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:
• seo tactics 2011 • seo 2012 • seo tactics
All good advice in this post. Remember that things are not as simple as they once were when Alts Vista ruled the search market through meta tags. Search engines are now looking for the quality of the content, the relevance of the content, the freshness of the content, the link popularity, the social popularity, the user satisfaction (Do searchers bounce back to Google, how fast, etc.), the authority/longevity of the domain, and even page loading speeds. So many things that can go wrong…and so many things you can do to increase your rankings!
I’ve read from another blog that there has been a Panda update few days/weeks ago. As what I’ve read, Google will now consider the time that a post has been posted or a website updated to give people a more updated search results. But I think only a percentage of sites will be affected though. Please refer to the official google blog for a more accurate information regarding this one. 😀
Great information Jeff. I agree with you 100% about what you’re saying. Facebook and Twitter are the two main social media for free advertisement. People that are your friends and people who follow are your potential customers. Those potential future customers can also bring you new new customers buy referrals. Take advantage of these free social network, because the more people like your page and following you the more traffic you are bringing in! Thanks Jeff for sharing.
Re: #4, I agree. There are so many controls against bots, there’s not much point. In any case, bots and quality aren’t really associated with one another, and quality is key!
Right on! Content is one thing that will make it or break for you. Writing quality content that are relevant, helpful, timely and timeless. This will help you gain readership. One should also work on his or her online visibility and get to know other folks on the blogosphere, this will help boost the credibility. Here’s my take on a shorter formula to blogging success: great content + great blog design + SEO know-how + patience + persistence = success.
I always go for quality before quantity. I mean, what is the sense of having all those links if they are just automated and are poor links. SEO should be built from trusted sites and not just any sites.
Hey there Jeff,
Those are really some tips for gaining proper ranking in Search Engines. I think the most important point you mentioned is the quality thing, there are many bloggers who just go on posting quantity of content without looking at the quality of it. A Bad quality content certainly is not that seo friendly.
It’s also people friendly too. Google is just taking what people are looking for into consideration. If you’re searching for a subject, you’re going to learn a few things, but if your still searching you haven’t found your answer. If you keep reading the same thing over and over, you’ll get frustrated and perhaps move on to god forbid Bing!
Hello Jeff
Thanks for these tips.And as all of our fellow bloggers are well aware about Panda update.It has one more time shown how much Big G likes good quality and unique content as you also mentioned.Almost all the sites with duplicate content have seen a decline in traffic.
Hi Jeff, probably participating in forums can also increase serp since forums do rank well. I haven’t tries guest posting but since I’ve a lot of guest post from other blogs surely it is good for seo.
After Google Panda it has become quite difficult in Google Rank. The tactics like this can give the better SEO for the New Bloggers. Thanks for Sharing these..