Be careful when you hear that search engine optimization is totally free. The truth is that organic results themselves don’t cost much of anything but the effort required to achieve those results are expensive. Whether you are paying someone to optimize your website or build links to your web site, achieving top rankings for your website require time and money.
Before undergoing any changes to a website, you must determine what keywords people are using to search for your programs. You want keyword terms that are frequently used but have little or no competition from other websites. This improves the chances of increasing search rankings significantly. Marketing professionals can research possible keywords by talking to current students and using free online tools such as Adwords Tool which provides estimates of search volume and advertising competitiveness.
Once you’ve done the initial keyword research, its time to start investigating your competition for that given keyword. Do a search for the keyword or keyword phrase you’ve chosen and evaluate the websites that appear in the first three positions. You’ll want to evaluate on page factors as well as off page factors like the number of inbound links to their website and directory listing. This research gives you a good understanding of your competition.
The next step is to do additional using Alexa. This site provides additional details that can help you determine whether or not the keyword you’ve chosen can bring you success. While researching competitors sites, Alexa will provide additional details on site strength including age and sites linking in. If the number one ranked site has less than two million competing pages and few in bound links, then you have a good chance of outranking them.
Upon deciding which keyword phrase is ideal for your search engine optimization campaign, the next step is to design your site in a way that is both easy to read and highly accessible by all search engines. Consider breaking up your search engine optimization campaign into on page optimization factors and off page optimization factors. By addressing both, you can quickly influence rankings in a positive way. Consider starting with site design that integrates SEO best practices including meta tags, headers, and typeface. Once complete, turn your attention towards building links to your web site.
By far the most important factor in Google rankings is a combination of Google page rank and the number of web sites that are linking to your own website. Referred to as inbound links, Google evaluates their authority and rewards your site with higher listings on search results. You are always better off receiving links from web sites that are established and popular than new sites that have neither a strong web presence or inbound links. When link building make sure that link text includes your keywords.
Succeeding with organic rankings is easy if you take the time to optimize your site and focus on building in bound links. The result is a site more valued by search engines, improving rankings for keywords and keyword phrases. Stay the course and build links over time. This ensures that you rank higher than your competition over the long term.
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