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As a newbie to this forum (or any forum for that matter), I was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to tell me what you think are the top 10 things to do to your web site to get good rankings on Google?
I've read about using keywords in your title tag, meta tags, alt tags, hrefs, body copy, comments, etc...
I've read that using CSS to design the site instead of tables will help also...
I've read many of the threads in this forum too.
What does SERP mean? What is www2 and www3 google urls mean?
What is the "dance"? When Google tweaks their algo and re-spiders all sites?
I'm trying to get smart on Google optimization quickly! I'm sure it's not something to learn overnight, but if you could steer me in the right direction, that would be great.
Any thoughts or ideas would be very much appreciated!
In other words chase after the crumbs while your competitors eat your lunch with psuedo-directory sites. How long will it be before you decide that if Google likes psuedo-directories, you're going to give it what it wants, a psuedo-directory. Whatever it takes. By your own counsel there's nothing to lose--you were going to walk away from SEO for your competitive commercial product anyway.
My beef has to do with the kind of query which started this thread, specifically the kind of smug answer it always gets. A newbie comes in and asks: 'What do I do to get seen on the web (ie: Google, the present synonym for 'web' since it controls circa 85% of it).
You sage old timers all answer with a zen koan about the sound of one hand clapping, you cop a Mona Lisa smile and say: 'Just write great content from a user's perspective, a new page of it every day. Then link, link, link, and Google will take care of the rest.'
If all searchers are looking for health info, news, good literature, then fine. Maybe we should give eCommerce its own separate Internet. Then every altruistic site, the charities and homemade blogs, won't have to pay you brilliant SEOs out there to optimize their sites for them. It's a good thing, too--by definition a pure info, noncommercial site has no money anyway. But they'll sure give those surfers what they seek, as long as it has nothing to do with a popular commercial product.
Thanks for the welcome and thanks for the help?
...hey although that might be true, those "newbie posts" aren't exactly like this:
"i've just learned this HTML stuff, and it's all very new to me, now could anyone tell me how to dominate the listings for pharmaceuticals, adult, and gambling - in ten easy steps please?"
In which case the answer would be.. eh... well... uhm...yes?
Added: I've got to say that the 26 steps and the Google guidelines etc. are good advice for most sites, if not all. It might not get you to the top for every single keyword, but still, some may never need to know more than this to do very good in the serps.
/claus
Exactly!
Yet, over and over, webmasters, (here and on other forums), exress their opinion *as fact*.
Is "tables are bad" the latest rumor? Or is it, 'low code to text ratio gives better serp'?. Gee, that's a good one; it sounds so...techie. Maybe I should remove *all* my code and delete all reciprocal links (everyone knows they are evil).
I hear design for the user, not Google, then I hear use CSS and you will get better SERPs.
People swear that link farms are bad, but when asked, they can't say what a link farm is.
Either I or the whole damn world has gone mad.
.... trust the first answer given by Ciml, that's first class info, can't get any better
