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4 Ways to Achieve High Search Engine Rankings

By Kim T. Gordon

    With paid search getting all the positive press these days, it’s easy to forget that organic (or natural) search results can play an instrumental role in your online success. Customers use online search engines at a crucial point in the purchase process – when they have an idea of what they want and are looking for the right place to buy it.

    Nearly 85 percent of Internet users perform online searches according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project report. And if you want to know why search is such an important part of an online campaign, consider this: a poll commissioned by MSN and conducted by Harris Interactive revealed that Internet users conduct approximately two searches on a typical day and nearly three-quarters say search engines are the fastest way to find information.

    By optimizing your Web pages, you can help your site appear higher in search engine rankings. This is critical to increasing search results, as some recent studies have shown that only the top results are viewed by the majority of searchers who often decline to scroll down. The ultimate goal of search engine optimization (SEM) is to have your site appear on the first page of search engine results – which can attract as much as six times the traffic and double the sales of lower ranking sites.

Here are four steps you can take to improve your company’s organic search rankings:

    Search engine ranking is based primarily on the number of prominent sites that link to yours and how well the content of your pages matches the keywords used in the search. The more links you can acquire to your site from high-ranking referrers, the better your chances of appearing near the top of search results. Google, the most popular search engine, uses an algorithm that puts high emphasis on link popularity. You can obtain links from just a handful of major sites, such as prominent industry associations or Web portals, or you can secure links to your site from thousands of lower-ranking sites and achieve the same results. To successfully optimize your site, contact relevant referrers and offer to exchange links, plus set up links to all related industry sites and Web portals.

    Do you know which keyword phrases your best prospects are most likely to be searching for? One way to find out is to check your competition for ideas. Perform searches using keyword phrases you know you’ll want to use and click through to the top sites that come up. You can look at the keywords your competitors have in their meta tags (the HTML coded tags search engines read) by clicking on "view" at the top of your Web browser and then selecting "page source" to see the HTML code.

    When choosing keyword phrases, it’s important to stay away from general terms. You’ll get better-qualified traffic if you choose more specific phrases. For example, instead of a general keyword, such as "barware," you’d have greater success if you optimized for the keyword phrase "stainless steel cocktail shaker." Use as many keyword phrases as necessary when optimizing your pages and sprinkle them throughout your site. Use them in the text on every page, in text hyperlinks, title tags and in photo labels (called Alt tags).

    Search engines use the information in the title tags on each of your Web pages to create your listings in search results, so they must contain compelling copy that induces searchers to click through to your site. Make your title tags between 50 and 80 characters long, including spaces, and include your most important keyword phrases. And while you’re customizing your page properties, be sure to create "description" and "keywords" meta tags. Include several of your most important keyword phrases in your description meta tag, and describe your page content in a way that will entice visitors to click through. When writing your keywords meta tag, use only keyword phrases that appear on that web page. Don’t overlook plural versions of your keywords, such as "stainless steel cocktail shakers." And if you’re targeting local traffic, optimize your site by adding local search terms to your tags and sprinkling them throughout your web pages.

    Placing keyword phrases in text hyperlinks can also help you achieve higher rankings. So can customizing image (Alt) tags to include keyword phrases. For example, the Alt tag that describes a promotional photo of barware products in use at a cocktail party might read: "Create festive cocktails with this stainless steel cocktail shaker."

    You can either submit your site for review to individual search engines or you can sit back and wait for their "spiders" to find you. Submission services can eliminate much of the detailed work of filling out dozens of forms, usually by creating a single form and submitting it automatically. They will also provide reports on which engines are listing your pages in organic searches. But no matter which route you choose, don’t be surprised if it takes six weeks or more for your optimization efforts to pay off. It takes a minimum of four weeks to get organic listings on Google, six weeks on Excite, and up to two months on AOL, for example.

    It will also take patience to wait for your online conversions to be fully realized. In fact, search engine conversions show up long after initial search queries. For example, a ComScore Networks study examining the impact of search engine usage on the purchase of consumer electronics and computer products showed that among consumers who chose to purchase online following the search, 85 percent of the sales occurred in a later (non-search) session. What’s more, in a Search Marketing Survey of approximately 3000 marketers by MarketingSherpa, marketers said organic clicks increased an average of 73 percent in the six months after optimization. So be patient and you can expect to see effective optimization boost your site traffic – and your online success.