Generate business success - get ranked #1 in Google

Anyone can be ranked #1 in Google – How to improve your website ranking

As the World Wide Web has become more popular with businesses all over the world, it has proven more difficult to rank a website on the first page of Google and other search engines through natural or organic listings.  It can still be achieved, but can depend on the strength of your competition and whether the company is using so-called ‘white hat’ (legal and moral) strategies.

So when you next receive an email or cold call guaranteeing #1 in Google, be cautious but open-minded.  I believe it is better to be candid and honest with all my clients.  I will not guarantee something I cannot be absolute on.  But by aiming at #1, even if you don’t make it,  you will make your website more focused and achieve a much higher ranking than if you leave it to chance.

The SEO (search engine optimisation) tips below will give your company website focus which, if followed correctly, will strengthen your position in Google’s natural listings – the main list you do not pay for!

To begin…look at your website from your customers point of view

1. Make a list of words that you think your target audience would type into Google to find your website.  This list may not include the same words as you would use to find the site yourself, so it is important to consider the terms your customers would use. These words are known as your ‘keywords’.

2.    Now separate the keywords so each page, product and service has its own short, concise list.

3.    Narrow each list down to between 6 – 10 keywords.

4.    Add the keywords to the page content 6 times or more.  Reiterate the keywords where possible being careful not to interrupt the flow of the text.  Also include them in the page titles and any page associated filenames, such as images, videos etc.

5.    When including images, be sure to add keywords in the image caption and ‘Alt Text’ description (this text shows when you place your mouse over the image).

6.    Finally, get as many good quality, relevant websites to link to your website pages.

With links from authoritative websites and well written content that includes focused keywords, Google will increase the ranking of your pages.  Once your pages are ranked in the top 10 (first page of Google) it will be easier for you to get better quality sites to link to your website.

Lastly, don’t give up too soon.  This may take some time.  Furthermore, don’t stop once you have achieved your goal.  It’s tough at the top; and if you don’t keep a focus then one of your competitors will only too gladly take your place!

Many businesses do not have the time to spend on managing their website which is why companies like Buzzin Fly undertake successful internet marketing campaigns for small businesses.

For more information visit www.buzzinfly.co.uk.

In Google’s terms, the Panda update is designed “to reduce rankings for low-quality sites”. These are generally large content aggregator websites or ‘farms’ that “copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful”.  According to Google, as many as 12% of search results were affected, with many sites losing significant visibility online.

“This isn’t a temporary measure either”, says Jack Adams, senior search manager at SearchCatalyst. “Google’s Panda update has been a long time coming, forming part of a more concerted effort to improve the visibility of unique, quality content in Google’s organic rankings and ultimately improve the user’s search experience.”

For every site that loses a ranking, one must gain; in this case, sites that purvey high quality, specialist content on a subject.

Adam’s concludes:

“With most UK SMEs being experts in their respective fields, the opportunity to attain search presence at the expense of large content aggregators – which previously would outrank smaller websites based purely on the inbound links spread thinly across their mass of content – is now more possible than ever before. Coupling this with potentially increased capital as a result of the revised Enterprise Investment Scheme, UK SMEs now also have the funding to realise this opportunity too”.

There cannot be any guarantee that your website is going to be ranked #1 in Google so beware of anyone who wants you to part with money for such promises.  But what I can confidently predict is that if you are not doing the following, then by doing so you will increase the ranking of your website exponentially.

1.    Make a short list of keywords and key phrases that you would type into Google to search for one of your closest competitors.  The more refined your words are, the more targeted your website will be.

2.    Refine your list to the point where you have a maximum of six keywords or phrases for each separate page & make sure keywords are included in each title.

3.    Make sure the keywords also appear at least four times in the main content of the page.

4.    Include images on each page and use the same keywords in the image filenames and also add the keywords to the image Alt Text, and if possible the image caption too.

5.    Most importantly, get other good quality sites to link to your website.  Blogs rank high in Google so consider targeting blogs as part of any inbound linking strategy. Google is based on strategic linking and inbound links are very important.

I don’t want you to think by following these five simple steps you will automatically appear in Google and other search engines ranked #1 or even on the first page for more popular keywords, but if you are not undertaking the above, then I am confident you don’t stand a chance.

For more information on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) & internet marketing visit www.Buzzinfly.co.uk.

At the same time I was fortunate in that my position was in a marketing and not a design department.  That way, I got to learn how to websites needed to work as a promotional tool rather than look pretty.

So when internet marketing became a buzzword, I was already there!

With the growth and importance of web-based search engines such as Google came a whole new discipline - SEO (search engine optimisation).

Search Engine Optimisation is crucial to every business success

Once you have a professional-looking design and the functionality is working correctly, you need to constantly market your business online.  Keep regularly updating your website and business blog. Fresh content keeps both the search engines and potential customers interested and aware of your products and services.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
An ongoing SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) program is vital.  Don’t think a one-off ‘makeover’ is going to be enough.  The search engines are looking for your website and blog to continually add relevant, authoritative and good quality in-bound links.

Furthermore, once you start to receive high ranking for popular keywords, your competitors will also be attempting to leapfrog you in the rankings.

There is plenty of help at hand as search engine marketing is big business in 2010 and so it is crucial to setup a good ongoing working relationship with an SEO company you can trust.

All UK businesses are looking to cut costs, spend less and hang on to their customers. But while certain expenditure can most certainly be contracted or cut altogether, whether a corporate golf day or lunch time visits to Marks And Spencer, there’s one area that many businesses look to cut when I recommend they increase their budget spend, especially in times like these.

Internet Marketing will help your business by attracting more customers through visibility.

Furthermore, as businesses stop trading you will need to be accessible, easily found on the web and listed high in Google, if you are going to capitalise on gaining their clients.

For those of you without a company website – where have you been?

Your business not only NEEDS a website but a professional looking, highly functional website should be at the hub of every business marketing plan.  Not having a company website is almost as bad as having a badly designed website!

For those businesses with a good website, you need to promote it with an internet marketing strategy. Internet Marketing should be responsive to your business and sector requirements, but must always include a strong strategic link building focus and an emphasis on ranking as high as possible in Google for your specifically targeted keywords.  Inbound links, topic relevancy and site authority all go towards ranking your website higher.

Now, if you are already employing an internet marketing consultant or company to manage your online marketing but are not getting a ROI (Return On Investment) or new business from this service, then it’s time to question whether they are doing a good job!

Many so-called SEO companies have sprung up in the past 2-3 years in the UK are not experts in the field of web marketing.  Most use automated tools and send pages of next to useless data showing SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), but this is not going to help you or your business without a managed strategy and analysis.

What your business needs is an internet marketing program being managed by experts who manually monitor and recommend what is right for your business to acquire more visibility, more traffic, more leads, and ultimately more customers; and the most important consideration is to analyse the results.  To do so, your online marketing strategy will need to harness the power of web analytics.

Armed with a good website analytics tool and an expert internet marketing team to build, monitor, manage and offer recommendations, your internet marketing program will help you  to beat your competitors and survive the recession.

“Expat-like terms” – made available in a way that is freely sharable, modifiable and redistributable, similar to the Expat software package, whose terms are published at http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt – this is often used as a clear, simple example for encouraging wide distribution of electronic resources (software).

“clandestine Google Analytics” – Google Analytics is a service from Google, Inc for tracking users through a website in various ways. I believe the Data Protection Act means that English websites should obtain informed consent from users by publishing a Privacy Policy on their site which discloses what the GA service will be used for and linking through to GA’s own Privacy Policy. Some websites attempt to run Google Analytics on users’ computers without explaining why and without any Privacy Policy. That is what I mean by “clandestine”.

“valid xhtml” – validating against the eXtensible HyperText Markup Language standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – the underlying language of the web. There is a test service provided at http://validator.w3.org/ and passing it is a key stepping stone towards making an accessible website. There’s not really such a thing as “invalid xhtml” – if it doesn’t pass validation, it’s not xhtml. So I guess I’m guilty of using a tautology sometimes – sorry about that.

Is it worthwhile knowing those three phrases? Are there other key technical phrases which you think site owners should know?

Google is celebrating its tenth birthday this year, and last week they launched their latest innovative product – Chrome.

Ten years ago Google revolutionised internet search engines and the way users interacted with the information superhighway.  Google helped to bring the web alive; and now they are setting the world alight again, this time by attempting to revolutionise web browsers.

Chrome is based on Webkit, an open source browser engine that powers Apple’s Safari web browser for both the MAC & PC, though oddly enough, Chrome is currently only available for PC.

The Chrome interface is sparse.  At first I thought where is everything?  But that’s part of the revolution.  Chrome only offers what you need and doesn’t clutter the GUI with add-ons and unnecessary gadgets.  A main consideration is that Chrome will become the browser of choice for WebApps.  Everyone is using WebApps more and more.  WebApps is simply applications that are stored online rather than on your computer.  Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, online banking and webmail are all WebApps.

So, Google are about to go head-to-head with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Whether they will succeed where Netscape, Safari & Firefox have failed, in knocking Internet Explorer of the number 1 slot remains to be seen.  But the reason why I have written this piece for the Generate success blog is that there is a lesson to be learnt here.  Google are continuing to move forward, looking for new ways of making money.  On a much less grander scale, small businesses need to keep thinking of ways to get ahead of the competition, continually moving forward and looking at ways to offer better products and services than their competitors.

Like Google, your business will only prosper online if you are prepared to push boundaries, and then continue to look for new innovative ways to win more business.

Download Google Chrome

Download Chrome – Google’s new web browser.  If you don’t like it you can simply uninstall the complete program.

Read more information on how Chrome is different to other web browsers.