Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

Best way to be sure you rank on the first page of search results is with paid search advertising.

Suggestion: Test, test, test your copy. Follow all advertising copy guidelines and rules.

The key to the best method of ranking your website on google first page rests almost exclusively with the quality of the content on your website. If your content is not of a very high quality or standard, search engines like Google & others will not give it due respect. Search engines are quite unforgiving and the reality is that they can only work with the material that you provide through the website.

Have you analysed the content of your competitors’ websites? That is a good place to start in a content review. After all, those websites are the websites you are wanting to beat. Once you have quality content, you can white hat your SEO through an expert consultant as well as use paid advertising through your social media platforms.

The golden role is that no matter what SEO strategy you wish to adopt, success depends upon the quality of your content.

Keep in kind that first page ranking is per search word, not a general thing. You could get first listing for one search term, and not be on the top-10 pages for a second term. Choose your terms wisely.

Also keep in mind this is as much art as science, as the algorithm Google and the others use is secret, nd are constantly tweaking how they do it (also without telling us).

One areas I have heard makes a big differences is using the search term of choice in places that the search bot can read is a very good way to get improved listing. These locations include the URL itself, heads, body text, IMG ALT text, etc. And Iisted in what i think is the order of how it would benefit you - having the search term in the URL gives you more of a boost than a term in a headline, which is more than if in the body

The exception, I have heard, is that the words in non-shown areas (comments, etc.) don't count, and may even detract from your ranking if Google thinks you are stuffing keywords in just for SEO benefits.

Terms in the URL are supposed to be worth a lot. But it also matter where in the URL. If you own Red Wing Shoes, having a URL of redwing.com/shoes will help you on the term "shoes". But having redwingshoes.com would be better for the term "shoes", as google is supposed to prioritize search terms that are in the main URL over terms that are in the subpages. But using subpages is a way to bring in more keywords: e.g redwingshoes.com/workshoes, redwingshoes.com/sneakers, etc. would let you improve your search on work shoes, sneakers, etc.

Having the words inside an image (as in part of the image) won't help you. This is commonly done now, as a web designer will make a beautiful page with a fancy slider. Looks great, but you don't get the SEO benefit of anything written in the slider images.

Having links pointing to your page, and links from your page to other pages off your site, are supposed to help. Google takes into account the keyword value of those pages and it can add to your page. But quality matters. Supposedly they are watching for link farms and downgrading those they think are doing that.

What related terms do you want to rank your site for and how many sites are you competing against? What kind of landing pages will you use to drive traffic to? Your main page needs some sort of hook because from a casual glance at your site, it's not instantly clear what you're offering.