You want page one rankings, right? Well, of course you do. You have probably heard the term in real estate, location is everything. Well, the same thing holds true for the internet. Page 1 is where the best real estate is for making money online. The only problem for most people, is how do you actually get that prime piece of real estate? Grab a cup of coffee, as I reveal some important information on building a mega site.
What’s Google looking for?
The search engines want the most relevant quality information flowing to page 1 for their customers. When I do a search online, I expect to see the information I’m looking for within the first few results on page 1. So how does Google and the others figure out what to show for results on page 1? Ah, the 20,000 dollar question. Wait, that could be the 100,000 dollar question with inflation now.
There are several key factors that ultimately determine who is going to get page 1 rankings and who’s not. The main components that you need to understand is keyword research versus niche marketing and why is matters, choosing the right domain names, building back links and in some cases, using technology that can help you get more out of your article marketing efforts.
Do you know what an authority site is?
First, my definition of an authority web site, is when you ultimately rank on page 1 for your keyword phrase on the search engines. Some authority sites may be a few pages of content, while others may contain hundreds of pages on a single website. There are also smaller authority type sites, that I like to classify as niche websites. Those are laser targeted for low level competitive terms with lower monthly search results. You will typically see 1, 5 or 10 pages of content for these types of sites.
The Value of Keywords
I have found that too many people are NOT investing the necessary time to conduct proper research for picking the right keywords. You need to get this part right or you will waste your time, energy and ultimately your money. But, I also see people making the mistake of deciding one day to start an online business and go after big keywords like, make money or make money online. Choosing the right key phrases is the difference between earning money or not. More importantly, its also the reason why many quit so soon after getting started online.
That’s why when picking keywords, you need to drill down into the long tail keywords as they are called and then drill down even further. That’s where niche marketing can really pay off for you. It can be the difference to making money in 3 to 6 months, versus 1 to 2 years. This is based on my personal experience.
You see, I went the other way when first getting started a few years ago and went for the pot of gold. Guess what, I am still looking for that pot of gold on page 1. It’s taken me close to 2 years to rank for one of the hardest competitive terms out there and I’m close to page 1 now. But, if I had to do it over again, I would focus my time and energy on niche markets. It will save you many sleepless nights.
Niche Marketing Techniques – Drilling Down for Gold
The reality is, with competition growing exponentially, you need a solution on tips to earn money more quickly, rather than later. Its called niche marketing and its where the money is. Successful people earning a living online figured that out and utilize niche marketing as their foundation for choosing key terms.
When researching keywords, you need to investigate how many searches per month there are and what the competition is like. For example, when trying to decide long tail keywords, look for 1000 to 5000 searches per month. You can simple do that at Google’s free keyword tool. It doesn’t sound like much, but read on as I explain my rationale behind my methods. It comes down to what I mentioned above. Do you want to make money in 2010, 2011 or wait till 2012? I know what I prefer, how about you? Niche marketing is about finding the golden nuggets, aka keywords in the online world.
I would rather make $500 or $1000 a month in the next year, versus struggling and waiting for that day sometime in the distant future. Niche marketing strategies are about fine tuning your research methods. The process is about ranking for a low competitive term, then picking another low competitive term and so on. After awhile, your website is ranking for a number of key phrase terms. Guess what, you suddenly have an authority website and yes you can start planning to go after bigger competition. That’s my point here. Its like building a house. You want a strong foundation first, before actually building the main structure.
One other little technique to figure out whether you should go after your potential keyword is by looking at who’s on page 1 for the results. What I mean, are the results showing up on page 1, websites or articles? If there are articles, then it gives me an indication it will be much easier to rank. I like to see at least 1 result for an article or more. I also have to look at how many back links there are pointing to that particular URL, but that’s later on in the article.
Domain Names – Why They are Important
As a general rule, I always try and match the keyword term I picked, to a domain name. The reason is simple. If you have a low competitive term, Google and the other search engines may rank your site more quickly on page 1, but not always depending on several factors. One other technique you can do, is to insert a prefix like “about” or dashes between the name when trying for a domain name around your keyword term. That’s another search engine marketing tip this week for you newbies. You can even search online about purchasing existing and established domains, but that could cost you some mega bucks. I want to give you options that won’t cost you thousands of dollars.
The more I assess this area, the more I realize that aged domains are an enormous advantage with the search engines. Whenever possible, register your domains for a longer period of time. Now and again, the business that you register your domains with, have sales or specials. If you register a domain name, ensure you go for 2 years and longer.
The Critical Part – Building Back Links
What is a Back Link?
A back link means one link from one website is pointing to another website. Getting one-way links needs to be your main objective, because its the lifeblood of ranking on page 1 in the search engines. In actuality, you will have links that are known as external and internal. That means, you will have links from inside your website pointing to various other pages in your site. You should also have links pointing back to other sites as well. Don’t hog all the link juice because the search engines seem to favor interactive sites. It looks more natural to have links going back and forth.
The Method of Getting Inbound links
Building back links is about writing unique information, posting it to various article directories, and pointing your links back to your site. I recommend incorporating all facets to obtain links, however, primarily you should obtain them through writing and submitting your articles. The majority of your time in building an online business in my opinion, like 80 to 90 percent of your time should be posting articles to get back links.
The best locations to begin with and get indexed more quickly by the various search engines, is submitting your articles to high quality article directories. There are a variety of my favorite places like, GoArticles, Ezine Articles and Idea Marketers. I usually recommend submitting 5 to 10 articles max at every place. You can do commenting at various forums, blogs etc. Simply go to Google and type do follow article directories.
One over looked area to help increase both your traffic and rankings is searching the top couple of pages for your niche market and see if they allow guest posting. It’s really a win – win situation because the website owner gets unique fresh content and you get a back link for your website. Try it out sometime and if they don’t state it, send them an email asking if you can do a guest post. Its about building relationships out there and people will help you.
Increasing Your Article Marketing Efforts
Whether or not you realize it, but one good method to get more link juice out of your previous articles, is to re-write them and submit them to other article directories. The problem, how can you do that given your limited time and all the other stuff going on in your life? The answer for many people, is utilizing something known as an article rewriter or article spinner. That is simply an tool to help you in leveraging your time more efficiently. It allows you to create more unique content, rather than doing it the manual way. However, don’t use it to produce crappy content. The only reason I am mentioning it on this article, is to assist you with increasing your article marketing efforts.
The key to making this happen is work. Sorry if you thought there was some magic button, because it doesn’t work that way. Summing up what I mentioned above, is starting with good keyword research and selecting small competitive niche markets. Try to match your domain name with your keyword phrases. Following that, it all comes down to back linking your website.
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Hi Darrell and/or MadIMMarketing Team,
This article has probably been one of the most accurate and most honest articles I’ve read anywhere on how to rank an authority website. To anyone reading this, my recommendation is: “follow the advice”. Through my many years of doing SEO, it all boils down to the above. Sincerely, Dave
Thank You for the advice and back link. I am a new to the website world but thanks to quality posts such as this. I learn more each day.
Thank You; Rick Knott