A reader asks:

I have a small business and I get some customers through my website but I would like to get more. How do I increase my Google ranking in order to do so?

How to get to the top if the search engines rankings is a subject worthy of it’s very own blog (indeed there are many) but the following provides and overview of the key factors.

Keywords

Like any business goal “increasing your Google ranking needs” to be specific and measurable. The first step is to decide what keywords you want to rank for and then to measure where you currently are for them. Just make sure you choose keywords that your target market is actually searching for and don’t forget to consider the variations that are possible.

Content

Also referred to as “on page factors” – review your content and make sure you include the keywords you are aiming to rank for. Be sure to include some of the keywords in the title tag and header tags. Don’t go overboard and make every other word a keyword, search engines will regard that as spam and you probably won’t rank very highly on Google. Try to write your content for humans first and search engines second.

Links

Also referred to as “off page factors” – who links to your site matters, as does how many links you have. Not all links are equal however. As a general rule try to get links from related sites that already rank well for related keywords. Google uses who links to your site to assign it a PageRank and generally a higher PageRank will increase your ranking. Google does not like you to buy links, instead look for editorially given links.

This is just a quick overview of the issues you’ll need to consider, if you’re serious about increasing you Google ranking I suggest you buy a good book, I recommend Aron Wall’s SEO Book.

Further Reading:

In earlier posts I’ve provided more detail on choosing the best keywords, on page factors, off page factors and I’ve explained Google’s PageRank in more detail.

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