Site Rank Secrets (or my most coveted secret ranking system)
We all want to get to the top of the search engines. That #1 or #2 position could mean the difference between fortune or failure. We do out best but sometimes our best just misses the mark by a few inches.
Well, I'm about impart upon you some of secrets that I hold that can unleash some very powerful ranking. Now, if you haven't read some of my other posts I encourage you to do so. Some of those blogs show how I discovered these "secrets" that can lead to huge ranking jumps. Go and read those now - https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/lcjohn
Okay, good you went over my Search Engine Myths, Domain Name Mistakes, and Site Submission posts. Well, at least you should have because if you don't look at those this post will not yield the same results as if you did have that knowledge.
So, where do I get off writing about such a topic? Well, I've been building sites for the better part of 15 years. I have kept up with the changing trends and reading (a lot) of white papers produced by search engine companies. I also have one or two close contacts in said companies. I've worked side by side with people from Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and even Nintendo. This doesn't make an expert by any means, I just have a smidgen more knowledge than most.
Prep Step #1
The first thing you need to do is get a site map. If possible 3 of them. One is a standard .XML site map, the second is an image site map, the last one is a mobile site map. Register your site with Google Webmaster and submit all three site maps. Google announced that sites that are not mobile friendly can be penalized (hence the mobile map).
Next thing to do is register both a www and a non-www site address with Google Webmaster. Yes, the same domain done twice.
"mygreatsite.com" and "www.mygreatsite.com" needs to be registered. In the next step you will choose which one Google will display - either the www version, or the non-www version. If you don't do this you can get hit with a duplicate content penalty by Google.
So, that wraps up secret #1 (yeah, I know a lot of you know this.)
Prep Step #2
Check to see if your site is indexed. Simple to do. Type into Googles search bar "Site:yoursiteURL.com" no spaces. If your site is indexed you will get a list of every page that the engine has indexed. Now your ready to embark on some ranks.
Secret #1
Go to Google and type in a key word or phrase and see where your page is at. If you don't see your page on the first 12 pages go to Secret #2.
If your page pulls up you need to surf your page for at least 3-5 minutes. Then get as many people as you can to surf your page for that very same search query for 3-5 minutes. This not only builds relevancy, but page time as well. Hitting and jumping off the site actually hurts your ranking.
Secret #2
If your site doesn't pull here is a secret to build relevancy for the keyword or phrase.
Type into the Google search bar:
"my key phrase http://www.mysiteURL.com"
Obviously replace the phrase with your key terms and the url with your site domain name and no quotes.
Your site should pull up within the first few returns. Once you find your site, click on it and then surf the site for at least 3-5 minutes. Then have everyone you know surf the site the same way. Again this builds relevancy for that phrase being mapped (linked) to your site.
The reason you want others to do the same thing is so that all the searches come from different IP addresses. If the relevancy is linked to a single IP then it really doesn't work and can be seen as trying to spoof the engines. A couple times a day is enough to see a decent jump in ranks. Yes, this is totally legal and not a black hat tactic
I do have a shortcut to #1 and #2 if people are interested - just PM me.
Secret #3
You need quality back links. How about a link from New York Times, FOX News, CNN, or Time Magazine? Think that might get you some decent traffic or ranking? What if I threw in that it's free and simple to do?
Okay, here's what you do. Go to http://www.HARO.com and sign up. What this does is allows you to respond to reporter queries who are looking for people/experts to interview for news stories. Everything from CPA's and Doctors to stay-at-home-moms and winter make-up tips (No I'm not kidding about the winter make-up tips. I actually got an email on that today.) If you can help a reporter out, you could get a link to your site from a major web source, which is huge with search engines.
Secret #4
Another way to get things rolling very fast is to have others share your content on their sites with a link back to your site for more information. To get this done try using the service over at Viral Content Buzz. You share x number of content from other people and earn points for doing so. Then cash these points in to get others to host your content. If your good at content creation you should have no problem.
If your super niched try finding something that relates to your site in some way, and then generalize some of your content so others will want to host your content.
This is also a good way to get some quality onto your site if your short or just can't think of anything.
Secret #5
People love to be noticed. Especially when they don't expect it. This little trick can pay off huge. Link to other bloggers. That's all there is to it. If the blogger is somewhat intelligent they will be keeping up with their analytics and seeing who is linking to them. When they see your site and check you out for quality assurance, you can expect to see a post, tweet, or some other link in return. Just make sure that the links are relevant so you don't alienate your readers.
So, there you go. Some (but not all) of my site ranking secrets.
Enjoy, best to your success, and keep those sites coming.
Recent Comments
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I just went to the link you included for HARO and it was a flooring site.
I did set up an account on Viral Content Buzz, but only with my Twitter account. It would not allow me to set it up through my Facebook business page. Says it will ONLY accept personal pages. I use the personal for just that - personal. So, my Twitter automatically posts everything from my business page and I'll have to settle for that.
Still great advice here! Thanks again :)
I should have mentioned that. I'll follow up with an alternative tomorrow. I'm still testing it and seeing how it works for my site. If I see a difference I'll post it.
You should see an increase in follower traffic you get on twitter. That alone should drive more traffic to your site. Try adding a stumble upon account and Pintrest account. These can act as additional sources as well, without having to use your Facebook.
I just went over to my new twitter account, which I created last night as an experiment. I had 2 followers when I logged off. About 22 hours later I have 24 followers. So, just over 1 per hour and all I used was Viral Content Buzz.
I have 4 twitter accounts and none of them pulled 1 follower per hour with seven posts. That's a pretty good return if you ask me.
Very generous of you to share this information! I am going to try these tips on my sites & read your other blog posts. Gracias :)
Great that you find this can work for you. I'm still pulling my site up through the ranks with #2. Once I enter a key work and my page pulls in the top 10 pages, I'll switch to #1.
And Bam - Just kicked off a huge campaign with everything I just talked about. In Viral Content and got all of my social media accounts hooked in.
A click here and there and I have over 200 points to spend on my own content (I'm saving to 500 to really get things moving).
Postings to my FaceBook, Twitter, G+, and StumbleUpon accounts, along with Pintrest should bring a wave of new social media attention. Then those link back off to my site. I'll keep you posted.
P.S. DON'T put your site link in every article you send, that's spam and can get you blocked/banned. One or two a day should do you well enough.
The multiple xml sitemap tip was great! I thought having one sitemap was all that I needed. Do you know if submitting multiple maps increases your rank noticeably?
Not noticeably at the moment. In the future probably more so as Google and other search engines reward mobile friendly sites more.
If you have a news feed you can also have a map for that as well, for a total of 4 maps.
My site has a dynamic map creator, so every image, post, and mobile adjustment I do it automatically updates and sends the new map to google and bing. If I create a news feed the component will auto send that map as well.
I use Joomla to build my sites. I'm not sure if they do a build for WordPress. Some builders do both Joomla and WordPress.
I just checked and they don't have a WordPress version. The site is http://storejextensions.org
However, I did go out and find one that is supported and does some of what the site map generator I have does. The two features I see it doesn't do is it doesn't give you direct access to the robots.txt file or the htaccess file. But, you can get to those through your FTP program or server CPanel. Here's the link.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
John, I have a question...I went and installed google
xml sitemaps....a successful installation...you mentioned
installing sitemaps for video and mobile...I believe these
are available as wordpress plugins also. Should I
install these too, and if so, will they harm the performance
of the sitemap I just installed? Sorry for all the questions!
Paul
They may be an additional install. The one I have automatically does these.
To answer your question, no they won't harm the site map you just installed. The mobile will help your overall rankings as search engines (Google) promotes mobile optimized sites in the future, and penalizes those not optimized.
Image maps helps search engines categorize your images. Placing them into Google Images which can lead back to your site as well.
Let me know if you need help. I'll do what I can.
I have studied a lot about ranking and I have NEVER heard any of the tips you mentioned. Thank you for the awesome advice. I'm going to implement it right now
It does work. I'm using each one of these on my newest site. When I fist put it up I was ranked way back on the 12th page of BING. A couple of days later on page 3. Google took a little longer, but I've pulled from page 25 to page 13 in two days.
However, during that same time - I also did some minor work on my htaccess with a www declaration and reduced the size of my images, which led to greater speed, and no duplicate content assurance.
Thank you thank you thank you! A lot of people won't tell you their secrets for fear of diluting the industry and the secrets not working anymore. Thank you!
Like Kyle said "Competition is a good thing."
I personally like competition because it makes me think outside the box. The more I think, the more innovative I get. :-)
Not a problem Kierra. Just keep your eye on your site. You can get real caught up on getting traffic and promotion of the site - and forget to keep the site up.
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This must be a treasure man,I will check it out definetely
Great to hear. Thank you and best of luck.