Creating remarkable content for your blog

The challenge for any website is getting found or noticed. Creating remarkable content for your blog or site is the first step in helping you rank more favorably than your competition on the search engine food chain. There are many tricks that you can employ to try and boost your rankings but just remember you can fool some of the search engines some of the time but you cant fool them all of the time. I can’t stress this enough but killer content is the basis on which all good web-sites are built. Next to great content here are some ideas that just might give your site that SEO kick it needs. Keep in mind that there is more to SEO than what I have written in this post, this is a good foundation for building a kick ass SEO strategy! But there is much more to learn grasshopper.

It may sound elementary my dear Watson but you would be amazed at how often what I am about to tell you gets overlooked. Just an FYI, Yogi Bear used to say that he was smarter than your average picnic basic, well the search engines are smarter than you and your website. They know when you are trying to trick them, so don’t! Trust me if you start with the steps that I have outlined below you will be farther ahead of your competition and many of the other websites on the net today. That includes your competition.

Build a great website with great content!-Everybody loves reading great content especially the search engines. One of the biggest mistakes that people make when writing content is that they write for the search engines instead of for their readers. Just as in life when someone or something is popular people are drawn to it, the web is no exception. Remember content is king the better yours is the better the likely hood  will be that you are found. As your site grows in popularity the better your pole position will be.

If you have a business website make it crystal clear how people can get in touch with you. Your phone number, email address and any other relevant piece of contact information needs to be on every page, preferably where it will be easily scene. There is nothing i hate more than trying to figure out a way to contact you. Studies have shown that 1 out of every 13 searches done on a search engine is for something local, i.e. your business. There is nothing more that I hate than  when I am searching for something, find it, but have to do a deeper search for directions or a phone number. This is critical for local search! Besides posting your phone number and address on every page I also recommend creating a dedicated contact us page. This page should contain detailed directions, cross streets, landmarks or other important information that would be useful for customers to find your business to do business with you. Be clear be found!

Do keyword research on the way people search for your product, service, or industry. There are a lot of free tools on the web that will help you get started . Don’t assume that everybody searches the way you do using the keywords that you have chosen. You would be amazed at how many websites do not have any meta data coded into it. You can use free versions of Wordtracker and Google’s AdWwords Keyword Tool which will help you with using and choosing better keywords for your site. They will also give you a better idea of what words and phrases people are using to search for pretty much anything on the net. I almost forgot to mention that they will analysis of your site and give you suggestions based on your site content.

I said a few moments ago that if you write great content people will come to your site what i didn’t tell you is that they may also   link to it. When people link to your website they do so because they consider your content valuable and want to connect to your site. The more people and pages that link to you and your site, Your street credit grows and you will be considered an expert or authority.

If you were a search engine which content would you rank higher? Which content would you want your searchers to read? The quality sites of course.

When you look at pages and other websites to link to make sure you link to sites that are reputable and trusted. If your a small business owner link to the local chamber of commerce or other business and networking sites. It is also common practice to link to sites that link to yours. Just make sure your not linking to sites that spam or may be questionable, they can cause you more harm then they are worth, don’t just link for linking sake! link with a purpose.

If you don’t have a site map on your site add one! If the search engines have problems reading your site a site map will help the crawlers and spiders understand the hierarchy of  the pages on your site. This will help in  making sure that all your pages get indexed and found within the search engines.

Last but not least be patient! Unfortunately it may take months for your efforts to take root but trust me they will, and when they do you will be in a much better position and ranking than you were when you started.