Why Search Engine Ranking Matters

Statistically, at least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. As the owner of a blog or website, why this matters to you is the higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the potential for traffic to be directed to your site. That's what search engine optimization is all about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings, or of course you can pay an expert to handle the work for you. Or … you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make a few small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage's title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords - the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.

If you Google "free link popularity checker" a number of sites will pop up that will allow you to find out the number of back links to your site, and in some cases you can also find out what sites have linked to you. There are also paid programs, such as Market Samurai where you can easily obtain much more detailed information about your site as well as your competition.

If you find only a small number of links to your site, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this strategy will require that you take the time to research the rankings of the websites you want to link up with, however linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.

Another dynamic and less time intensive way to increase links to your site is by participating in a group, or “tribe” such as TSA Mastery. Tribe Syndication Association is not a business opportunity. It is a mastermind group of entrepreneurs supporting each other. Basically members of TSA syndicate (share) the content of fellow members with their friends and followers on the social networks.

I’ve been a member of this group for only a couple of months but since I joined the traffic to my blog has exploded, so this system really does work. To see for yourself what it’s all about visit http://www.tsamastery.com

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. As your business grows you may eventually decide to hire a professional search engine optimization company, however if you’re like most entrepreneurs this type of investment is not realistic in the early days of establishing your business. So why not try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself – it’s worth the effort. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.