Getting Listed In Google's Natural Search Results

5 Simple Ways You Can Get Google To Love You

The internet today is dominated b Google and literally everyone wants to be on the right side of the big G. With their many rules and continual changes it can sometimes become like trying to ride a motorbike at 100 miles an hour backwards! Many people have lost interest in learning the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) game and now simply pay for traffic. However, there are still some very simple yet effective ways to drive traffic straight from Google's natural listings without being an SEO expert. Below you will find 5 of the simplest ideas that Google love to see you doing that will get you listed in Google's natural search listings.

1.Content is king. This has been known for a long time, so why is it that so many of us simply don't target our keywords? Why do we not make sure that our content is relevant to the keyword phrases that we want to be found under? For those who are new to this, targeting keywords is about found in the search engines when someone searches for something. Many people fall short here and concentrate on the name of their company. People on the internet wont be searching for your company name – they don't know you yet.

Making sure that you are found under the terms that they will be searching for is key. For example, if you are a sausage maker called 'sausages unlimited', you need to concentrate on getting found under “sausage makers” etc.

Matching your website or blog content is crucial to getting the search engines to find you. Adding the keywords throughout your content is basically how you do this. Google for example will search through and find content that matches the search terms that the surfer has used and if done correctly will bring your site up.

2. Meta-Tags. Relying just on meta tags is a thing of the past. A strong statement but true. Google decided that the meta tags were just not accurate enough for their users, after all, a webmaster could tell the search engines that their site was all about sausage making through the meta tags but have pages of content on raising cows. Its still best to include meta tags, after all Google may well be using them on their initial search and then use the rest of their search algorithms to weed through.

In short, it wont harm your rankings and is best to still be placing them on your site especially the “robots”, “language” and “revisit” tags. A simple search for meta tag generator will give you plenty of options for getting the code for these.

3. Sitemap. Another great tool that Google loves is a site map. This is a page you'd have on your website and its often call 'sitemap.html'. A sitemap on your website makes it so much easier for Google to find its way around. It helps Google to find all of your pages whereas without one Google may find it hard to get through your site and give up. If they give up on your site it could be many of your webpages not being found in the search engines.

4. Backlinks. Google loves sites with backlinks. As far as they are concerned if you have sites linking to you then you are doing something right. Once this first came to light people went straight to the directories to submit their sites and generated thousands of backlinks. Google didn't take long to catch on to this, so now you have to be a little more clever in your methods.

Creating backlinks should be spaced out throughout a period of four to five weeks and only aim for around 100-200 backlinks in this time. It looks more natural to Google this way and they like it, they like it even more when that backlink comes from a high ranking site.

You can download and use Googles tool bar to see what page rank a site has. Getting a backlink to your site from one of these high ranking sites will let Google know that you are doing something right. Aim for sites that have a PR or 3 or above.

5.Updating your site. One of Googles big plans is to get rid of sites that are put up and just left. They want the sites to be of value to the surfer and out of date sites just wont do it for them. Spending some time each week will show Google that you are serious about your site. They in turn will send you more free traffic for taking that time.

One other point to remember is to set your meta tag of “robots revisit” to 14 days and then make sure that you are changing, updating or adding to the sites content within that time. They want to see that your site is being looked after and will reward you for doing so. Its well worth the effort for getting natural listings in Google.

For many people it is much easier to simple pay for their traffic using PPC, but for many the rewards that they get from Google in terms of their own page rank will far outweigh the time and effort they put in for the natural search engine listings.

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