How to Improve Your Ranking in Search Engines

Search Engines are one of the most commonly used mediums on the internet to help people find information.

There are a number of search engines available and they all do a great job in helping you find the information you want. One of the most common questions that we receive at Meltem Technology is: How do I get to be number 1 on the search engines?

Our customers understand that being at the top of the search engine ranking list means that they are more visible and in turn will receive more visitors to their website. More visitors, means more leads and the potential to turn them into customers.

So, how easy is it to get to be the Number 1 Ranked website on a search engine?

Sadly, the answer is ‘not easy at all’. The coveted number 1 position is a prize which is sought after by many businesses and they spend many thousands of dollars and go to extraordinary lengths to achieve that number one position. However, if your budget does not permit you to spend thousands of dollars on marketing strategies to get you to the top spot – there is a way to help you get ranked as high as possible and hopefully onto the first page of the search engine results.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of streamlining a website to ensure that it is organically friendly to search engines. Search engines use mathematical algorithms to crawl through websites and determine what ranking that website should receive relative to any search enquiry. It is therefore possible to improve your ranking within the search engines by streamlining your website and making it more ‘search engine friendly’. Let us look at some of the factors which will help a website rank higher:

Keywords and Key Phrases

One of the most important aspects of website content is the use of Keywords and Key Phrases that are relevant to your business and industry. A website should use these and have them appear often within the text, page titles, images and description tags. One does have to guard against ‘over use’ as the search engines will pick up on this and not look favourably upon it. Neither should your website attempt to hide text containing keywords and phrases as it is a trick used by the spamming fraternity and easily found by the search engines. What is acceptable however, is the use of Meta Tags and Alt Tags which are invisible on the website and very important to the search engines.

Website Links

The search engines look favourably upon ‘inbound’ links that arrive at your website from other web based domains. They see this as a sign that you have relevance and importance to others and as such will reward you for it with a higher ranking. This does not apply to outbound links and so swapping links with others will only have limited appeal. If at all possible you should strive to have ‘inbound’ links that contain keywords that are relevant to you and your business and if they come from a highly recognised source, such as the Government or Professional bodies they will be very highly valued.

Website Domain

If you have not already built your website and are still in the planning stage it is good practice to choose a domain name that contains a relevant keyword. This is not only search engine friendly but also provides relevance to others who link to your site. Search engines do take into consideration the age of your domain as they seek to find spammers – but in the case of a new project this cannot be helped. What you are able to control is the place where your domain is hosted as this is something that is considered by the search engines. If you are sharing a server where known spammers and scammers tend to reside then you may well be tarred with the same brush.

Search Engine Optimization is becoming very popular and a well streamlined website will always rank higher than an untended and ill-maintained website. Search engines love new content and you should regularly update your website and streamline it on a regular basis. The process of SEO is not as daunting as one would expect and a little care and attention to your website should see you climbing the search engine rankings.