Temporary Update Notice: In preparation of the higher volumes of traffic this page is about to receive, I am doing some major shuffling on the backside. So, please bear with the changes and occasional (hopefully brief!) periods of downtime.
Here's to making the LostCyclist better than ever!
After all, why build a webpage if it is just going to sit in the lonely corners of the webosphere?
Basically, my entire "enterprise" is built on getting pages to rank in the search engines. There's a term for it. We call it "Search Engine Optimization", or SEO.
Set your watch. In about 15 minutes, I am going to turn you into an SEO Guru.
First, a word from the competition:
"We are bigger and stronger and older than you. You may be a guru, but to beat us, you will need to repeat the steps below more times than we have done if you want to rank higher than us.
In the mean time, we shall sit and laugh at your efforts"
Sincerely,
The Competition
They weren't very nice, were they? That's why I chase piddling phrases like "Best Auto Shop in Muskogee"
I like my competition to be weak.
Simple enough, For you coding freaks, that means "H1" tags. It tells the search engines what your "title" is.
And please, for heaven's sake, only use ONE H1 tag. What book has 5 titles? I mean, really, do you WANT a search engine penalty?
So one title for each webpage, and make sure it has your key phrase.
I had a fun experience with this on a website that I was consulting on. I had done the other tips below, but failed to include the key phrase in the title.
Once we added that term to the title it shot to page one of Google overnight.
In the coding world we call these "H2" and "H3" tags. (Heading-2 and Heading-3, as you might see them called).
As subheadings, you can and will use more of them. But don't over do it! Just last week I had a webpage penalized for over-using the keyphrase in about 10 subheadings over the course of an 1800-word article. It went from page #3 of Google, to page # 50+.
A healthy sprinkle of 1-3 times should be enough for most articles 500 words+ in length.
Old internet marketers used to push all sorts of crazy numbers. I've even seen old SEO articles suggesting that you use 6% of your words as part of your keyphrase.
Sheesh. Can you imagine reading something like that? Repeating "Best Auto Repair Shop in Muskogee" 6 times in a 100-word piece?
It's no wonder that the search engines caught on and started penalizing this kind of crap.
Basically, you want your article to sound normal. But for SEO purposes, try to insert your keyphrase once every 100 words. And, from my experience I would recommend keeping it under 3% -- especially if your article is less than 1000 words.
There's nothing wrong with changing your phrase as you write the article to make sure that your article keeps sounding normal.
The bottom line is, your article needs to be relevant. So if you are trying to answer the question, "What's the best auto repair shop in muskogee?" then make sure your article does just that.
This is the most repetitiousness and hardest part of all of the steps.
The search engines like to promote work that is being promoted. Stuff like Rebecca Black's video.
Make sure that you are out there promoting your work and your website (tastefully). This can be done by mentioning it in forum posts where you have a relevant, helpful article posted, or by asking people with websites in your area of expertise if they will let you write a guest post. At the end of the guest post they will let you add something like "Q is a blogger at lostcyclist.me" to promote your own site.
Anchor text can be a handy way to help your site increase in rankings. I like to go to websites such as Infobarrel and Ezinearticles (There are about 50 such article directories in the US you can use). After you write some helpful article for each site about "Tips for Maintaining your Car in Winter", you then add a little bio that says Please visit our site to hear more from the
You'll want to change it some. Sometimes it might be "Charlie's Auto Shop in Muskogee", or just "Charlie's"... after all, you need to make the links look as natural as possible.
This link provides 2 things: A. a "vote" for your webpage and B. it tells the search engines that your search is related to "best auto repair shop in muskogee".
The words that you include in your links are important.
Just Google "Click here". Why do you think Adobe is #1?
You can imagine that the top sites like Facebook have millions of such links.
Just be sure to avoid those cheap scams that promise "1,000 High Value Backlinks for $14"
There can be too much of a good thing, especially if your site is small.
Now, get out there and start ranking your blogs, infobarrel articles and local sites! You can do it!
Any questions? Pop them in below!
Here's to making the LostCyclist better than ever!
 |
| Image Courtesy of Kevin Saunders |
So you want Google to find your webpage.
After all, why build a webpage if it is just going to sit in the lonely corners of the webosphere?
Basically, my entire "enterprise" is built on getting pages to rank in the search engines. There's a term for it. We call it "Search Engine Optimization", or SEO.
Set your watch. In about 15 minutes, I am going to turn you into an SEO Guru.
The 4 Things You Need To Do To Get Ranked By the Search Engines
First, a word from the competition:
"We are bigger and stronger and older than you. You may be a guru, but to beat us, you will need to repeat the steps below more times than we have done if you want to rank higher than us.
In the mean time, we shall sit and laugh at your efforts"
Sincerely,
The Competition
They weren't very nice, were they? That's why I chase piddling phrases like "Best Auto Shop in Muskogee"
I like my competition to be weak.
Step # 1. Choose what phrase you are going to rank for. Put it in your title.
Simple enough, For you coding freaks, that means "H1" tags. It tells the search engines what your "title" is.
And please, for heaven's sake, only use ONE H1 tag. What book has 5 titles? I mean, really, do you WANT a search engine penalty?
So one title for each webpage, and make sure it has your key phrase.
I had a fun experience with this on a website that I was consulting on. I had done the other tips below, but failed to include the key phrase in the title.
Once we added that term to the title it shot to page one of Google overnight.
Step # 2. Put a variation of that phrase in a subheading.
In the coding world we call these "H2" and "H3" tags. (Heading-2 and Heading-3, as you might see them called).
As subheadings, you can and will use more of them. But don't over do it! Just last week I had a webpage penalized for over-using the keyphrase in about 10 subheadings over the course of an 1800-word article. It went from page #3 of Google, to page # 50+.
A healthy sprinkle of 1-3 times should be enough for most articles 500 words+ in length.
 |
| You are now half-guru! -Image Courtesy of black vanilla |
Step # 3. Insert that phrase as 1% of your text.
Old internet marketers used to push all sorts of crazy numbers. I've even seen old SEO articles suggesting that you use 6% of your words as part of your keyphrase.
Sheesh. Can you imagine reading something like that? Repeating "Best Auto Repair Shop in Muskogee" 6 times in a 100-word piece?
It's no wonder that the search engines caught on and started penalizing this kind of crap.
Basically, you want your article to sound normal. But for SEO purposes, try to insert your keyphrase once every 100 words. And, from my experience I would recommend keeping it under 3% -- especially if your article is less than 1000 words.
There's nothing wrong with changing your phrase as you write the article to make sure that your article keeps sounding normal.
The bottom line is, your article needs to be relevant. So if you are trying to answer the question, "What's the best auto repair shop in muskogee?" then make sure your article does just that.
Step # 4. Send it some backlinks.
This is the most repetitiousness and hardest part of all of the steps.
The search engines like to promote work that is being promoted. Stuff like Rebecca Black's video.
Make sure that you are out there promoting your work and your website (tastefully). This can be done by mentioning it in forum posts where you have a relevant, helpful article posted, or by asking people with websites in your area of expertise if they will let you write a guest post. At the end of the guest post they will let you add something like "Q is a blogger at lostcyclist.me" to promote your own site.
Anchor text can be a handy way to help your site increase in rankings. I like to go to websites such as Infobarrel and Ezinearticles (There are about 50 such article directories in the US you can use). After you write some helpful article for each site about "Tips for Maintaining your Car in Winter", you then add a little bio that says Please visit our site to hear more from the
best auto repair shop in muskogee
(yes, that is a dummy link)You'll want to change it some. Sometimes it might be "Charlie's Auto Shop in Muskogee", or just "Charlie's"... after all, you need to make the links look as natural as possible.
This link provides 2 things: A. a "vote" for your webpage and B. it tells the search engines that your search is related to "best auto repair shop in muskogee".
The words that you include in your links are important.
Just Google "Click here". Why do you think Adobe is #1?
You can imagine that the top sites like Facebook have millions of such links.
Just be sure to avoid those cheap scams that promise "1,000 High Value Backlinks for $14"
There can be too much of a good thing, especially if your site is small.
Now, get out there and start ranking your blogs, infobarrel articles and local sites! You can do it!
Any questions? Pop them in below!
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