So You Want Your Site To Be Number 1

You have products or services you want to sell? You want to use
the internet as your main publicity vehicle? So you want a
website? You want to sit atop the rankings for the search
engines? You want loads of visitors to your site? You want a
high conversion rate from visitors to paying customers? We are
all in that situation and it is possible to achieve all of these
wants by following a few simple rules.

1. Web Site Design.

Keep it simple with no flashy opening graphics. People searching
for products or services do not want to wait while these
graphics load and play through. They will probably have gone
elsewhere before they get to the 'nitty gritty' of your site.
Text based sites load faster, are more search engine friendly
and are more likely to contain information the visitor is
searching for. Base your site on plenty of good text and keep
the graphics to the absolute minimum required to do the job.

2. Web Site Structure.

Produce as many pages as you can. The bigger the better.. Search
Engines give a preference to sites with large numbers of pages.
Plan a straightforward navigation path through these pages. Make
it simple for people to find what they are looking for on your
site and easy to click through onto different pages.

3. Web Site Content

Good quality content is a necessity if your site is to perform
well. So what makes good quality content? Firstly it has to be
well written from the point of view of grammar and punctuation.
Secondly it must contain information into which your keywords
can be embedded. Telling people how marvellous your products or
services are is not good quality. Telling them what the likely
benefits are to them is good quality and a better sales pitch
into the bargain. Put yourself in the position of a visitor.
Does your site tell them how to solve their problem? Is it
informative and easy to read? It should be.

4. Search Engine Positions

Submit to as many free directories as you can find. Look at your
competitors backlinks and find sites that you can also submit
to. Develop some reciprocal links with related sites. What
constitutes a related site is quite flexible so think carefully
about these before committing to a link. Link with a wide range
of sites with differing page rank values do not only choose
those with high page ranks. The bulk of the links should be page
rank 3 or 4. Develop a weblog attached to your site and keep
this updated, at least once per week. This will attract the
search engines to spider your site and will also attract in more
links. Write and publish articles which will bring in large
numbers of inbound links and by putting them onto your site will
update and increase your content.

Four basic rules have been outlined above which if carried
through should eventually see your 'wants' gratified. However I
have only skimmed the surface as each of these topics are
several articles in themselves, but you should be able to easily
find information about each of them. Take on board the advice
and your site will be one of the successful ones.