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The quick fix to search engines - getting your page ranked quickly

by Mar Matthias Darin

This morning I was looking at what I could optimize on my web pages or better known in the web/server world as SEO (search engine optimization). I did a lookup in Google and was amazed to see the number of "Get ranked quickly", "Be top ranked", "Get listed fast", et al garbage pages.

By now, its old news... Google has changed the equation for its PR (page rank) methods and Alexa has pretty much trashed everyone's rankings, except the paid listing. They moved up.

Between Google and Alexa, the average Joe doesn't stand a chance in getting a decent PR or Alexa ranking. All the hype about SEO is a load of crap... I know, I've been running a server for ten years now. Every time the non-paid listing climb to close to the paid ones, there's always a "magic" equation fix to slap the little guys down.

There are; however; good ways that will get a site listed without all the rhetorical SEO montage. Best of all, they're free (well, in terms of money), simple, and things you can do yourself.

First and foremost, make sure you page is complete. By that, I mean the page must have the following HTML qualities:

• The page must have a title.
• The page must have a description.
• The page must make use of keywords and those keywords must be relevant to the page. If the word isn't readable to a visitor, don't list it as a keyword. Doing so will get your page marked as spam and subsequently ignored by search engines. Here is a free Keywords Analyzer that can give you a good view of what you page is really saying.
• Make sure all the links on your page work and use the "alt" tag on your images.
• Never, ever, use text that is the same color as your background. Many people use an image as their background and leave the bgcolor as black and use black text on their page. The end result is "search engine spam". Remember, search engines do not see pictures. Turn off your browser's ability to display pictures and see what your page looks like. That is how the search engines see them.
• Keep your content fresh. Rest assured, if you have nothing of interest, you'll not get visitors. If you put nothing into the page, you get nothing back from it.

Now that we have the web page looking good, we come to the second item of interest --- getting visitors. This can be a real pain and there is no quick fix. The best way to accomplish this is word of mouth. Your signature in your email is one of the best tools you have, use it wisely. Also, joining a social group and actively participating in it is another good tool. Classified ads in your local paper can bring visitors.

Now perhaps the most important part --- good old fashioned work. YOU, not some one else has to promote the page in a meaningful way. Just remember not to spam anyone. Spamming of any type will be the death of any good page. As I said above, if you put nothing into the page, you get nothing from it.

I'm sure there are probably other good points to list here... But these will definitely put your page in the right direction.

Top tags: page, good, search, engines, alexa, best, fix, google, keywords, ranked

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