4 Tips to Achieve Top Search Engine
Rankings for Your Web Site
Looking to improve your web site’s rankings in the top search engines? Below is a summary of a conversation I had recently with a client on how I achieved a top 10 ranking in the top search engines for the keyword phrase “Philadelphia Web Site Design” for my company’s web site (www.jajopa.com):
1. Determine Keyword Phrases
Research and identify effective keyword phrases that are relevant to
your web site – you want to make sure these phrases are actually
being searched for by potential clients / customers and do not have
a lot of competition.
When you are trying to come up with keyword phrases, multiple words
are usually better and try to be as specific as possible. For example,
for my web site design business it would be too hard to try to rank
for the keyword phrase “web site design” but something more
specific, such as “philadelphia web site design” would be
a better keyword phrase (not to mention it would bring in much more
targeted web traffic).
2. Find High Demand Keyword Phrases
After you come up with your list of keyword phrases, you need to look
them up to find out if they have a high demand or popularity.
To do this, go to:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
and type in your list of keyword phrases. The numbers associated with each keyword phrase indicate how many people searched for that specific keyword phrase over the last month. You can also click on each of the keyword results to see more related phrases. You should be able to get a pretty good idea of their popularity through these results pages.
3. Evaluate the Competition
Next, once you have your list of high demand keyword phrases, you can
then go to Google or Yahoo and type in the keyword phrase (put quotation
marks at the beginning and end of the term to search for that exact
phrase – i.e. “philadelphia web site design”). Then,
on the results page in Google you will see at the top “Page 1
of …” which indicates the supply or how many websites contain
that keyword phrase.
The goal is to find keyword phrases that are in high demand (high numbers from the overture.com link) and are in low supply (a low number of results listed in Google).
4. Optimize/ Rewrite Pages on Your Website
Once your keyword phrases are selected, identify which pages on your
site should be optimized for each specific keyword phrase(s). Optimize
each page on your website for these specific keyword phrases (normally
1 – 3 keyword phrases per page). This includes writing/ rewriting
the page content to include these keyword phrases while still remaining
“readable” by site visitors. The goal here is not to trick
the search engines but to provide quality content to your visitors and
the search engines at the same time.
Launch the new pages, resubmit to the search engines and continually tweak / check your rankings.
While the top search engines are constantly changing their results pages, the one variable that remains consistent is rewarding web sites with high rankings that contain relevant and original content.
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Founder and principal of jajopa Web Design, James Palmer specializes in designing professional web sites that help companies generate more business. Some of James' clients include The Philadelphia Gas Works, Asher & Company, Ltd, and the Philadelphia Sport, Travel & Outdoor Show. Learn more about jajopa Web Design at www.jajopa.com.