This was the topic of discussion on a Webinar I attended last night with Mary McNight. Known also as “REBlogGirl.” She shared some of the following information and tidbits. If you missed this, I took some notes to “pay it forward.” Here’s some interesting concepts and tools that were presented.
Titled: The On-line Shock & Awe Campaign For Google
How do you get to #1 on Google? This is relating to “Organic” position and not “Paid” position. Organic meaning it shows up #1 on Google underneath the “Paid” sponsorships. FREE is GOOD. Nobody clicks on those top links anyway, or at least very few. It was noted that 42% ofclicks go to the #1 Organic page. Here’s the shocker, only 11% go to the #2 Link or page. I think showing in both positions would be best. 🙂
Google searches sites and content for indexing by the following criteria and typically in this order:
Domain Names:
Be sure to include key tag words in the name.
Your Titles:
Same thing here, include relevant keywords and catchy search-able titles.
*Most Important: Include Keywords for Google and Keywords for people.
Meta-tag Keywords:
Make sure that keywords are relevant, practical, and search-able.
Page Content:
This is what was referred to as Google Food, and that’s exactly what it is. So Feed it.
Keywords through-out. Adding Personality is important. Vary your keywords, use longer terms and mix them up. note: 500 words on the splash-page of a website is good.
Linking out to others:
Select power sites to link to. Don’t always link to yourself and your own pages or posts.
Use an internal and external linking structure.
The Internal and External Link Structure
Use Links to 1 of your pages for every 2 links to other popular websites or Blogs.
(I like to link to Google, Yahoo, and the other Big Dogs when I can…hint hint )
Registering Domain Names:
Tip: Be sure to register domain names for at least 5-10 years, if you do it one year
at a time, Google might not think you’re serious or going to be around very long.
Update 5 old Pages or Posts once a month:
Go into your older pages on your site or your Blog posts, and update with new
keywords and link structure updates. Don’t erase, just add.
What is a reciprocal link?
You link to me, I link to you. This is a great thing. If you use Blogrolls, you can create an orphan page to link out to those sites. These “orphan” pages cannot be found or indexed by Google. You can also use “no follow” tags if you’re familiar how. To find out more, Click Here.
Duplicate Content:
If you’re going to duplicate content, be sure to create it first in the location you want to get the Google juice. Wait 2-3 days and then you can duplicate it on other sites. The first page gets the google worm bots. Link back to your original from all the secondary pages, they should all point back to your original source. Learn more here.
Some Valuable Tips and Resource Sites
Get SEO for Firefox, Here’s the video on How and Why
Get into as many directories as you can. DMOZ.org and Joeant.com
SEODigger.com – Search Rankings
SEOBook.com – The Best Keywords Available
Know Your Site & What’s Going On
Use Google Tools to help you be #1 in their search engine. Go to google.com, use the search box and type (Site:YourURL) and (Link:YourURL) to find out more about your own Webpage or Blog. Be sure to try it with the (www) and without. You’ll Get Different results. Here’s other stuff Google offers as well.
These were my notes: The overall message I came away with is that Being #1 in Google is everything, that is if you want to get the kind of new traffic and hits that generate leads and business. The people who know you can find you, but can those who don’t?
Thank you Mary for sharing this information and your time. See Mary’s Blog for details on any of these topics.
(Edit) A special thanks to Cyberstars, and to whoever sent me the invitation to join this event. 🙂
