fishfinger - 5:15 pm on Jun 20, 2007 (gmt 0)

1) Be SURE that your content is unique. Don't just check Copyscape (it can be blocked) take 20 words here and there from the mid to bottom of the page and search in quotes for it.

2) Be honest with yourself. Not saying this is you, but so many people whinge about how original their site is when they've effectively rewritten someone else's. So many people say they have a 'quality' site when it's piss-poor MFA, thinly disguised affiliate, reseller or cookie cutter drop-shipping front.

3) Check to make sure you've built your site properly and that the nav is clean and spiderable. Make sure you're not doing anything silly like using the same description tag on every page. Make sure your 'optimisation' isn't 1990s style. How much original unique content do you have on every page? How much is template/boilerplate?

4) Get over yourself. Again, I don't mean to be rude but you must remember GOOGLE DOES NOT OWE YOU A LIVING. Stop whining and start working. There are usually hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of sites doing exactly what you do. Many will be better and will have been around longer. Google is not some sort of slot machine set to pay out after a few minutes. It's a multi-million pound business. If there's money to be made on the internet then people will invest in their sites right? You wouldn't expect free print, TV or radio advertising would you?

5) Accept that if you want to rank in Google you need to play it their way. Yes you need links to rank. Yes you can pay for them and spam for them - but you can also get them for free by offering quality - articles, press releases, swaps. All the information you need to learn how to rank sites and make money is out there. This forum is a very good place to start. Search for lists of free directories that will list your site from nothing - or find lists of places to submit articles / press releases to. There are moderators on this forum and others regularly writing huge "20 steps to a successful site" threads for your benefit.