In Search Of Eldorado: The Hunt For Rank Position One
I have created quite a large number of websites, and if, like me, you have spent hours building yours, then it can be a thankless task when it comes to waiting for customers to hit your virtual door. Like any overnight success, it can take weeks or even months for your website to start to gain popularity unless you have the benefit of advertising in other areas, such as banner adverts, posters, flyers and so on. For the average site builder, the date of publication can come and go as though all your hard work has made no difference to the value of the internet.
After some time you will, almost certainly, start to welcome a few visitors to your site, and maybe a few of them will spend their hard earned money there as well. But you'll probably find that you get terribly excited if you have a few visitors, and a little dejected when you start to work out how much the current rate of visitors will earn you, and dreams of the Mediterranean cruise next month might have to be put on hold. If this sounds familiar, ask yourself what you have actually done to ensure that your site does become a success? Other than a slick design, nice graphics and a catchy address, what practical measures have you employed to ensure success?
One thing that you may have done is to browse through the internet and find information on how to promote your site, or tips on 'optimizing' it. You are almost certainly aware of the fact that to be successful on the internet you really need the search engines on your side. Having your site listed by Google, MSN and Yahoo for example is going to make a big difference to your site. But, what will make a far bigger difference is the overall rank of your website.
The rank of your site refers to how far up the list of results your website is when someone searches the internet. If your website sells left handed calculators for example, then you will expect and hope that if someone enters the keywords 'left handed calculator' in a search engine that your website is near the top. If it is at the top, that is fantastic, but you really need to be in the top ten, on that first page, to be a success. Unbelievably, only 3% of people who search online ever look past the first page of results that a search engine brings up. That means that if they search for 'left handed calculators', which brings up almost 400,000 results in Google, you need your website to be high up the first page to stand any chance of someone finding it. Even being in 11th place out of those 400,000 will mean that you're missing out on 97% of visitors.
Possibly you might have heard of tips or companies that can rocket your website skywards and make sure your site is listed right near the top. Perhaps you've tried a few of these tips, and wondered why your site didn't suddenly become the hottest place on the net? Maybe you even forked out a small fortune on a company that promised you the world and delivered you maybe a few places higher, rocketing you all the way from 164,378th place to 153,735th? Yes, 10,000 places higher, but the only difference is that number. Remember, unless you're on the first page of results, it makes almost no difference where you are, so even if they had rocketed you to 1000th place, it still isn't go to make much difference to your business. The thing is, that there is no single way of achieving this, and any company that takes your money on the premise that there is, is one to avoid. There are a whole range of factors, many of which are easily achievable yourself in a few hours, or even minutes. The other thing to remember is that this progress in rank doesn't happen overnight. For many reasons, search engines don't respond to changes immediately, and it can takes many months to achieve a high rank.
Some of the factors which will influence how well your site is ranked include keywords. Search engines scan the documents that make up your website, and catalogue the keywords which occur within it. This helps them to judge the relevance of your site compared to others and to keyword searches. It used to be relatively easy to reach the top of the search results simply by inserting hundreds of keywords all over your site. This now no longer has the effect it did, and there are many other factors which have much more influence. How many people link to your site is a big factor - obviously the more people linking to you, the more popular your site, and the more credibility is gains in the eyes of the search engines, and so your site will rise up the ranks.
Because as web designers we can sometimes become a little too close to our designs, and sometimes don't just need to step back away from our glitzy masterpiece, we need someone else to take a good hard look and give us some feedback. Invariably these people like to be paid, but I have come across a nifty little site that offers a free assessment of your site. Although it's free, it's carried out by hand, and their advice is pretty thorough. They don't just focus on keywords, but look at a whole range of ways in which your site could be made friendlier towards the search engines, and get ranked higher. If you haven't tried them already, I'd recommend getting a review of your site for free. Even if your site has been around for a long time, or if it's brand new, they'll tell you all the things you could do to help improve your rank position.
Knowing what your site does well, and what it doesn't, will help you go a long way towards getting your website listed higher. I have a site which was hardly visible at all in Google's results - even I got bored trying to find it. After spending a couple of days implementing a few very simple changes that made very little difference to the way the site appeared, I resubmitted it to Google. I checked it earlier today, and it's now ranked as number one! It's a niche market, but even so, it's now the first site people reach, and more and more people are finding it and spending money, which is great! For two days' work, it was well worth it. I'd certainly recommend you get your site checked out; from my experience it really made a big difference.
Article Source: http://www.search-raven.com
About the Author
No site traffic? Buried on page 10? If you want to be found by Google and the rest of the search engines, you must have an optimised website. Find out how easy it is to have a free evaluation and make your website profitable now.
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by: RussellR.Collins
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