SUBMIT 2.0

The title of this article is a bit misleading. Getting top Google rankings is not always that difficult, but search engine optimization is a realm in which very few people consider themselves experts. Google is an ever-changing beast, so if you tackle Search Engine Optimization (SEO) the passé way, you and your site are dead.

There are two components to SEO that you need to know: the on-page factors and the off-page factors. Both components require the selection of good keywords, so if you’re not well-versed in the art of keyword research, then you should probably get well-versed before attempting to do SEO.

On-page optimization requires you to optimize your site for your keywords. A good way to start is to purchase a domain name which contains your main keywords. For example, TopGoogleRankings.com would be a great domain name to own if you were to create a blog or site around the topic of getting top Google rankings. Other on-page factors include your keyword density (frequency of your keyword per 100 words), image alt tags (what it says when you hover your cursor over an image), your title tag (what it says at the top of the browser when you’re at your website), and so on.

Off-page optimization is simple, but misleadingly so. You see, off-page optimization is pretty much all about getting backlinks, or one-way links which are pointing to your site from external sites. However, people still seem to have a lot of trouble getting backlinks, so what seems to be the problem?

Well, one problem is that not all links are equal. Some links are worthless and can actually harm your site’s rankings while others are incredibly powerful. Don’t get links from site’s which contain illegal or unethical content. Do get links from important and authority sites such as Squidoo, Wikipedia, and EzineArticles.

Getting links from Wikipedia is tricky because of their strict policies, so let’s talk about other ways to get backlinks from authority sites. Sites which have a high PageRank (PR), which is a measure of a site’s importance according to Google, are great places to get links from. PR-0 links are still good, but as you get closer and closer to PR-10, the links get exponentially better and better. Getting a link from Squidoo is easy: just create a lens (simple webpage) on Squidoo and include your link. Getting a link from EzineArticles is pretty straightforward: just include your link at the end of your article in the resource box.

Some other ways to get backlinks to your site include forum posting, social bookmarking, blog commenting, exchanging links with other sites, directory submission, software submission, RSS submission, etc. As mentioned earlier, SEO can be a complicated process and extremely tedious. This is why some people cringe when the term SEO gets mentioned.

Getting top rankings in Google is only impossible if you try to conquer a broad keyword such as “weight loss” or “golf”. You could backlink your heart out for years and still not reach the top of Google for those keywords. But when you drill deep into those niches, you’ll find keyword phrases which have far less competing pages, and suddenly, getting that coveted top spot won’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

Source: Ezinearticles

Filed under: Web-Site-SEO