The Issue:

What’s the number-one business killer on the internet?  It’s pretty obvious, but many of us miss it. The answer? Not being found on the first page of Google.

What I Think

Millions of Internet searches are punched in every day, many looking for exactly what you and I are selling. The trouble is most potential buyers will never get past the first page of results. That makes getting your website to the top of the search engines–Search Engine Optimization (SEO)–one of the most essential and cost-effective forms of marketing.

In short, SEO is a very big deal.

Why Google? Google accounts for approximately half of all search traffic, bagging some 47.5 percent of the U.S. search market in a recent year, with Yahoo! limping in a distant second with 28.1 percent, according to comScore. That means planning a winning SEO strategy around Google means your plan will work for other search engines.

So how can you get on the first page of Google? Jon Rognerud, a recognized authority on SEO, knows and explains how to go about it in his “No. 1 SEO Tip” (edited for length):

Write Away –What’s the number-one tip for search engine ranking? Articles. With articles, even a brand-new domain–some call this the “Google sandbox hell”–can get updated into the search index quickly. Many sites are spidered or crawled, but not indexed, a major problem for new sites.

Let’s first take a look at recent content strategies you can use to write stronger articles. If you’re not familiar with the next wave in quality content scoring and relevancy for search engines, you need to understand a little bit about search engine technology.

Google contains more than 100 algorithms that make it the world’s most popular search engine. One of those is PageRank, a complex voting system. Another important secret, which has been around for a while, but not used by most webmasters, is LSI. “Latent Semantic Indexing” a technique in natural language processing–in particular, vectorial semantics–of analyzing relationships between a set of documents and the terms they contain by producing a set of concepts related to the documents and terms.

Bottom line? “Context” is the SEO buzzword for SEO . While you should still write good, natural, user-friendly and relevant web copy, using some simple LSI techniques can elevate your search engine ranking.

When using LSI, search engines try to determine what the content or page is about without specifically matching the search term text. It looks at the document collection as a whole and examines which other documents contain some of those same words. In simple terms, this means that as you write and link to and from other pages and sites, search engines using LSI will look at words and phrases that are contextually related and try to figure out what you’re writing about. So, if you’re writing about bait, poles, lures and tackle, you’re probably addressing fishing.

If you want to be ranked higher in the search engines, you should write content and link profiles that have supportive text and anchor text (links) using this “theme” approach.

To find related keywords and phrases, use a keyword research tool, like the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. First type in your key terms into the Google search engine and pick the first site that comes up. Then go to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, click the “Site-Related Keywords” tab and paste the URL there. Study the results and use groups of related keywords with links on your page to develop strong on-page factors.

Distributing Articles – Writing an article that is topically related to your business and then submitting it to article directories like ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com and buzzle.com will pay off big. [And don’t forget www.thefreestyleentrepreneur.com !]

Imagine the effect of getting a link from the Los Angeles or New York Times. There isn’t a sure-fire formula for achieving this, but providing quality articles and adding your link in the resources box of the article will allow search engines to find and index you faster. If the content is interesting and newsworthy, the journalists may start calling.

Yes, this could be a lot of work. But one option is to find a service that can distribute your articles for little or no cost. I like isnare.com; for a few dollars you can get your own distribution credits. Once approved, they’ll submit your article to hundreds of directories. Watch your server logs for traffic and spider bots; you’ll see domains and search engine referrers very quickly.

Continue these efforts by writing press releases using similar distribution mechanisms. I use services like prweb.com and marketwire.com. SEO firms have developed a complete marketplace for the SEO compliancy of press releases. They clearly understand the power of submitting and distributing content and press releases. If you don’t know how to write a press release, hire somebody to help you. You can go to sites like elance.com and guru.com to have something written for $50.

If you haven’t pursued these simple tactics for your SEO strategies, you’ve been missing out on important traffic and business. There are a number of resources for traffic acquisition and how-to-books on building internet presence. Outside of articles, press releases, SEO and pay-per-click, there are social networks, blogs, paid links, affiliate marketing, paid advertising, viral marketing, co-registration and banner ads–certainly enough to keep you busy for a while.

[And, may I repeat? Don’t forget www.thefreestyleentrepreneur.com!]

Jon Rognerud has spent more than 15 years developing websites and marketing solutions at companies like Overture and Yahoo!. His website, www.microsaw.com, provides a wealth of informative articles, resources and complimentary e-mail courses on everything you’ll ever need to know about SEO and search marketing.

Bill Willard is a freelance writer in Clearwater FL. He has been a high-impact writer and editor for over 30 years. In addition to his byline pieces, Bill’s beat includes ghostwriting and editing for businesses of all types and sizes, professional practitioners and individuals, and is a www.thefreestyleentrepreneur.com Contributing Author.

Visit his Website: www.writergazette.com/WillardAssociates.shtml. Or contact him at billw15@tampabay.rr.com to sign up for his popular eblog, Daily Grin, for for information about having him write those articles you been meaning to get to, if only there were more hours in the day!

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