Lead Gen, Associate, and SEO Guru Adam Torkildson

I’ve been focused on helping web sites rank in the number one position for nearly a decade. As a result I’ve read and seen a lot of information published on SEO that is either totally inaccurate or validated with actual research. The good news is that I’ve sorted through a lot of this information to help you identify the best SEO strategies.

Having worked directly with hundreds of web sites I have discovered techniques for optimizing web sites that actually work. I often get question about SEO such as, “what is the one technique that works better than all others?” A difficult question to answer because I have found a number of techniques that are truly effective.

The first search engine ranking factor has to do with the anchor text of all inbound links to your website. Google and other search engines use the anchor text from other sites linking in to determine what your site is about and what it should rank well for. If websites link in only using a URL, and not your keywords in the anchor text, email them and ask them to update your link. The link should always appear with your most important keywords.

The second most important ranking factor is using keywords in your title tag and other meta tags. Meta tags still have an impact on your search rankings. Although the weight of meta tags may be minimal, they are effective in categorizing your page and identifying what search engines should expect to find when they spider web site pages. Make sure your tags are constructed properly and include you keywords.

The third ranking factor to consider for your web site is link popularity. This phrase has been talked about in search engine circles for a while but can be equated with Page Rank. The concept of Page rank or link popularity for that matter take a number of factors into consideration to identify the quality of web pages from an external perspective. The largest factor that influences search engine rankings is the number and quality of links that are pointing to a web site or web page.

The fourth ranking factor is the diversity of domains that link to your web site. For many search engines, its not only what links you have to your site but making sure they are from different domains. This represents more popularity associated with you web site and therefore is judged to be a better search result. When link building, try to focus on generating inbound links from different websites.

The fifth ranking factor you want to consider is having your keywords in your domain. I know that it’s pretty difficult to do so, but at the very least, make sure that your keywords are in the subdomain or folder one step away from your domain. This place the keyword in proximity to your page and can support higher rankings.

Each of the five factors mentioned above are some of the most effective I have seen over more than a decade of online marketing. Focus on inbound links that are formatted properly, link popularity, and domains. By doing so you can dramatically improve the overall effectiveness of your search engine optimization efforts.

Michael Fleischner is the Author of SEO Made Simple and offers SEO training for small and medium sized businesses. Be sure to get free search engine optimization and Internet marketing support at the Internet marketing forum

Wondering how to get your website seen? If you are a small business with big plans you probably had a website built and expected the orders to roll in. You may have already tried some Pay Per Click advertising and even paid to be listed in some online directories.

By now, you have most likely figured out that people shopping online do not want to go through a directory to find you. They go through search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live. They type in a keywords and phrases that describe what they want and the search engines give them a list of websites, starting with what the search engine believes is the most relevant result.

Being in the first group of results is what will bring traffic to your website. It doesn’t matter what you have to offer, the key to success online is to be found on the first page of these search results when someone is looking for what you have to offer.

The great thing about those search results is that they are working every hour of every day. The bad thing is that if you cant be found in those top few results, your neighbor across the street could be looking for what you have to offer and they’ll never find you.

Things that you have used in the past for traditional business experience, are pretty much useless online. Before the internet, businesses might have spent thousands of dollars per month on Yellow page advertising. When the internet first went public that business had to be sure that those ads pointed to their website. After only a few years, most families don’t even know where their phone book is anymore.

If you have a traditional store, say sports equipment, you may have a few selections for athletic shoes. In your store you may display these shoes according to cost. The typical online shopper is not looking for every shoe you have to offer. They are searching for one brand and one style at every store that offers that one shoe.

In a small town, a local store owner is probably complaining that he has a specific item that he bought from his supplier, and that it will not sell until he discounts it at the end of the season. However, this same item is being sold in the big city and has customers lining up around the block hoping to get a chance to buy this specific item as soon as it is delivered.

Putting his inventory online allows the kids in the big city to find the shoes they want regardless of what small town store has them. It takes a bit to wrap your head around the concept, but suffice it to say that the online shopper is going to be more specific about what they are looking for and they dont really care where your store actually is as long as you can get the product they want delivered to them.

If you are a traditional store that wants to sell your products online, instead of trying to sell things online that you can not move in your store, it is going to be vital to your success to offer your products from the top down. Your website needs to promote your products in an appealing way. A good SEO will be able to match up the hottest searches performed and help you target your campaign by researching products.

Again, just having a cool website is not enough. You are going to need to build that website in a Search Friendly manner. Lets use the shoes one more time. Say you put a great picture of the latest shoe on your website. It is the very one that kids across the country would go get a job for. But if all you have is a picture, the Search Spider cant read your picture. It is not human. It searches for text. Text in the form of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) and in the form of content on your page. These are spider food.

The Search Spider searches your site, following your linking structure and recording what it finds then it takes it back to the Search Engine Database. The Search Engine then runs that data through its algorithm to determine what searches your might be relevant to your site and how relevant your data is compared to other websites it has recorded.

What does this mean? The world has changed and is more advanced than it was 10 or even 5 years ago. It has changed in ways we could not ever predict. If we had computers in the eighteen hundreds, they would have predicted that every city in America would now be twenty feet deep in horse manure.

Your website is proof that you are trying to be a contender in the new way of doing business. Now you have to index your site so search engines will find it. Your products will then be identifies and produced as relevant search results when the search is over.

Rather than showing a picture of your product and writing a caption under it that says something like This is a very popular item this year, use specific terms that someone would search for when they are looking for this exact product. This will take a little more effort and refining but diligence and persistence pay off.

The other thing that takes some understanding and patience is to know that the Search Spider does not live on your website. He has other places to go too. You have to allow him time to get around to checking out your changes.

Dont be afraid to do some investigative work on your own. Check out your competition. See how they describe the products on their site. A little homework on your part will also help you get an understanding of what youre up against.

If you are using Pay Per Click advertising they will provide Keyword Suggestion Tools. But please use caution. These tools are really focusing on getting you to pay to show up in as many searches as they can. Although that might sound like exactly what you want too, the truth is that aside from being expensive, if your site does not exactly match to what the searcher is looking for, you are wasting money.

A Search Optimization Service will be help you focus your energy and resources in the areas that will get you more conversions because you will be showing up for the most relevant searches all the time rather than just when you can afford Pay Per Click advertising.