What are My Chances to Get the First Place in Search Engine Listings?

You must have heard the stories how people became rich and famous with their websites. How could they achieve this? Their websites took a first position in search engine listings targeting popular keywords. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! To be honest, chances for a regular small business website to get to the top of the search engine listings are close to zero and each day they become smaller and smaller as a number of new and old websites grows.

Let's examine the situation from the beginning. Search engines just need your content to deliver it to searchers. If a searcher is happy with the search result from the particular search engine, he will come back and use this search engine again. Do not think that search engines serve to send customers to your website. They DO NOT CARE about your website or your business. All they need is content.

When the search engines first appear in the Internet they needed help to determine what your site is about and how relevant is your website to search queries. People used "Keywords" meta-tag in those days. Keywords gave too many opportunities to cheat with search engines results so searchers were not happy with their search queries results. Same thing was with the search engines. Manipulation with a website position in the search engines listings became known as Search Engine Optimization. That was the time when you could actually wake up a rich man after the search engine came to your website, included it into its database and started sending you thousands of customers.

Then came the time of big G (Google) with its concept of website popularity based on two factors: content and links. They introduced the new factor which was called Google PageRank. Now it becomes more and more complicated to get to the top of Google results. You need to bother about your website content, incoming links and outgoing links, IP of your website, number of visitors coming to your website and many other things that are being counted to determine your page position in the Google index. Linking fever came to the webmasters community. New websites (no matter how original their content is) have to wait before they will get enough links to be displayed in search engine results. The more complicated the search engines have become, the more ways of cheating people could think of: invisible text and links, doorway pages, cloaking pages etc.

Surely, you can try one of these methods called "Black SEO" (search engine optimization) and you may even succeed for a month or two. When a Search Engine catches you, the punishment will be immediate: your website will be banned and no visitors will ever be sent to your website again.

Let's be honest - for small websites and home based businesses starting from scratch chances to get to the top position in search engine are minimal. The WWW is so rich that you probably will not find any competitive areas in search engine listings. Let me give you several suggestions, however, on how you can get started. I would recommend concentrating on one or two main keywords and trying to get the highest position in search engine and not waste efforts trying to cover the whole market. The right keyword can bring you several thousands visitors/customers in a day. Webmasters should concentrate their efforts on developing unique and original content. Search engines like new content and analyze if it is unique. Write articles, reviews, online publications etc. As an example, I can say that as soon as search engines index my recently written article for http://www.metamorphozis.com we get several hundreds visitors to that article from different engines. Exchange links with other websites related to your website. Put your keyword in the link title when you exchanging links.

Example: Website Templates

We use this link to get the better listings for "website templates" keyword. Just copy it and replace your website domain name with your own and link title to the keyword you would like. Exchange this link with related, popular websites. I would recommend you to create a special page for link exchanges and place links to other websites there.

I hope some my pieces of advice will be helpful to internet business starters.

This article may be reprinted and distributed with no charge until the credit line below remains without changes.

Thanks for reading. Article source: http://www.metamorphozis.com/tutorials/what_my_chances_to_get_first_place_in_search_engine.shtml

About the Author:
Oleg Lazarenko
Production Manager of
Metamorphosis Web Design Studio ?
Flash templates and Web Templates
http://www.metamorphozis.com

More SEO Articles

Duplicate the Exact Steps Used to Get a Number 1 Yahoo Ranking in Less than 30 Days
If you have ever been into a McDonalds you will understood the value of the Cookie Cutter Model. Every McDonalds you go in are the Same.

Use Keyword Articles for Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is very important for your online business if you are interested in staying in business. The reason for this is most of the time the large search engines direct traffic to your website, however your website must include what the search engine is looking for in order for your web page to be returned as a result.

Do the Robot!
Everyone should realize that the search engines (sponsored ads aside)are not tools for advertisement, they are meant to be tools for everday web users. Users who search the web are looking for information, thats it.

The Great Search Engine Experiment Revisited Who is the Coolest Guy in the Universe
A recent Search Engine Experiment Demonstrates how by combining Key Word Rich Web Pages and Blog Entries (for a Highly Targeted Keyword Phrases) with Article Submissions to Top Ranked Article Directories anyone can Dominant the First Page of the Search Results in the Big 3 Search Engines.Recently I did a search engine Experiment where I decided to Brand Myself the Coolest guy in the Universe.

Search Engine Optimisation - Getting Targeted Traffic
Getting SEO right is an art and it's based on theory and best practice. The search engines don't publish their algorithms so getting it right is like finding the exact formula for Coca Cola.

Is Something Missing From Your Keywords Research? (Part 2)
In my previous article, I raised the issue that proper keyword research must take into account countries. The reason for that was that the demand for keywords can vary between countries.

What are the Benefits Of Submitting To Directories?
Increasing your web traffic and rank in search engines is probably one of your major goals, at least as far as your online business is concerned. One great way to increase your traffic and weight in the search engines is to submit to directories.

Shopping Carts and SEO
Shopping and the Web. They go together like Mr.

Put the Full Power of Google to Work with 11 Google Power Search Tips
Google has many ways to help you find want you want easily. Here are 11 Power Search Tips to make your Google Experience easier and more fun.

Two Myths About the Search Engine Listing
Getting top search engine listing is perhaps one of the hottest subjects in the internet marketing world. The problem is that many discussions on this subject are based on speculation.