Let’s face it whether you have a product or
service for sale or if you just want attention
chances are you want others to find you. With
internet searches being the most popular internet
activity online being found on the search engines
can be a major task. After all odds are there are
a half a million other’s offering the same
product or service.
Search engines such as Yahoo and Google rule the
internet and you will find hundreds of articles
on how to ‘get listed’ on the major
search engines. Don’t waste your time, if
you have something on the internet the search
engines will find it. The secret, task, goal, is
to have your information on the first page of
these search engine results. You can be sure if
your web site or blog is on page ten of the
results not a single person with a life is going
to find you.
So, how can you be found on the search engines
such as Ask.com, MSN, AOL, and yes even Yahoo and
Google? Time, effort, and determination to start
with and the following five tips:
#1 Invest in your own domain. Yes, there are free
web sites and free to use blogs but the truth is
the search engines know they are free services
and they don’t take you as serious as they
would if you had your own domain. To get found on
the search engines you may want to spend the $100
or so a year.
#2 Content is still king. We’ve heard it
time and time again but in the case of being
found on the internet ‘a picture is worth a
thousand words’ is NOT true. Granted if you
have the only picture in the world of the hottest
topic on the internet you may be found but only
if the name of the picture lets people searching
know what you have.
#3 Keywords – your content may be great but
for being found on the search engines you want
your content to contain one to five keywords that
relate to your product or service and are spread
out through your content. That does not mean just
stick them in helter-skelter they need to fit
into your dialogue, make since while still being
there.
#4 If you can’t write content worth beans
hire it done for you. Including this author there
are 100s of freelance writers who would for a
small one time fee write your content for you. If
you are a writer then you should learn the
on-line technique of content writing for the
search engines.
#5 Work on getting links back to your site. Big
warning here, avoid the ‘link farms’
places that all they do is generate reciprocal
(return, exchange) links. Quality search engines
such as Yahoo will catch this and you won’t
be found in the searches. The best links are ones
from sites related to the topic of your own site
or blog. 100 links from dog sites do no good for
a cat site unless all of them are about how much
dogs hate cats.
That’s it five tips for getting found on the
search engines (eight if you count time, effort,
and determination). Anyone can be found on the
internet and by using these tips you can be
listed on the first page of major search engines
without paying anyone hundreds of dollars to do
it.
Faith Wright-Draper (aka
byfaithonly) has been writing for over 40
years as a journalist, ghostwriter, and
freelancer. She currently writes for
several blogs, freelances, and writes on
her own website www.byfaithonly.com