 Almost all webmasters or website owners are looking for ways to get better results from their websites. They want to improve their site's standing and get better search engine rankings. This quest for better results, otherwise known as search engine positioning, can be satisfied by following some basic procedures.
Before you begin, realize that you are competing against hundreds, and in some categories, thousands of websites offering similar products and services. In the case of affiliate marketing, many competing sites may be identical! If you want to outpace these competitors and improve your search engine standing, you must optimize your website and actively work to make it even better.
1. Make sure your design is search engine friendly.
Your design may look good to your eyes, but it can also be the cause of your difficulties and poor search engine placement. how is that possible? Look at your webpage using a text editor or HTML view of popular editors like Dreamweaver and Frontpage. On which line does the first line of the copy begin? If your physical copy is pushed to the bottom of the page, it will be more difficult for search engines to capture the critical information that would help you improve your web page ranking.
If you have this difficulty, first remove all unnecessary spaces in the HTML code. If there are long strings of java script, put them in external files. Similarly, put style information into external cascading style sheet files. It may also help you to simplify your table structure. If this starts to get too difficult for you, consult a professional who specializes in search engine positioning or your web designer.
2. Make sure you place your keywords strategically in your copy:
Web page ranking cannot be improved if the readable version of your web page does not contain the words you wish to find. Many people incorrectly believe that simply putting your important keywords in the meta tags is enough. This is not true, some search engines rarely use meta tags and look more at the copy on the page. Make sure your important copy is in the first paragraph of text, in headings (using headers like H1, H2, and H3), and in the active or clickable parts of anchor text on your page.
3. Use sitemap and text link navigation on your pages:
If you want to improve your search engine position for all pages of your website, you need to make sure that those pages are already indexed or included in search engines. You can help with this process by creating a sitemap, which is a webpage that contains text links to all of the subpages of your site. Another good practice is to include a text link navigation system on your web pages, even if you already have a graphics-based navigation bar elsewhere on those same pages. Remember that search engines follow text links more easily. A bot that lands on your homepage or sitemap page will follow the text links and then visit and index the lower-level pages.
4. Increase the quantity and quality of inbound links:
In highly competitive categories, it will be difficult to improve the ranking of your web pages without getting a large number of links to your page from other websites. If you have a very good, valuable copy, other sites may link to you because you are a valuable resource. However, if you want to speed up this process, you will have to request active links from other websites, either via trading links or by placing your content (with a link back to your site) on other websites.
When it comes to links, you should keep one important principle in mind: it is not the number of links that matters, but the quality. One good link from an authority site like CNN or Wikipedia is worth more than dozens of links from other sites. To get these quality links, there is no shortcut. You will have to earn it by having a site that provides a lot of useful information.
5. Keep up with developments in the search engine:
The challenge is to improve web page ranking and dynamic search engine positioning. Search engines are not static. Most of the big search engines of yesterday are either gone or are just small players today. You should keep abreast of changes in the world of search engines by participating in online forums or subscribing to newsletters on topics such as search engine optimization, web ranking, and general webmaster issues.
If you don't have the experience or time to tackle these matters yourself, then you should take advantage of skilled professionals who can help you improve your site's performance in search engines. Whether you rely on professionals or are able to do it yourself, these five tips can provide a good reference point to get you started.
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