Getting listed on Google’s first result page of natural positioning is a must today. Unfortunately, many webmasters still do the wrong things to improve search engine rankings.

It’s not possible to get top 10 rankings on Google by focusing on one single strategy. Getting listed on Google requires you to work on all elements of your website. We have put the top 5 factors that have influence on your website positioning in Google’s search results:

Ranking Factor 1: Website Accessibility

It doesn’t make sense to optimise web pages if search engines cannot access your web pages:

• Check your robots.txt file this should allow search engines to visit your web pages. If your robots.txt file contains errors then many search engines won’t list your website.

• The HTML code of your web pages should be free of any errors, your web server should return the correct response code. The contents of your web pages should be readable to search engine spiders.

Before you start to optimise your web pages, check if search engines can read your web page content.

Ranking Factor 2: Site Architecture

Google wants to show relevant websites in their search results, bad results will make them look bad. Your website shouldn’t be made up of random web pages. If you want to get top 10 rankings on Google, the pages of your website should be well related and linked.

Your web pages should always show Google that your website is relevant or in theme to a certain topic. All pages of your website should be linked. If possible, web surfers should reach any page of your website within a maximum of three clicks. Websites that drill down and down seldom have their deep linked pages indexed.
The links and the directory structure of your website should make it easy for search engines to categorize the content of your website.

Ranking Factor 3: Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps. If you choose the wrong keywords, you won’t succeed with your campaign.

• Perform SEO by optimising different pages of your website for different keyword phrases. The more pages of your website you optimise the better the result always remember search engines can spider and index any page of your website that the robot.txt file allows.

• New websites that have no results should start with targeted keyword phrases that consist of many words, for example “cheap holiday accommodation gold coast”.

• When you receive top rankings for these targeted keyword phrases, proceed with more general keywords such as “accommodation gold coast” ‘cheap holiday accommodation” then reverse the keyword phrase to “gold coast accommodation”

• When you have top rankings for these keyword phrases, you can proceed with very general keywords such as “accommodation”.

In general, targeted keywords have a much higher conversion rate than general keywords, i.e. you will get more sales per visitor with “cheap holiday accommodation gold coast” than with “accommodation”.
Also think about the type of visitor that you attract with a keyword. Are these people interested in information or do they want to buy? InfoLink IT refer to this as 1 2 3 PST more about Problem, Solution, Target Audience later.

Use Google’s comprehensive keyword tools to find the keywords that will work best with your website.

Ranking Factor 4: Content is King

Your website won’t get high rankings on Google if it only offers articles and affiliate links that can be found on dozens of other websites.

Separate your website from the rest by creating unique and trustworthy content. Remember good original information is best as content is King. Write your own articles about the topic of your website. Publish them in your own website and make your website a useful resource.

Ranking Factor 5: Linking From Other Websites

Sustaining high rankings on Google is impossible without having links from other websites.
The more links point to your website, the more likely it is that your website gets good positions in Google’s search results. The links to your website should be from trusted websites never link back to your website from FFA link farms.

If a web page that links to you is related to your own website then the effect of that link on the search engine rankings of your website is higher than the effect of an unrelated link.

It also helps if social bookmark websites link to your website. If many people bookmark your website on social bookmark sites, then this is a sign that your website might deserve high rankings.

A small error in one element can destroy your effects in all other ranking elements. For that reason, it is important to use the right strategy when optimising your website.

This is why it is important to get some good SEO advice from an SEO firm that knows and can display their abilities to you. InfoLink IT are SEO and Internet Marketing specialists.