How to improve your search engine ranking

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Here's a guide that you might find useful if you have a web site or blog.

Want to be at the very top?

The quick way to get very high rankings on a search engine is to place a sponsored ad. These will cost you money. The amount varies between search engines. Typically, you will only do this if you're running a site for business, or you're very well off.

If you're not prepared to pay hard cash for a high search engine ranking, there is no guarantee that you'll ever be at the top of a search listing, or anywhere near the top for that matter. If there was an easy way to do it for free, everyone would do it - and how can every site be at the top?

For everyone else, your best bet is to maximise your chances. Here are some tips to help you do that.

Build first, promote second

Trying to get a half-finished site onto a search engine is pointless. Don't try and promote your site until you have something to offer people that can't be found elsewhere.

This doesn't mean you can't publish your site as a work-in-progress. Just don't exchange links with people until your site is worth visiting.

Keep it current

Some people think that a web site is something that can be put online and doesn't need to change. You may do well on the search engines in your first few weeks, but if you don't update your site, recently updated sites will take precedence over your own.

Some sites may not be updated as often as others, but there's no excuse for neglecting a site for months and months. If time is a problem, ask yourself whether you have the time to run a website in the first place.

Avoid "last updated" scripts that use today's date, regardless of when you actually updated the site.  I have seen people doing this - it's just dishonest and people will soon figure it out if you don't change anything.

Link to, and get linked from, as many sites as possible

Linking to other sites can provide references and supporting information for your posts. An occasional link that is relevant to your post can be very useful to your readers.

Don't go overboard with links.  "Link love" posts, i.e. simply listing several sites you like, may not be of much use to your readers.  Make an effort to write something about each link - give people a reason to visit it.

Avoid web rings. These may seem like a good idea, but they never tell you where you're going to, or what the quality of the next site in the ring will be like. Include your own directory of links rather than relying on someone else's.

Don't ask other sites to link to you.  Just link to them.  If they like your site, they'll link back.  Some sites may link to you regardless of whether you link to them first.  Don't feel you have to return the favour if you don't want to link back.  Refer to how to initiate a link exchange for more information.

Use keywords sparingly

Keywords are the words and phrases that people use to find your site. For instance, a web site that lists free software may be found by searching for "free software". However, this will bring back a huge number of sites, so you'd need to specify a lot more information, e.g. what type of software you're listing.

There are several ways to specify which keywords should bring up your site.  My search engine optimisation guide lists a few things that you can try. But don't go thinking that you can include some totally random keywords and get unexpected visitors. If your site obviously has "FREE SOFTWARE" plastered all over it and it's not even a free software site, it won't matter where you appear in search engine results. As soon as someone sees your site, they'll just leave. Don't mislead people.

You can certainly use search words to help people find your site, but try to keep them hidden from your visitors, or put them at the end of a page and not at the start. Don't bombard people with things they don't need to see.

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