How to get your website spidered by Google

The easiest way to get your website spidered quickly is to Blog ping it.

All this involves is to mention the url in your blog, then ping your blog and within a day or two then your site will magically be visited by the Google spiders.

The other method is to get a PR7 site to link to your on their home page, but lets face it..... that is not an easy task!

Advanced linking strategies

Once your site is ranking well for your main keywords it is time to start thinking about promoting pages within your site. . . . . . what is known as Deep Linking.

If you optimize inner pages for other keywords or phrases then by linking directly to that page using the keywords as link text will promote that precise page for that keyword within Google and the other major SE's.

This process can be repeated as many times as required, all it takes is for you to add links on a monthly basis until the page ranks where you want it to.

Creating a Sitemap

It is vital to have a properly created xml sitemap for your website. This xml file is hosted in the root folder of your site and is used to inform Google what pages exist on your site and how important you consider them, and when they have been updated.

Free software exists to create an xml sitemap, the best of these is

http://gsitecrawler.com/ which guides you through the process.

The software will scan your site and find everypage that exists by following every link within your site. This has the added function of showing up and code errors, bad links etc.

Once you have created your sitemap, you can upload it in the format /sitemap.xml then you will need to go to Google Webmaster tools http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/ and register your site and sitemap. You also get the chance to verify your website with Google by adding a metatag. This authenticates your access/ownership of the site.

Whenever you make new pages for your site, or add content you should recreate your xml sitemap and get Google to reread it. This will ensure that Google doesn't find your pages by chance, but knows exactly what to look for & where to find it.

The submission process needs to be duplicated with Yahoo also who have a similar process

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

This is the fastest way to get your site spidered, and will ensure that you keep the major SE's informed of your latest content and updates.

How Important is page rank?

Google issues every site that it considers to be worthy with a Page Rank (PR) score from 0 - 10

PR can be checked here: http://www.commercetuned.co.uk/pr-checker/

There are zero's and zero's however, as a site may be new and so not have a ranking yet in which event it will have an empty white PR display. Alternatively if the white display bar is grey it may well mean that the site has been "sandboxed" or banned from Google completely.

Beyond that there is a sliding scale from 1 to 10, there are approxiamately 30 PR10 sites worldwide, and even Google.co.uk is only a PR9 !! The size and scale of PR 8, 9 and 10 sites prohibits membership for all but the most dedicated of us. But all is not lost, Google rewards success and the more it rewards you the more successfull you will become. Once you have added enough high quality content, and seen to it that you have thousands of high quality backlinks to your site, your PR will increase.

On occasion Google has a rerank, this has historically happened in spring and autumn. On occasion they have downgraded many sites, but this is to be expected as otherwise they would end up with millions of PR10 sites and that would serve no purpose.

The whole point of a PR score is to give your site a value of worth, this in effect means that if you link to site x and you are a PR4 site then it will be more benefit to him than if your site was a PR2 site. It allows Google to give links from your site a score so that they can be of benefit to whom you link to. The same thing works in reverse so that you benefit from the PR of the site that links to you.

The benefit of getting a link from a PR7 or PR8 page can't be stressed enough. If you can get a link from a PR7 homepage then your site will be spidered by Google every few days and will be considered more valuable.

Good Links V Bad Links Part VI

It is important to keep on keeping on when link building. Many people give up because they think that they are having little or no impact.

The bottom line is that you ma need to create 500 links before your site creeps into the top 100 for your primary search term. This can be enough to deter many people from trying, but it should not. If you believe that you will get results if you keep going then it will give you more incentive to sit down once a month and knuckle down to some serious link building.

Each and every link that you get to your site is different, and as such carries a different weighting with the major SE's. For this reason, some sites might appear to be ahead of you with fewer links to their sites...... this can be for a variety of reasons from the age of their site, to whether it is registered with Dmoz and yours is not for example? The solution is to keep on keeping on........ persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Good Links V Bad Links Part V

Ranking for multiple keywords is no harder that ranking for only two or three. The only difference is the time it will take and the volume of links required.

If you have a large list of keywords then it is important to split them up into related groups so that you can optimize a page for each group.

Once that is done it is just a matter of linking to the specific page with the relevant link text. This process is called deep linking and is a very valuable technique as the major SE's like to see sites with links going to several pages.

Good Links V Bad Links Part IV

It is important to maintain a balance when link building. It is better to use three different link texts and alternate them every 50 links or so. This will keep you within the major SE's limits and help to make your link building to look more organic.

By optimizing your index page for three terms and then linking using those three terms then you will build a wide platform on which your site will rank.

If you have more keywords that you want to rank for then read part V for advice on the most efficient method of achieving for multiple keywords

Good Links V Bad Links Part III

Now you know whaere you should be adding your links it is now important to concentrate your efforts on how your links are going to look. Are you going to have nice pretty banners flashing and flickering, or a picture of your corporate logo? Are you going to be vain or are you going to make each link that you get as powerful as possible?

We come back to basics here.......GOOGLE CAN ONLY READ WORDS........ it is rule number one and should not be overlooked ........... ever.

This means that yes, your links should be text links, forget images, logos, banners etc, you want to get a text link on to a Google ranked page. This link can be further inhanced by doing the following;

1/ Many people use the site URL as the link text ....... this is a waste of effort and a missed opportunity, it is vanity, trying to advertise which is not the primary purpose of your link.

The purpose of this link is to impress Google..... and the best way to do that is to use link text that is your chosen keyword.

Both of these links ultimately lead the visitor to the same site, but only the second one carries serious clout with Google and the other big SE's.

I wouldn't be vain and use the link as an advert, that is not why it is there. The traffic I might get from it on a link page buried within someones site is going to be very low anyway, so forget about that aspect of the link.

The sole purpose of this link is to be counted along with thousands of others in order to give me a top ten ranking within Google and that is where business is generated.

Good Links V Bad Links Part II

When creating your link on another site, it is vital to remember several points;

1/ The link page that you are asking to have the link placed on should be spidered by the search engine that you wish to rank in. It should ideally be a page with PR but as long as the specific engine that you are targeting knows that the page exists then it is ok.

2/ Your link needs to be on pages that have fewer than 100 links on them. The reason for this is straight forward....... Google as an example only reads and follows the first 100 links on any page. This means that even though you may find a great page, with good page rank (PR) if your link is buried near the bottom past the 100 link mark (and that includes the sites own navigation) then it will do your site no good whatsoever.
It is also worth bearing in mind that if the page is "live" and links are still being added then your sites link could be being bumped down the page so that one day you will be the 90th link on the page and Google will credit you with the link, but a month or so later you might be 110th link on the page and Google will not award you the "credit" for that link any more.

There is not much you can really do to guard against this, as some webmasters don't grasp the effects of their actions, but it is worth being aware of.

Basically the less links a page has the better it is for you to get your link on it.

Good Links V Bad Links

There are millions of sites with which you can exchange links, however, some caution must be used as in the words of George Orwell "not all links are equal."

It is vital that you try to get your links onto good quality sites. The reasons for this are simple, firstly, there is little point in getting a link on a site that Google does not rank if your goal is to rank at the top of Google. If the search engine does not know of the page that will contain your link then it will never count it as a "credit" in your favour so you will just be wasting your time by obtaining this link.

By first establishing that Google at least spiders the site then you can be sure that the link that they add pointing to your site will count in your favour. Secondly you are looking for sites that Google likes alot. These will have a page rank (PR) value, and obviously the higher the better where possible. The actual PR of the link page is of less importance than the index page of the site, which many people fail to appreciate. However it is important to check that the link page is ranked otherwise you will once again be wasting your time.

Optimization made easy part 2

It is important to remember to never over complicate a site. Far too often designers use every trick in their arsenal just because they have the ability to use it. Quite often this can be detrimental to seo and site rankings.
Always keep a site simple so that the SE's can read it easily. That way at least the SE's will know what your site is all about which is a great starting point!

Optimization made easy

Start the month as you mean to go on, contact websites that you would like to link with and start the process. It is the only long term method of success.

Link....Link....Link.......

Here's to a happy month in the warm, linking away to our hearts content!