2012 is here and the start of the year is a good time to reflect on the previous year and the plans for the new year.
This includes your website!
As you are aware, having a professional website is very important in order to have the opportunity to reach the people searching the internet.
However, each day many more websites are being published to the internet leading to increased competition. This makes it even harder to achieve a position on the first page of Google.
Here are 5 tips to help the ranking of your website.
1. Submit to Directories
Submit your website to popular online directories. This should include niche directories relevant to your industry, product, service and location.
As part of this it is worth adding listings to Yelp, Freeindex, Qype and My Local Services.
You should also submit your website to DMOZ. There is no gaurantee. However, if accepted, Google currently considers a link from DMOZ as positive.
As a rule do not pay for listings nor use services promising to submit to 1000′s of directories in one go. This is considered low value by Google.
2. Forums
Find forums that are relevant to your website. Open an account and get involved making posts, replying to the posts of other people.
If you can help other members with advice and guidance it will help build your reputation. Then when people are looking for help, there is a good chance they will come to you (or recommend their friends).
Make sure you add all the appropriate profile details, especially website. If they offer the facility of adding a signature in profile settings, make sure you add one with meaningful text that links back to the appropriate page on your website.
3. Start a Blog
Google currently places a high value on good content. A good way to do this is by starting a blog that is relevant to your website.
On a regular basis add topical, informative posts of between 300 – 500 words. Do not make them too sales orientated.
The blog will allow you to add links back to your website. Again if the content is good, a link from a good blog is valued by Google. Plus if you build a base of regular readers, they will be more inclined to visit your website.
You can use a free service such as Blogger or WordPress. Alternatively, it is possible to include a blog on your existing website. Please contact me for more details.
4. Comment on other peoples Blogs
Another good way of raising awareness and building links to your website is by commenting on the blogs of other people.
Search Google using a phrase applicable to your website and add blog at the end. Choose the first search result, take a look at the post. If it is interesting and you have a useful comment to make, scroll to the bottom of the blog and you should see an option to add a comment. Make sure you populate the URL / website field as this will create the link back to your website.
5. Article Synication
In a similar way to writing blog posts, you can write articles that then can be submitted to article syndication networks. This is where the article is picked up and used by somebody else on their website.
You may ask why you would want to do this. Within the article you can usually include links back to your website and within a Bio section at the bottom of the article.
So if it is used on other websites, you get links pointing at your website that will potentially send you visitors.
Articles normally need to be 300 or more words and of good quality.
If you would like more information on the small business SEO services, please contact me on info@digitalark.co.uk.
Tags: increase website traffic, increase website visitors, seo, small business seo