Search engines have become wiser and have put more scrutiny
upon deciding page ranking and which websites are really
important. Spending time on traditional on-page optimization
and link building strategies will not get you that top ranking
in Google. Don't get me wrong, you cannot stop doing these
tasks, however, the marketing of your website will need to
include a variety of other methods if you want to get top
rankings. Search engines are looking for clean quality content
to provide to their users and we will see the search engine
market become more competitive.
Traditional search engine optimization will continue to
be part of your efforts excepting for our methodology will
change. You will continue to work on link exchanges, keywords,
descriptions, titles, headlines, image alt descriptions,
comments, and content. Now you will focus your keywords to
be very specific and watch you density. Your descriptions
will not be as long, but concentrate on more concise descriptions.
You will want to watch your HTML coding to make the process
easier for the search engine spiders. Try using fewer tables
and consider Cascading Style Sheets. The link exchanges will
have to be more specific to your industry and with websites
that are authoritative in nature.
Authoritative websites is the direction to consider for
2006. Not only making your website an authority for your
target market, but to exchange links with other websites
that are authoritative for that same target market. What
are authoritative websites to link with? Basically there
are is a relatively small set of websites that can be trusted
as authority, or expert websites. Government sites, university
websites, well-recognized news sources, and recognized industry
news sources are all examples of sites that can be considered
as “expert” websites. These sites, unlike the
average website on the Internet, can be trusted to “link
honestly”.
Take the following example. I recently went to Google, MSN
and Yahoo and searched on the term "internet marketing consultants" and
the result on the first page for all three search engines
were somewhat surprising. Instead of finding a page full
of businesses that provide internet marketing services over
75% of the results were websites that were resources for
internet marketing. A careful review of each of these websites
revealed all of them to be content rich in their field of
internet marketing. They did not provide any services other
than information for others to use about internet marketing.
For the purpose of this writing these results indicate (1)
that making your site an authority for your field and industry
is very important to achieve top ranking, and (2) you want
to seek out these types of websites to create inbound links
if possible and feasible. Otherwise engage a reciprocal link
exchange.
Getting noticed by authority websites can be difficult,
but with some creativity it can be done. If you make your
business newsworthy, news outlets within your industry and
without will pickup your news story and hopefully link over
to your website. Traditional marketing and public relations
requires you to make your company known as an authority within
your industry. You should want your clients to know that
you are the best source for whatever it is you sell, and
that they should trust you. You gain this trust by being
visible, not just through your website, but through the websites
of other trusted sources such as news outlets. These types
of marketing methods would include engaging in public relations,
networking, attending trade shows, and talking to news sources
both within your industry and outside of your industry.
Your website is a business. No different than a retail brick-and-mortar
store you will spend as much time working your website as
a regular any regular business. Do not believe that the comfort
of your home or that you are working with computers and technology
you are able to run your business any easier. The only thing
that has changed is the venue, everything else is the same.
You have to provide quality content, engage in activities
that make your website known, and make your website the absolute
best in your target market.
Melih Oztalay is the CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing.
Internet marketing is not only about knowledge and experience,
but also about imagination. Visit SmartFinds here.
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