How to get to the top of google

[Peter]

Why did my Mac not pick up on that one?????

 

Go to settings, and change spell check language from Klingon to English (UK).

[allston]

I have quite a good local web designer. He mentioned to be careful on getting involved in link schemes to improve ranking. He also said to be cautious of reciprocal links as Google may discount them or even penalise both websites involved. The best approach of all to improve rankings is quality content, he said always remember Google is only interested in giving the best search results to the person making the search.

[nailer]

I think he's right. Reciprocal links are best avoided. Clicks to your site can also do more harm than good if it's a very short one-page visit.

[Hodge]

Watt Tyler was that?

 

They were a good band:)

[Mark Bolam]

I have quite a good local web designer. He mentioned to be careful on getting involved in link schemes to improve ranking. He also said to be cautious of reciprocal links as Google may discount them or even penalise both websites involved. The best approach of all to improve rankings is quality content, he said always remember Google is only interested in giving the best search results to the person making the search.

 

That is BS.

 

Yell.com, Kelkoo and people like that are nearly always top because they pay the dollar.

 

Top six are usually not tree cutters, they are other co's offering to find tree cutters in the specified area.

[Paul Smith]

Paul, there's a typo on your front page - Essex Country Council.

And a redundant "friendly" in the sentence "Our friendly team know everything there is to know about tree removal and will always offer a friendly, professional and tidy service.". Ditch the first "friendly" and it will sound much better.

 

Not that I'm a pedant of anything

 

Just noticed this this, thanks will sort tomorrow!

[JamesMio]

Afternoon folks,

 

Just having a wee nosey browse on here to keep my hand in and thought I'd chip in with a few tuppence worth - hope it's of some help to somebody.

 

Click here...

The more traffic you get through your website from different IP address's helps you get up on Google.

 

Not true I'm afraid - LINKS from different websites, and subsequently IP's, around the web - ideally within your theme or topic definitely do help, but traffic alone doesn't.

 

 

Remember that it`s important to spend some time on a site and view a few pages. Google counts a one page view as a bounce and therefore lowers the ranking.

 

Again, this is a bit of a myth - Google does class a single page view as a 'bounce', however it doesn't make any difference in terms of where a page is ranked. They don't use any analytics data to influence search rankings - from the mouth of their own Matt Cutts [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgBw9tbAQhU]from the mouth of their own Matt Cutts[/ame]

 

Where a high bounce rate is (or should be) used however is as a signal that something on your page isn't perhaps right. People are arriving, not seeing what they expected, and then leaving. It's a great tool for looking at ways to improve your website.

 

 

Reciprocal links are best avoided.

 

Hmmm, as a general rule of thumb - 'probably' but Google is only looking to discredit links that it deems to be 'unnatural'. Let me give you a couple of scenarios where reciprical links are both natural and perfectly fine.

 

Joe Bloggs owns a tree surgery site and a firewood site. Why would he not want to include a link to each from the other site he owns?

 

Andy Bloggs owns the web design company that built Joe's sites - he's included a wee link in the footer of each saying 'Website Designed by Andy Bloggs'. Because he's so happy with them, Joe then adds a small blog post on each of his sites along the lines of 'Thanks to Andy Bloggs for my new sites - I think they're great'.

 

All perfectly natural, and something that people actually would do. Nothing to worry about.

 

Where people run into problems is by swapping links with all & sundry, just to get the link. Think about it - why would say, a Mexican restaurant in Brisbane legitimately link to an Arb site in Dundee?

 

That's the sort of linking that Google might punish a site for, and should be avoided.

 

 

Clicks to your site can also do more harm than good if it's a very short one-page visit.

 

Not true - clicks won't do you any harm whatsoever.

 

 

Because Macs are all arty farty...

 

This I can confirm to be true.

 

 

I have quite a good local web designer. He mentioned to be careful on getting involved in link schemes to improve ranking.

 

He's advising you well, to a point - see above. It all depends on the link scheme.

 

 

He also said to be cautious of reciprocal links as Google may discount them or even penalise both websites involved.

 

Links are good, used properly they count as votes from one site to another - don't be afraid of asking for and getting links to your site.

 

See above - it's all about relevance and whether it's something that would actually, naturally happen if people weren't trying to scam the search engines.

 

 

The best approach of all to improve rankings is quality content, he said always remember Google is only interested in giving the best search results to the person making the search.

 

Your web guy knows what he's talking about - this is the single best bit of advice I've seen on this thread. By providing something that is of real value, use or interest to people on your website it will naturally gather links as people share it with others. This in turn will naturally bring in more traffic as the word spreads, and subsequently attract more links. The more links you gather, the higher up the rankings your site will go, thus attracting even more traffic.

 

That's the way to do it!

 

 

 

Yell.com, Kelkoo and people like that are nearly always top because they pay the dollar.

 

Top six are usually not tree cutters, they are other co's offering to find tree cutters in the specified area.

 

Depends what you class as 'nearly always top'. Anyone can be 'top' by paying for AdWords - but it can turn into an expensive game.

 

A lot of the time, the big sites (like the ones Mark's mentioned - Yell etc) rank well is because they:

 

A) Are old - old sites tend to be more trustworthy in Google's eyes

 

B) Are big - look at Wikipedia - they're not paying anyone yet how many times does a Wikipedia page top the rankings? Big sites are more likely to have an answer to something, and thus tend to get served up quite often by search engines

 

C) Have a 'lot' of backlinks pointing to them. I've just done a very quick check, and Yell.com alone has in the region of 750,000 other webpages linking back to it.

 

 

Happy to help if anyone wants any other pointers on this.

[treebloke]

James Mio - very good advice.

 

Arbtalk has been a link on our site from day 1 Links | Wolverhampton Tree Service OFFICIAL WEBSITE

[JamesMio]

James Mio - very good advice.

 

No probs - If I may be so bold as to offer you a wee tip - go into the admin dashboard of your site, then into Settings and look for the bit called Permalinks.

 

In there, change it to... (let me just double check exactly which one it is...) either 'Post Name' or 'Month & Name'.

 

Either of these should give you much nicer, search engine friendly URL's - e.g.

 

http://www.wolvestrees.co.uk/contact instead of:

 

http://www.wolvestrees.co.uk/?page_id=52

 

Takes 2 mins to do, and helps a lot with your SEO efforts.

[morten]

No probs - If I may be so bold as to offer you a wee tip - go into the admin dashboard of your site, then into Settings and look for the bit called Permalinks.

 

In there, change it to... (let me just double check exactly which one it is...) either 'Post Name' or 'Month & Name'.

 

Either of these should give you much nicer, search engine friendly URL's - e.g.

 

http://www.wolvestrees.co.uk/contact instead of:

 

Contact | Wolverhampton Tree Service OFFICIAL WEBSITE

 

Takes 2 mins to do, and helps a lot with your SEO efforts.

 

Right! You clearly know your SEO, and provide well-documented advise rather than urban myths.

 

One of the best free documents available on SEO is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Webmaster Tools Help

 

With regards to making the page content more search engine friendly, it is important to know that it makes a difference where on the page the keywords (words that match search terms made by Google'rs) appear.

 

In order of importance (from memory, highest weight first) for weighing keywords (sample keyword "firewood"):

1. In the domain name (no punktuation required).
   E.g. http://www.bestfirewoodsupplier.co.uk
   
2. In the page URL (other than the host name).
   E.g. www.acme.co.uk/firewood-prices
   
3. In the page Title (what goes into the page/tab at the top of your browser)
   
4. In the HTML headings (e.g. H1, H2, H3 …).
   Don't just format the text with a large font, as Google doesn't care about font sizes, use a "Heading" style
   

 

Also, you should try to anticipate the search term combinations that your potential customers will search for. And use Google Analytics to verify which search terms were used by the people that actually clicked on your link.

 

In my experience, people often add the name of the town/city/county/area as well as the word "cheap", "price" or even "free". You may want to add such words as well to ALL the relevant pages on your website. Google is fairly good at matching variants of words, e.g. "prices", "pricing", "price".

 

Oh. And the last thing: DONT USE FLASH to make your website look "flashy". Google all but ignores the content of flash plugins, and furthermore, it leaves out mobile and tablet users completely.

Edited July 10, 2012 by morten
Fictive URL links fixed