Improve Your Search Engine Rankings - 3 ways (Part 3)

Here is Part 3 of '3 Ways To Improve Search Engine Rankings' with follows on from Parts 1 and 2. The simple 3-Stage Approach I use to getting highly ranked in the search engines is something anyone can do. Here, in Part 3, is my third Stage...

Stage 3. Aim to make your website 'The Most Popular In Your Class':

Stage 3 of my simple 3-Stage approach to getting my websites highly ranked in the search engines, is crucial because it's the element that contributes about 85% towards how high a website is ranked up the search results.

I refer to it as getting your website to be 'the most popular in the class'. What do I mean by that? Well, think about being at school, and being popular with everyone else was more about being what they wanted you to be. If you were how they wanted you to be, and they liked you, then ultimately you were perceived as popular. Fickle I know. And the more folks who thought you were really good, the more popular you became with everyone in your class, and more likely the school.

Same goes for your website - the more other websites like you, the more popular your website is going to appear to the search engines, and thus the more popular you are perceived to be for the information the searcher is looking for.

So, million dollar question - how do you get popular with a bunch of other websites? Two things, and they are equally as important...

a) You need to get quality websites linking to your website. b) The websites that are linking to your website need to be as relevant as possible to the information on your website.

Let's cover both of these...

One of the most effective things you can do to help your website get ranked is to get as many other quality websites linking back to yours, from links on their websites. Quite simply the more links pointing back to your website, the better.

But links alone are not enough - the links need to be on quality websites that in themselves carry good content, and the link is from a website that is relevant to what is on your website.

So, why is the amount of links, and they relevancy of the linking website important to search engines? They see it this way - the more links from high-quality web sites that point to your website, gives a strong indication that what is on your website is all relevant information. They also look at the link itself and that if it's on a website that is relevant to your website, the search engines effectively say to themselves the website with the link is offering what is like a strong referral again about the quality of what's on your website...

...and the more websites giving you these 'referrals' (links), the more the search engines rate your site, and so the higher it appears on the search results.

Obviously getting these quality one-way links is the key, as they play a massive part in where your website ranks in the search results.

How do you get them?... That's the tricky bit - the 'scenic' route is to write, call, bug and drive webmasters nuts, who have relevant sites to yours, to ask them to add your link on their website linking back to your site. Be prepared, that can be a long job, requiring a great deal of patience and resilience, as these webmasters are constantly getting asked for exactly that.

The other way is to use a specialist, who has demonstrated they know how to get these links, and they then focus on getting the links for you.

However you do it, getting these links is vital to getting high up the search results and enjoying all that 'free traffic' from organic search, as millions around the world type into the search services...