10 Steps To Top 10 Rankings In Google

Most webmasters go totally "gaga" for top 10 rankings

in Google. And for good reason, Google is the most

dominant search engine on the net and will deliver

the largest amount of traffic.



Even those webmasters who are fortunate enough to

get No. 1 rankings for their keywords in all the

three major search engines will tell you Google is

the one that will deliver the majority of their

traffic. Hands down.



More importantly, those same webmasters will also

inform you, getting top 10 rankings in Google often

means your site will prove profitable. Mainly because

obtaining targeted traffic is usually your first

obstacle in creating a viable online business. In

other words, if you get top ten listings in Google

for good searchable keywords, it is almost impossible

not to earn money.



How To Proceed?



First, you must know the rudimentary basics of how

keywords work. Keywords and keyword phrases are the

exact words someone types into a search engine to find

what they're looking for online. If you have a site on

"dog training" then your goal is to get a top 10 ranking

for the keywords "dog training".



Now if no one searches for "dog training" it would be a

useless keyword, you would get no traffic no matter how

perfectly your site is optimized for that keyword.





How Do You Know If A Keyword Is Good?



To find out, you have to do some keyword research on

your particular keywords. Many professional online

marketers use keyword research software like Brad

Callen's Keyword Elite. However, you can also use

the keyword suggestion tools supplied by Google

Adwords or Overture. Try here:



http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/



Now if you check "dog training", you will find it

receives around 4,469 searches each day. That's

a lot of traffic but you must realize that it may be

too good, or rather too competitive for your purposes,

especially if have a new site.





Biggest Mistake When Choosing Keywords



The most common mistake most novice webmasters make

is targeting keywords which are too competitive.

You simply will not be able to compete or place

for extremely competitive keywords. Well established

sites and businesses with very deep pockets have

the resources to completely dominate those keywords.



While it is not entirely futile nor a waste of time

to concentrate your efforts on highly competitive

keywords, you will have better success if you target

low to medium competitive keywords.



Long Tail Keyword Marketing



Besides online marketers have discovered that longer

keyword phrases are usually the most lucrative. These

phrases deliver traffic which is better targeted and

more likely to convert into a sale. "Dog hunting

training" which gets around 100 searches a day will

be more targeted than the general term "dog training"

and if you have a site devoted to training hunting

dogs then this keyword phrase may convert better for

you.



Always keep this "Long Tail" keyword strategy in the

back of your mind as you implement the following steps

to achieve your own Top 10 Rankings in Google.





1. Make A Master Keyword List



Your first step is to make a master list of the

keywords you wish to target. Obviously these should be

closely related to the theme of your site. As you can

see from the example above, it is best to choose low to

medium competitive keywords. Check the keyword competition

by seeing how many sites are listed in Google for that

keyword. Webmasters also check the Google PageRank of

the sites that hold the top 10 positions. If all those

sites are PR6 and above it may be hard to get ranked high

for your keywords.





2. Choose Related Keywords



Once you have your master list of keywords, find long

tail related keywords to target. Again, check out the

competition and daily searches made for each chosen

keyword.





3. Use Quality Content For Your Keywords



Creating quality content should always be your main

goal. Write for actual visitors who will see and read

your content. First and foremost you must have good

useful content that your visitors will use themselves

and recommend to their friends or colleagues. Tie this

quality content in with your chosen keywords. Use one

keyword phrase per page.





4. Use Keyword In Domain Name, Title And URLs



Having your keyword in your domain name will score big

points from search engines. Plus, each page of content

should contain your keywords in the title & meta tags

for that page. Most experts also suggest you have your

keyword in the URL and use hyphens to separate your

keywords. Although the author has gotten good results

by using an underscore and htm in URLs.

Example: www.yoursite.com/your_keyword.htm





5. Do On Page Optimization



Keyword ratio is a much discussed topic by SEO experts

and many suggest you should have your keyword in the H1

or headline title of your page. Sprinkle your keyword

and variations of it throughout your page. Don't over

do it but make sure the robot/spiders will clearly

discover what your page is about. Many webmasters make

sure they include their main keyword in the first and

last 25 words on their pages.



6. Use Traffic Modules



One technique that works extremely well in Google is

clustering a closely related topic or subject into a

distinct separate section on your site. For example,

if you have a marketing site, you could create a whole

section on article marketing where you would have 50

to 100 keyworded pages all relating to your subject.

Writing articles, formatting articles, submitting

articles, article software... place a keyword linked

menu on each page to connect all your pages together.



Keep in mind, your main objective is to supply quality

information to your visitors. One reason Google may

favor this type of structure is because they want

quality content returned in their SERPs.





7. Try Article Marketing



Article marketing is writing short informative articles

on keyword topics related to your sites. You then submit

these helpful keyworded articles to ezine directories

on the web, when your articles are picked up by related

sites you receive quality One-Way links. The higher the

quality of your article, the more links you will receive.



Another ranking tactic to use, if you're just starting

out your site will probably have a low PR rank and you

will find it hard to rank for even modest keywords.

That's why it's useful to take advantage of the higher

PageRank of the major ezine directories. Your keyworded

articles on these high PR sites will get picked up by

Google and displayed in the top 10 rankings. Now the

displayed URL will be the article directory site but

the links in the resource box will be pointing back to

your site. Over time this article marketing technique

will raise your own site's rankings for those keywords.

Simple but effective.





8. Anchor Text And One Way Links



Off page optimization is important in obtaining high

rankings in Google. Getting quality One-Way links is

very important. Anchor Text simply refers to "the

underlined clicked on words" in your links. Most

webmasters include their keywords in their anchor

text as this tells the search engines exactly what

the links are about.





9. Tags, Blogging And Web 2.0



Take advantage of Web 2.0 by using blogs, RSS feeds

and the social bookmarking sites like Reddit and Digg.

Try AddThis.com for a simple social bookmarking system.

At the very least your site should have a blog and RSS

feed attached to it as this is an effective way of

boosting your keyword rankings.



Tags have become very important for getting higher

rankings. Keep in mind, in free blogging software

such as WordPress, categories will automatically be

seen as tags. Blogger, which is owned by Google, now

has a form where you put your keywords (tags) for each

post you make.





10. PPC vs Organic Search



Of course, one of the fastest ways to get your links

displayed on Google is to pay for them by using Google

Adwords. Your ad and links will sit side by side with

the organic link results. In Pay Per Click advertising

you bid or pay so much per click for your keywords and

you only pay when someone clicks your links. But smart

marketers also know since you're getting millions of

impressions advertising your products, acquiring name

recognition and branding through PPC advertising can be

a major side-benefit.



However, most webmasters would say that organic links

(SERPS) will return better traffic than paid links or

advertising. In most cases, this may be true because

Google's organic rankings are becoming more respected

and more trusted by users. They simply carry more weight

with surfers.



This makes it even more beneficial to obtain top 10

rankings for your keywords in Google. Depending on the

competitiveness of your chosen keywords reaching the

first page listing or even the favored number one spot

is well within any webmaster's reach. Just go for it.

The rewards are well worth your efforts.





...


The author is a full-time online marketer who contributes his

high rankings in Google as the major source of his online income.

For the latest web marketing tools try:

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Copyright © 2007 Titus Hoskins. This article may be

freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.