This is a guest post by Jeff from ArverneByTheSea.com.
Search engines are constantly evolving and updating the ways they rank webpages according to variables like links, backlinks, keywords and phrases, on-page and off-page content, how long a site has been around, how often it is updated, physical location and much more.
The goal of search engines is not to help you, the webpage or blog owner, get ranked higher.
Their goal is to provide searchers with the most relevant information possible, first, given the keywords or phrases entered into a search. With that in mind, here are some ways to improve your search rankings:
- Provide Unique, Quality Content
Copying content is the cardinal sin of optimization, and sites have been blacklisted for this practice. The second worst transgression is irrelevant content. Yes, a lot of people search for “porn” for instance, but if you sell shoe laces linking to or from this ever-popular term will hurt, not help your searchability. The trick is to as much as possible, treat your search engines like people. People don’t like being fooled or lied to and neither do these search engines. - Guest Post
Again providing relevant and unique content, find blogs in your niche and provide content for them with a link at the end of the content. There are sites that invite this openly to bloggers in a niche, so check those out, and create relationships with bloggers so you can exchange guest posts. - Quality Before Quantity
Having a lot of content still helps, but more so over time. In fact a hundred new links overnight will “scare” search engines initially, and they will look for plagiarized and spun content within. One good link with great original content on a site with authority is worth hundreds of poorly written irrelevant links. Instead get one great piece of content and share it with others. - Avoid Automated Services
There has yet to be built a computer that can even come close to mimicking a human being writing stuff. This doesn’t stop many from trying though, and they will even charge you for this horrible service. Automated content offers the reader nothing of value, hurts your brand image if it is stumbled upon by a real human, and search engines hate it. - Get To Know Other Bloggers
There are hundreds of millions of blogs, and chances are many of these are in your niche. Say hi, ask to guest post and allow them to do the same. These symbiotic relationships are a great boost to your searchability if the content is of high quality and unique and if each site has some authority. Comment as well as guest post if you see an article you like, always saying something useful. - Social Networks
The major ones right now are Facebook and Twitter, and if you are a B2B industry LinkedIn is also a quality source. Create your page and offer good content and updates, just as you would a blog. Invite others and visit others in your niche, “liking” their content when applicable, and asking them to do the same for you. In addition, when you friend someone on a social network and they choose to “follow” you they can automatically be notified of updates to your blog, increasing the likelihood of more visits, and visits from those who actually want to read your content.
Building online presence takes time and effort, but it is very rewarding as well, when done the right way. There really is no shortcut to long-term success however, so avoid bots, irrelevant posts, automated systems and other black hat tactics and stick to the suggestions provided above.
Top 10 Search Terms:
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Great post, Jeff!
The tips described here are right on the money. The methods will bring you the traffic you need and then you must ensure that you bring quality content that converts and you will have results.
All the best!
You are everywhere, I’m certainly going to follow you because you definitely seem to have a grasp on this.
Jeff,
I can’t agree more on this one:
Avoid Automated Services
I know plenty of people who like to use crazy Russian automated services, I just don’t trust them. If you can get quality links, which take some time and effort, then you’ll have so much more success than just clicking a button and going to play the new Call of Duty.
I agree with your points. Particularly quality before quantity. You want to make sure that you maintain quality even if you turn up the frequency of your posting. You can get help by accepting guest authors if you need help publishing more content.
Well said! As you mention at the end, consistency is the road to success. SEO is hard work and its important to have a set of routines, something you do everyday. Perhaps 1 post to a forum, 1 blog comment, 1 social bookmarking..even the smallest effort is much better than doing nothing.
I definitely agree, consistency is the key actually in everything when it comes to business not only SEO…
In future the most emphasis of search engines is on quality as because of quality website search engines will not loose their users.Their advertising programs will run successfully.
Hey Jeff,
I think guest posting and social media are going to be even bigger than they are now. There is juts so much potential with booth guest posting and social media. Thanks for the tips.
Good points Jeff-especially about quality content and avoiding the automated software. Spinning articles and automating linkbuilding and bookmarking may have worked in the past, and admittedly might still be working today, but there’s no real qualified traffic coming from these sources. You don’t need ten thousand linkbacks today to make a difference in rankings.
In support of your article, I’ll add that commenting thoughtfully in **related blogs is key and giving readers real value is also critical.
Google is changing its algorithm so that users can find helpful and valuable websites in response to their search. To make sure that users won’t get frustrated they’re focusing to promote quality sites on search results, so to stay on top page you need to build quality site with help of fresh and interesting content.
People used to ignore quality over quantity but now it’s not possible as Panda is ready hit you any time. So no doubt qualiy is necessary if you wish to rank on top page.
Plus you need to actively participate on social networking sites and have to build your loyal following over there so that they like and share whatever you publish there. Social Media or Networking sites now play important role to decide SERP position of any site.
Automated content generators should be banned, if you were to ask me. They provide so few value to the reader and do nothing but spam the internet. The problem is that more and more people start using it because it’s very easy and it might even draw in a visitor or two who click the ads, which obviously makes it desirable. However, you can never have an auto-generated blog to actually take off and make real money for you
Thanks for the good tips Jeff. Guest posting is one area that I have not tried yet, and with the hundreds of blogs in my niche that offer guest blogging I should be doing this.