Increase Your Website’s Search Engine Position

Jill R. Hyland

Search engine positioning is a determinative factor in the success or failure of a website, and consequently, of an online business as well.

Time and time again, you have heard or read how important traffic is for the success of an online enterprise. Traffic is the lifeblood of an Internet business. Without traffic, the best designed web pages and the highest quality products won’t be seen nor sold. Without traffic, an income stream would be cut off from its roots. Without traffic, our online venture would just collect some digital dust and rot.

80% of the traffic we get will come from the search engines. Hence, a great number of our visitors will really depend on how high our website is positioned in the search results pages for every relevant query. It is therefore essential that our web pages are optimized for the many search engines in the World Wide Web, to boost our chances of garnering as much traffic as possible.

There are many ways you can improve your website’s search engine position. Let’s take a look at some of them.

• Use keywords efficiently. Every time a query is made in any of the search engines, the search engine spiders are dispatched to look for sites which contain the keywords included in the said search engine requests, either in the meta tags of the website or within the content of its pages. It is therefore essential that you choose popular keywords that are relevant to the subject of your website or your business, and build content around these keywords. Keywords should appear at least twice for every one hundred words in each page, to assure a density level that will catch the attention of the search engine spiders. 

• Acquire as many incoming links as possible. The number of one way links pointing to your website is called your link popularity. Incoming links are always preferred, as reciprocal linking, like when two websites exchange links to bounce visitors off one another, is frowned upon by search engines and this may result in a lower search engine position. Incoming links can be garnered in abundance through blogs, RSS feeds, article marketing and forum posting… with each strategy prominently displaying a link back to your website.

• Ensure that you website has high quality content. Content is always king in the World Wide Web, and ultimately, your visitors will go to your web pages because of the information you provide. Give them what they need and they will come in droves. Give them junk, and they will just leave as easily as they have arrived. You will need them to keep coming back, however, as a constant flow of traffic through your website greatly affects your search engine position.

• It is believed that having your own domain name with a relevant keyword included in the same does provide a slight boost in your search engine position.

• Regularly update your content. Search engine spiders love constantly updated content. Ping them for good measure every time you publish new entries for your website, by availing of the free tools at www.pingomatic.com . Pinging the search engine spiders will alert them that your website has new content, and they will check it out come the next relevant query.

These are but some of the strategies that are included under the science that we have come to know as search engine optimization (SEO). These tactics were culled from years of experience by webmasters who have made such a study their passion.

Indeed, a good search engine position will do wonders for your online business. Make the most of what you have learned, and strive to maintain the lofty positioning that is sure to come your way.