Search Engine Optimization Checklist: How to Get Top Rankings in Google Search Results for Free

admin    Google     Checklist, Engine, FREE, Google, Optimization, Rankings, Results, Search

Do you want to discover top search engine optimization strategies so you can get top rankings in Google, Yahoo and MSN search results for free?

Of course you do!

According to Marketing Sherpa, almost 134 million people in the U.S. regularly use search engines when looking for information online. And of that number, 63% look ONLY at the first page of results — at most!

In fact, almost 25% of all American searchers look only at the first few listings and completely ignore the rest.

So How Do You Get Your Website in the Top Listings?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the umbrella term for all the different strategies you can use to try to earn top rankings in the listings of the free search engines like Google and Yahoo. These are called “organic” or “natural” listings.

To make SEO work for you, it’s important to pay close attention to how search engine spiders index or list web sites, and then use that information to direct the way you want the search engines to index YOUR web site.

When you’re just getting started with SEO, it can seem a little overwhelming to know where to begin.

Top Key Search Engine Optimization Strategies You Should Begin With

Find the hottest keywords for your market/website: Choose effective keywords. This MUST be the starting point for any and all SEO efforts. You’re better off to go with “long-tail” keyword phrases that answer a specific question instead of general terms, e.g., “wash big longhaired dog” rather than “dog shampoo.”
Plug keywords into the right locations in your copy and code: Give the search engines the information they need in all the right places. Your website is full of “hotspots” the spiders check regularly for keywords. In your code you’ll want to put your main keywords for each page in the:
Title tag
Heading and subhead tags (H1, H2, etc.)
Meta description
Image tags
Alt text

And if at all possible, have a keyword-rich URL too!

Always ensure that your content relates to the keywords you’re using: If you sprinkle keywords like “guaranteed weight loss” throughout your website, but your site sells shoes, you definitely won’t be helping yourself.

Even if your keywords are all over the site, the search engines won’t rank you for those words because the rest of the content on the site has nothing to do with the subject. If you offer a number of products, try creating different keyword-rich pages for specific items you have for sale.
Keep the “spiders” coming back with frequent new or updated content: The more fresh and relevant content search engine spiders find, the higher the spiders are likely to rank your site. How do you keep them interested?

Keep all the copy on your pages current, including any changes or updates to your business or products. Make sure to archive any newsletters or bulletins you send out on your site.

For even more “spider food”, try starting a blog or forum on your website to keep traffic heading back for daily updates and discussion.

Collect links from other sites that are considered reputable and relevant: Search engines love natural, relevant inbound links. If you really want to improve your results, you’ll want to avoid “link farms” and bought links. Focus your strategy on politely requesting one-way links from sites with high natural ranking in the search engines.

Distributing free articles and press releases is also a great way of gaining quality inbound links to your site. Services like PR Leads Article Marketing Experts will help you build link popularity and simultaneously get you more targeted traffic, leads and sales.

And don’t forget the power of social networking! By taking part in online communities or uploading your videos to sites like YouTube, you can not only drive new traffic to your website, you can get new sites linking to yours.

Use a sitemap to boost your ranking in Google, Yahoo, AND Windows Live Search: Sitemaps help the spiders find their way through all your pages.

And with the new sitemaps formatting protocol, these three search titans are giving website owners more clues than ever before on how to help the spiders index their sites.

SEO should be at the core of your overall Internet marketing strategy. It’s one of the most inexpensive and effective approaches available to you. In fact, much of what you can do to optimize your web site for the organic search engines is totally FREE. And, there are many more search engine optimization strategies you can learn and apply to get top search engine rankings in Google, Yahoo and MSN!

If you enjoyed this article please consider sharing it!