Maggie knows how to find what
she wants. She lets her fingers do the walking – not
in the Yellow Pages, but at Google.com. She wants to learn
about bread baking, and you have just written Bread Baking
Made Simple, and you sell some great baking tools. The good
news is the Google and other search engines exist for one
simple reason: to help Maggie find your website.
Google will show Maggie 534,000 resources on "bread
baking". Unless she fails to find what she wants on
the first page, or top 10 results, she will never find your
website listed 124th in the results. (Actually, if she does
not find what she wants in the top twenty or thirty results,
she is likely to refine her search to "easy bread baking"
or "home bread baking").
How do you get into the top 10 results so Maggie can find
your website? You might have heard a lot about "search
engine optimization" and "ranking analysis"
and "algorithms". It all sounds very complex,
but it really works on a simple 1 – 2 – 3 principle.
- A search engine will show Maggie only resources (websites)
it has on record. So make sure to submit your site to
the key search engines and directories. You do not need
to hire somebody who will charge you big dollars to do
this. Nor should you fall for any of the auto-submit software
or services. This should be done by hand, and anybody
can do it. You can do it yourself.
- The search engine will rank highest those websites it
feels are most "important". This means you have
to show that your website is most important. There are
a few simple things you can do. First, make sure you have
content. Text content equals importance on the Internet.
Links, both coming in and going out, are key. Connectivity
equals importance on the Internet. Get listed in the major
directories (DMOZ.com, Yahoo.com, Zeal.com, JoeAnt.com,
etc.), as this also is a measure of importance.
- The search engine will show Maggie the most "relevant"
high-ranking resources. Google might rank http://TheHappyGuy.com
relatively very high, but it is totally irrelevant to
a search for bread baking. How does a search engine know
which websites are most relevant for Maggie's search?
By the number of times "bread baking" shows
up in text on your web page. By the variety of ways it
shows up on your page. By number web pages you link to
and that link to you with the words "bread baking"
included.
Are you ready to roll? Possibly. Some of this you can easily
do yourself. But there are three places that are worth spending
money to help all the Maggies out there find your website
and your book. The first is choosing the right keywords.
It might look simple, but "bread baking" might
not even be the best keyword phrase to focus on. It might
be "easy bread baking" or "home bread baking".
The most searched terms might not be the best, nor the term
with the least competition.
The second is to prepare a link strategy. The "link
exchange" pages that are getting more popular each
day are also becoming less effective each day. Here are
just a few of the linking factors that will affect whether
Maggie discovers your book:
- The total number of incoming and outgoing links
-
The importance of the sites you link to and from
-
The relevancy of the sites you link to and from
-
Which pages on their sites and on yours are being linked
-
What you include in the incoming and outgoing links
-
Where on the page the links are placed
-
How many links are on those pages
-
How many pages are linked to or have outgoing links
-
The ratio of links to content on the pages involved
You can implement the strategy yourself, but it is worth
hiring somebody to put it together for you. Ask the person
what factors he would consider when building a strategy
for you. If he does not mention several of the above,
your money is better spent elsewhere.
The third place to invest is to have somebody knowledgeable
review your html code. Chances are that you have missed
numerous opportunities to let the search engines know your
website is relevant, and possibly some opportunities to
show it is important. |
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