Of the 7,630,000 hits for the word Picard today, my Picard Surname Webpage can be found on page 3 at number 28... think of all the Star Trek pages it preempts! I have that site linked from numerous genealogy (reputable ones) sites... primarily French Canadien sites and personal sites, as well as Rootsweb and Ancestry.com. But, it took time to evolve to that kind of placing.
My Thoughts
This is indeed impressive. As RML points out the search term "picard" is going to have a very strong following in Star Trek fans - so getting to page 3 of Google is a great accomplishment. One of the reasons for this great ranking is the links from big genealogy sites. Google seems to rank links from reputable sites as a better idea of what people want from search results.
Some other techniques to get better ranking on Google and other search engines include:
- Use good hierarchical headings like <h1>, <h2>, and <h3>.
- All pages should have a descriptive title tag.
- Use text links within your pages - with descriptive text, not "click here".
More Google and SEO Resources
- Improve Your Site for Google
- What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
- Search Engine Optimization Step-by-Step
- 95 SEO Tips and Tricks for Powerful Search Engine Optimization
- Search Engine Optimization Made Simple: Five Steps to Build Web Pages that Use Search Engine Optimization
What do you do to get good Google ranking?
Is there something that you've done that has helped you get good SEO or Google ranking? Do you have suggestions for how to get better ranking? Or maybe you just need help getting your own site higher up in the ranks. Post your thoughts in the comments here or reply to his message in the forum.
Many factors contribute to search engine rankings, however, relevant content is still most important. Content is still “King”!
Organize your content so that each page focuses on a single topic of a unifying site theme. Research the best three keywords/keyword phrases (primary, secondary, tertiary) to target your specific audience (more than 4 keywords/phrases and they will become diluted).
Write copy for people, not search engines. Well-written copy will naturally flow and be appealingly readable to your audience. You’ll be surprised how easily you’ve likely already integrated your selected keywords into your copy. At most, you’ll probably only have to tweak the copy to include the selected keywords and their synonyms. (About 3-5% keyword density is optimum.)
Lots of SEO information can be found on the internet. Use only “white hat” (above-board) techniques, structure your site and pages to be SEO-friendly, develop linking relationships with reputable sites, and most importantly, develop and write content relevant to your target audience.
Your hard work will reward you; also remember, though, that SEO is not a one-time effort. Regular monitoring, analyzing, and tweaking your site is often necessary to keep your rankings once you achieve your inital goal.
Best of luck!
My site comes up #1 on a Google search for ‘Picasa Video Tutorials’ and I don’t really know how I did it! I’m even on page 4 for ‘computer video tutorials.’ I think that using CSS is the biggest factor because the search engines can see your content so much better.
I’ve made a few sites for other people and, before CSS, I tried everything I could think of and the site would never make it within the first 10 SRPs – even after a year! Last year I made a site for a chiropractor in Wilton Manors and, within a couple weeks it was 3d or 4th on a Google search for ‘chiropractor wilton manors.’
I swear I didn’t do anything special, CSS makes the difference. CSS rules!
My site is http://www.geeksontour.com
There are combinations of many factors that determine the ranking of a web site, with high quality content and trusted inbound links being the most important.
Additional factors that the search engines take into consideration are:
* the age of the website
* the age of the page
* the overall popularity of the website on the Internet as a whole
* the overall popularity of the page with respect to other pages within the website
* the authority and trust factor of the domain
* the words being used within the visible content of the page
* the words used in anchor text pointing to the page
* the words used in alt attribute text pointing to the page
And many, many more.
Obviously, one way is to pay the great God Google for sponored rankings.
We have found this a good, not expensive, way of getting to the top of the pages….most times!!!!
Kricket has it right.
Everything else is the cat chasing its tail.
A wise old alley cat saw a young kitten chasing its tail one day. He asked the kitten what she was doing.
“I am chasing my tail. I went to Cat College and learned that happiness is in my tail,” was her reply.
“I did not have the benefit of higher education,” said the alley cat, “but through the years I’ve learned that, indeed, happiness is in my tail.”
He smiled and finished with, “But, you see, I simply focus on my goal and my tail follows right along after me.”
The ultimate award for the work on your web site isn’t from Google — it’s from those that visit and return. THAT’s your focus.
Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com
From my own experience, as a hobby webmaster & Google obsessive, Google definitely seems to give great weight to “choice keywords” in anchor text. Backlinks from reputable subject related sites, aquired slowly/naturally over time (as opposed to linking schemes) certainly help, and reciprocated links from trustworthy related sites really do not harm. Crosslinking between your own sites may harm a little if such links are not “nofollowed”. The title tag seems to be given great importance, so much can be gained by having a unique title relevant to that page’s content, and the rest has already been said by Kricket.
Myself, I have not had great sucess in obtaining many in-coming links, yet I do rank highly for a number of choice key terms, some of which are competitive(something you cannot buy through adwords!) “Content is King”, so good semantic mark-up, external style sheets/scripts, plus CSS can be employed to help ensure googlebot gets to the important written information quickly, & the higher up the page that is for the spiders, the greater importance it appears to be given by Google (perhaps one reason CSS could be seen as a way to improve/gain high ranking). Overall relative popularity has never played much of a factor in my own website’s ranking. Visitor numbers do not impact on your websites position, and neither does “PageRank” alone – in Googles own words that is “just one of over 200 factors taken into account.” BTW, I dont think it matters what HTML you use, so long as it is correct and you can get the important content high up the page etc. One thing I have done is to try to follow Googles webmaster guidelines closely, although not completely, and I do frequently monitor my site. The previous poster I think also makes an important point – a website needs frequent relevant visitors.
I have the following data to report:
1. Yahoo search for keyword “wildlife and nature photos from india” – search result 12,300,000 – my rank No. 4 & 7.
2. Yahoo search for keyword “wildlife and nature photos” – search result 29,200,000 – my rank No. 9.
3. Yahoo search for keyword “nature photos” – search result 252,000,000 – my rank No. 37.
4. Google search for keyword “wildlife and nature photos from india” – search result 1,930,000 – my rank No. 2.
5. Google search for keyword “wildlife and nature photos” – search result 3,180,000 – my rank No. 38.
the website http://amitranjanray.googlepages.com is about 1 year and 6 months old.
Nice tips…. I am new in seo, and found your tips are very informative and great. Thank you for the sharing.