Want to rank high in Google, want to rank high in Yahoo?
So, how do you get on the first page of Google and all the other search engines?
Beware of those that guarantee!
I believe any key phrase can be guaranteed top 5 rank in any one search engine, but the time it takes can not.
Also that anyone can do it, it is all free information on the web. All you have to do is one up the competition.
This is how I did it........
I owe it all to God...... After a few years of self study I took a site, I'm not going to name, from 1000 hits a month (all time high) to over 2 million hits a month, from the lower page in Google to the upper half of the first page in all the major search engines and first page in most the little guys.
Yep, top 3 in Google out of over 14,000,000, some days 2, and top 5 all other major search engines, for the key phrase "wholesale flowers" which gets over 400,000 searches a day, yearly a multi million dollar business and one of the top industries in the US not to mention the world.
First off, I spent a good week, week and a half, doing key phrase research, as any small marketing site should. I'm not sure why key phrase research is not taught as part of the web development phase, when it is basic web design. So is user interface, but it is off topic of this page so we'll not be going there.
After about 3 months, full time, I had the site completely redone, all search engine friendly pages, to where I was satisfied with it. (on-site optimization) I've found 3 months is pretty typical for a basic database driven site.
This site was my full time job, and grew to be pretty large, I did development 3-4 days a week and S.E.O 1-2 days a week, for a little over 2 years.
I did a constant analysis of traffic and continual site tweaking and competition analysis, along with a link campaign and article writing 1-2 days a week for over 2 years.
How's it done? If you give it some thought it is pretty simple. Check out the competition for any given key phrase and do it one better.
Who's the the competition? It's the top 10 listed on the first page in Google (or your preferred) for that key phase. They did it, I can do it!
Thoroughly check out each one, checking each page and asking your self "what do they have that I don't?" There are some awesome apps just for this, well one I like in particular ***, but it can all be done with free apps (Google Webmaster Tools, Firefox w/Web Developer Plugin, Google, etc...).
On-Page Optimization
How do they use the key phrase on their page? Is it emphasized with heading tags, bold tags? Where is it used, document proximity, paragraph proximity, and elements such as the page title? How many times do they use it and what is the percentage of total words? What is different between #1 and #10? #1 and #5?
Then ask yourself "How does my page compare to these?" Want your page in the top 10, then you just copy what they have done with the key phrase, as you know they have what it takes to be top 10.
Never copy text from anyone else page and paste it on a page you want to be indexed! You want to copy the way the key phrase has been used, and you do this by adjusting your own content.
Off-Page Optimization
Linking is most important, a link is like a vote for your site. How many links do they have? What is the text of the links that point to this page?
Where are these links, and what do those pages have?
So for each competing page you need to check out, who is voting for them as they are giving credibility for this phrase. Can I get these sites to vote for me?
Who is my competitor linking to? Who is this site, how many pages are indexed, what are they about, age?
What circles do they run in so to speak as there is a reason the search engine considers this site to be the best of the best for your key phrase.
Then you just copy what the competition has done, once you have what they have both on and off page, you will be where they are.
Sounds pretty easy and it is, if you have the time and patients as once you've done all this you get to start over :)
When you fee like a break, research your key phrase then post intelligent articles on line with links back to your site.
For the right market a blog can be useful.
So, here's to hoping your site can handle all the traffic!
Seriously, when my site started hitting a million a month it started to crash. If this happens check out performance driven web sites and how to build them.