YOU CAN help your search engine rankings..

Many a time I’m asked how companies or individuals can improve their search engine rankings, to be honest the real truth is to hire a specialist and there is the only shameless plug for our services. However you can do a lot to help... a lot more in some cases than we can do..

Inbound Links

Search engines algorithms and rules are constantly changing, that’s where your professional comes in, however their rules on linking never seem to differ too much. First thing to do, go to www.google.co.uk and type link: and then your domain name.. go on do it, we’ll wait around a while...

OK.. I’m not mystic Meg, but I am predicting it says “Your search... domain name.. did not match any documents”. Now type in a well optimised site, for example “link:www.argos.co.uk” around 625 results last I saw. Not bad, there are better, but you get the idea.

Search engines are constantly spidering (indexing) the internet, every time they find a link to a website they report back to base and your links should appear in the “link” search, not always I have to say. Unfortunately Google is very picky in the sites it will show as links to your site, and have been quoted as saying they don’t like to show everything..

A useful tool to find inbound links to your site is http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/link-popularity-checker.shtml this provides stats from all major search engines.

So why all this pointless banter about inbound links? Well search engines love the right type of inbound link. The right kind of link can occur in one of 2 ways.. firstly a link from a well optimised site within your remit. So a link from a well optimised golf shop, for example, to your well optimised golf shop is a big thumbs up. Secondly a well optimised site that links to your site with your keyword within the link on their site. A mouthful I know, what I mean is your golf shop has a link to it from a price comparison website, but the link on the price comparison site doesn’t say your shop name, it says your keyword..

But hang on I hear you say.. I can’t control the above in anyway.. and I’m not linking to my competitors.. well yes and no.

Linking sites, it’s all about quality and not quantity, so as much as linking back from your well optimised competitor would be ideal, it certainly isn’t ideal. The trick here is to combine the 2 above, look for complimentary businesses. You must have some in your armoury..? Chauffeurs for example, you supply cars for weddings? Then you know a few florists, hairdressers, dress makers...? Put your heads together and link from the appropriate wedding pages to each others and make sure your keywords are in the links. Therefore the page is optimised to weddings and has a direct link back to your site for wedding cars.. just as an example.

It’s thinking like that which will bode well for your site.

Domain Names

Wait.. you didn’t finish the last chapter off I hear you scream.. correct I’m finishing it now.. as it’s all appropriate. I heard your cries that you can’t control what other people put on their websites for you.. Indeed correct. Price comparison sites, directories, network sites etc will have their own automated systems. So how do we break through?

Think about your domain name.. normally it will be something like www.mynamemyservice.co.uk it certainly won’t be www.myservicemyarea.co.uk. So Mr Plumber in Derby, your domain name is www.johnsmithplumbingltd.co.uk, so when you submit your site to directories/websites your main keyword doesn’t exist within their code or content. If your domain name was www.derby-plumber.co.uk then your main keyword will get into the directory and be seen by search engines, even if it isn’t written as www.derby-plumber.co.uk on the directory/website.

Online directories

www.freeindex.co.uk www.gumtree.co.uk are 2 worth considering. Gumtree is a place to advertise your services on, Google in particular loves Gumtree and seems to be permanently indexing it, I’ve heard of top of Google within 20 minutes after placing an ad on Gumtree. Free index is an online directory, but you customise everything written in their.. a good place to put keywords.

Be careful though.. some linking sites may not be good for you, avoid anything p0rnographic or gambling related for obvious reasons..

Some directories may ask for a link back to them, usually an advert and at that point you need to consider your own site. The advert can be placed at the bottom of the page, but will it affect the integrity of your site? That’s a question you as the website owner can answer..!

Social Media

You’re probably reading this as it was posted on a social media site.. I hope so. Social media websites are huge, not just in popularity but literally HUGE! Tweets from twitter and updates to search engines are in minutes, not months.

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, FlickR and MySpace are great examples of sites where you have control of your content.

Tweet your latest product, service, triumph whatever it maybe, but get the feed from twitter to your site. Make sure your website is in your profile on all of the above. Youtube users, put your keywords into the title of the video, not just to help your site but so people can find your video on there in the first place!
Think of your usernames carefully on all social media sites, can you place a keyword into it?

Blogging Hell as if I didn’t have enough to do

Blog blog blog.. blog is king, especially one owned by a search engine, oh like this one...! Total content control, you can type whatever you want in a blog (well, don’t spam..!). In fact here’s a live demonstration for you..
www.onestopwebdesigners.co.uk – there you go a link from my blog to my site.. in fact let’s go one better WEB DESIGNER LOUGHBOROUGH, a link from my blog about web design to my website selling web design with my keywords in the link and my keywords in my domain name. Thank you, settle down, the standing obvation was lovely but really not necessary, got the idea now?

Help yourselves people to help your website, I’m not going into coding complexity here or content and h1 tags blah blah.. seriously get someone to do that for you, they (I mean we) can hide and play around with things that you wouldn’t know about. If you’re not technically minded help your site and do the above!