Content and relevant linking

Right, now that we all know that Google is the biggest, let’s move on to a couple of things that you can do to help push your site up the results pages.

We’re obviously not going to list all the things that we, as webmasters, do to help push websites up to that number one page in Google search results – that wouldn’t please our bank manager really now, would it?

But we will happily share just a couple of the things that you can do from the comfort of your own computer.

Content

Think of a search engine as a human being. It wants to know that when it clicks onto your page, that it’s questions will be answered.  Open up a Google window, and carry out a search for anything you like.

The majority of results on that page should take you to websites that accurately answer that question.  That’s how it should be. The content on your website should be relevant to what your site visitors are looking for. The more relevant, informative and fulfilling to your site visitors, the better.

Keep it fresh, keep it accurate, keep it updated. The search engines send their “spiders” into your site to have a look around. If each time they arrive, they see that you have added something new, then they’ll keep coming back. If however, you haven’t changed a thing in quite a while… then they’ll visit less often.

Relevant Linking

There are different kinds of links. Internal Links, which are links on your website that point to other areas within your website. Inbound Links, that other people put on their websites that point to yours. These are very important, because each inbound link is considered a “vote of confidence” by Search Engines. Outbound Links are links on your site, that point to other people. These too, are important, because the Search Engines want to know that you are providing a valuable resource, yet still pointing people to answers they may be looking for. Reciprocal Links, are when you and another website do a “swap”.

Always keep your links relevant. It used to be considered acceptable to list as many reciprocal links as you can possibly cram onto your site, regardless of content, or to submit your site to “Link Farms”. Google is starting to penalise sites that have done this. For example, would you find it useful to find a link about Plumbers in Essex if you were searching for a luxury holiday villa in Lanzarote? Of course you wouldn’t – and neither does Google.