6 Surefire Ways to Rank Well in Google

I’m often asked, since I’m an organic search engine optimization professional, what are the surefire ways to rank well in Google. This unfortunately changes changes for every website and is usually figured on a case-by-case scenario, but there are 6 surefire ways to rank well in Google for free traffic (in no particular order).

1. Backlink Building
   Link building is considered to be one of the most important factors that determine search engine rankings. The quality of the site, anchor text, age of link, destination of link, extension of domain (.edu, .goc, other), and relevancy of the site are also figured into how well the site will rank.

   Links can developed using a number of different methods. The easiest, and usually the most costly, is to outright purchase them. One of the most popular sites for this method is Text-Link-Ads. Blog commenting, Squidoo, link exchanges, template sponsorships, and Yahoo! Answers are also methods of building backlinks. I’m currently in the process of writing a link building ebook and you can sign up for the mailing list to be contacted when it is ready here.

2. Using Keywords in the Title Tag
   Using keywords in the title tag is easy to do and can give major results. It’s much easier for search engines to find the keywords and it presents them first, meaning search engines know what the content is immediately. Also, those keywords will get bolded in results, making it more likely for someone to click on your site.

   For example, one of my major keyword sets for this site is “internet marketing blog” and you can find those exact keywords in the title tag. I would not use more than 6 keywords in the title.

3. Age
   The age of relevant indexable content is extremely important. This is Google’s safety net and the older the site, the higher it will rank. Age cannot be gamed, so new sites will generally have to spend a considerable amount (of time and money) building quality backlinks (aka inbound links) to overpower age.
4. Using Keywords in Body Text
   Much like using keywords in the title tag, using keywords in the body text can easily be changed. I refer to this as relevant content. If you’re trying to rank well for “internet marketing blog”, but your site is all about home cooking, then you’ll have a lot of work to do. Google likes to see the keywords in the body text, because it can match meta, title, and body keywords up and know exactly what that site is about. I do NOT recommend having a huge list of keywords at the end of the website. That worked in the pre-Google era. Work the keywords seamlessly into the content, like I’ve been doing in this post.
5. Keywords in Domain
   Far to often I see irrelevant domain names used on websites. Spend the time, and possibly money, buying a relevant domain that matches content. As mentioned, Google likes to match up keywords and having them in the domain certainly helps. Search nearly any single term and you’ll find the .com for that term in top 3 almost every time. For example, type “car” and you’ll notice that car.com ranks number 1.

   If for some reason you can not or do not have keywords in the domain, then use trailing “/” marks to get them there. However, do not use more than 4. For example site.com/30.php should be site.com/seo_techniques/link_building/google.php

6. Internal Linking
   Internal linking is one of the most underrated and most forgotten search engine optimization techniques. It’s easy to do and it can have a massive positive impact. Link as many pages together as you can using the keyword as the anchor text. However, be sure not to “overdo” it.

Combine and perform the above 6 items effectively and you’ll find yourself ranking well in Google and receiving tons of targeted traffic. The reason I target Google for organic search campaigns, is because of their massive market share.

Further Reading

• SEOmoz
• Wolf Howl
• SEO Book
• DigitalPoint forums

There are hundreds of techniques to rank well in search engines. If you have any, please share in the comments.

Technorati Tags: search engine optimization, seo, search engine marketing, sem

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

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Great article! Just wondering, would you recommend submitting your site to (hundreds of) directories?

Thanks. To answer your question, it depends. I usually pay someone $5 on forums.digitalpoint.com to submit for me when starting a new site, just because it costs so little. I do not think it helps very much in rankings or in increasing pagerank, but I do think it helps Google find your site and start to index it. Does that answer your question?

[...] Check out this incredibly useful post for 6 Surefire Ways to Rank Well in Google. [...]

Yes, it does. Thank you Dave!

As an SEO specialist, I’m totally baffled by the content of item number 5.

After trying to convince us that age is very important in item 3, you then recommend switching to a brand new domain name so that it includes your keywords. This would essentially require you to start over.

And I can only guess that what you mean by “trailing marks” is that you should create subdirectories - in your example you actually create two new subdirectory levels for spiders to negotiate - seo_techniques, which then contains a directory named link_building below it, which then contains the file google.php. While I agree that directory names and file names do have some impact I think to say “use trailing “/” marks ” is misleading, as creating the properly named directories and proper naming of the files within those directories seems to be what’s required instead of “using trailing marks”.

Randy,
Thanks for the I appologize for the confusion. I should have mentioned that if you’re using a domain that doesnt have keywords to use directories “/” when the site is created. In short, when I say using “/”, I mean creating sub-directories.

If the site is well established, then I suggest still changing the URL of inner pages and redirecting the old pages via a 301 redirect to the new pages. You’ll still have the benefit of the old ranked pages (301 redirect) and the new pages should rank higher than the old pages with time.

Again, thanks for the comment, it’s always great to have different points of view.

Great read! I also use LinkWorth in addition to T-L-Ads. Best two for link building. LW has great pricing and big list of sites to pick from.

The commenting I think is risky, but most blogs edit or nofollow comments. I guess if you blast a million comments and 2% work, then it’s worth it.

Never heard of squidoo, checking them out now.

thx

I dont mean spamming blogs. Read my post about blog commenting and you’ll see what I mean. Read the posts and make relevent comments and get on the top commentators list for a followed, quality backlink. DO NOT SPAM.

PS: Thanks for the LW link.

[...] may have noticed a slight change in the titles of my blog posts. For example, 6 Surefire Ways to Rank Well in Google, Writing Effective Adcopy for Discounted Google PPC Traffic, and Comparison of Apple’s Stock and [...]

Hi,
I agree with what you have said except the first point which says that links shud be outrightly purchased.

But, there are many other ways by which the link building can be shaped.

Regards,
Tia

[...] Read more from Dave about search engine ranking and more on A Virtual Marketing Blog [...]

Thanks for the post Dave. With so many different suggestions for optimization, its nice to go back to the basics with good, solid, and implementable suggestions.

Glad you found it useful. Thanks for linking to it on your blog!

Backlink building is very important. Networking is the blood line of your website, try and do set some time like a few hours a week. Over a space of time, this will increase your back links over a period of time.