created on Wed, 2005-02-16 00:20 How to gain popularity on Google?

This is the first of 3 articles on hacks you can do to improve your ranking on SE. The information I am summarizing in this series comes from Google Hacks a book published by O'Reilly.

Hack 88 - 26 Steps to 15K a Day

1) Prep Work:

Plan and build your content. Long before the domain name is registered, start putting together your content. I can't stress this enough, content is key to success. Build it and they will come.

2) Domain name:

Easily brandable. You want "google.com" and not "mykeyword.com".
Keyword domains are out - branding and name recognition are in - big time in. The value of keywords in a domain name have never been less to SE's. Learn the lesson of "goto.com" who became "Overture.com" and why they did it. Think of the costs and seriousness of this action, to blow away several years of branding to change name?

3) Site Design:

The simpler the better. Rule of thumb: text content should out weight the html content.

• The pages should validate and be usable in everything from Lynx to leading edge browsers.
• Stay away from heavy: flash, java, java script. Go external with scripting languages if you must have them.
• Arrange the site in a logical manner with directory names hitting the top keywords you wish to hit.
• Keep it clean and professional to the best of your ability.
• Learn the lesson of Google itself - simple is retro cool - simple is what readers want.
• Speed isn't everything, it's the only thing. Your site should respond almost instantly to a request. If you get into even 3-4 seconds delay until "something happens" in the browser, you are in long term trouble.

4) Page Size:

The smaller the better. Keep it under 20k if you can. Although no one knows for sure, and the data is sketchy, it is estimated that 50% (CIRCA Jan 2005) of your surfers will be at 56k or even less. This figure will increase dramatically if you target countries outside the US.

5) Content:

Build one page of content and put online per day at 200-500 words. If you aren't sure what you need for content, start with the Overture keyword suggestor and find the core set of keywords for your topic area. Those are your subject starters.

6) Density and Position

Simple, old style, SEO from the ground up. Use the keyword once in title, once in description tag, once in a heading, once in the URL, once high on the page. Use good sentence structure and spell check it.

7) Outbound Links:

From every page, link to one or two high ranking sites under that particular keyword. Use your keyword in the link text.

8) Cross links:

Link to quality content across your site. If a page is about food, then make sure it links it to the apples and veggies page. Specifically with Google, on topic cross linking is very important for sharing your value across your site. If you do find one page that drastically out produces the rest of the site with Google, you need to off load some of that value to other pages by cross linking heavily.

9) Put it Online:

Don't go with virtual hosting - go with a stand alone IP.
Make sure the site is "crawlable" by a spider. All pages should be linked to more than one other page on your site, and not more than 2 levels deep from root. Link the topic vertically as much as possible back to root. A menu that is present on every page should link to your sites main page.

10) Submit:

Submit to various directories and SE's. If you have the budget, then submit to Overture. If you don't have the budget, then try the freebie and/or Open Directory Project (ODP).

Submit the root to: Google, Fast, AskJeeves, MSN, Yahoo, Altavista, WiseNut, DirectHit, and Hotbot. Now comes the hard part - forget about submissions for the next six months. That's right - submit and forget.

Continue to Part Deux!

Information summary from Google Hacks
By Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest
Published by O'Reilly
ISBN : 0-596-00447-8