What do /you/ do to rank a new website?

[yhack]

Hi,

So I'm currently building a new website in my free time, with the goal being to make some extra pocket money from adverts. I am pretty confident in my content and site design, however I have little experience in my off-site SEO, which is probably far outdated now. After reading some of the internet, I've found out that social websites are growing more popular, as well as back links being the key. I'm not sure how I feel about spamming other peoples blogs though, so I am after some information from people that know, without going to a forum where someone is likely trying to sell me something.

What would you do to bring a website further up the results?
Do you have any tips for a newbie?

Cheers

 

[yhack]

*No duplicate content.
*Rich keyworded content
*Have a twitter feed embedded on your site - one that actually outputs the tweet content into the source code. (google will see this as you updating the site more and therefor will scan your site more)
*meta data doesnt hurt, but isnt that great anymore.

I will add a twitter feed, that sounds like a good idea.

In regards to the rich keyworded content, what percentage of the writing should I am for, being targeted keyword?

 

[yhack]

Hi,
Would a facebook feed do the same, in regards to updating and google?

If what Google is looking for is frequent updates, then I would expect it to work. Maybe someone else could shed some light on this.

You could go down the AdWord campaign just to get some exposure and traffic, and also Facebook ad campaign's won't hurt.

I might use that at a later date, if I start making a profit, but for now I would prefer not to spend any money until I break even on the hosting at least. Thanks for the idea though.

 

[yhack]

For the twitter widget, would it be better to have it on just the home page, or every page in the sidebar? Duplicate content being the enemy, would it make a difference?

 

[yhack]

In response to the Twitter feed, that certainly did something. Thanks for the suggestion.

A few days ago I was at around 100+ on Google, now I'm down to 34, keyword in quotes. My keyword without quotes, I'm at 54 now, before that I gave up before finding it. Now I just need to get to number 1.

 

[yhack]

I spend a day researching keywords to find one which seemed quite good. I found one which had around 18000 searches per month, ~£1 per click and high advertiser competition. In Google, there were about 80000 results. I figured it would be worth a shot, so I'll do my best to get to number one. The top 10 in Google are a few big companies and some other random websites which I think I could beat.

I have been reading other forums and articles daily, and have heard of people making £20 per day from adverts alone. I think that sounds quite high, but I've never done it before. I would be happy to make that per month in passive income, then make a second website.

Google have now stopped giving the search terms and everything is now "(not provided)". I'm not sure who that actually helps, but yeah.

 

[yhack]

Great post! I've been faffing with my wordpress (Using ProPhoto, and static pages and separate blog.) site and no longer show up on google at all

no idea what i've done wrong

Some plugins I use, if you haven't got any already.

All In One SEO Pack - You can set descriptions and tags and things for each post and page, apparently having a unique description for each individual page is good, as well as having your main keyword in it. The description is what shows up to people on Google.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Google Analytics for WordPress - Puts a tracker for Google Analytics in your blog, makes you able to see what visitors are doing, where they're going and so on. You can see what your most popular post is and how they got there, and where they go next.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/
You'll need to sign up for Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/

Google XML Sitemaps - Generates a sitemap and uploads it to Google. It runs when you make a new post, and I usually get indexed within a day or two. I also use Google Webmaster tools to check if there's problems and to make sure it's all indexed.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
Here's Webmaster tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/

Sociable - Lets people 'like' your post on many social sites. Apparently social websites are quite important nowadays.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/sociable/

WordPress Related Posts - Shows five or however many related posts you want at the bottom of the post. This is good because if a visitor sees something that they might like they will click it. If they get to the bottom and there's nothing else, they will probably leave.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-23-related-posts-plugin/

After I make a post then I will post a link on Twitter and add it to Stumbleupon. I posted one post to Reddit and got about 60 views with just 2 upvotes, but Reddit doesn't like you spamming the same website a lot.
I also make a make a quick image in Photoshop and post it on Pinterest, which has got me a few views and followers with little effort.

I try to make a new post everyday and that seems to do well, if you aren't making frequent posts then you might lose ranking.

I am far from a pro, but this has helped me get further up rankings, going up a at least a place per day.

edit: And this caching plugin:
WP Super Cache - Does some wizardry which makes your website load faster, instead of the server recalculating the page each time. I set the cache to one day. This is good because if your website loads slowly then people might just close the tab. People are impatient.

 

[yhack]

No problem. I am trying to learn more daily, my progress has slowed down a lot now though, staying about the same place on Google.

A nice technique I read was to re-write, or write a new article and post it on article sharing websites like goarticles.com, leaving your link in the references section. This will give you a backlink from a high PR website, however it is very time consuming. Seems like a good idea.https://www.google.com/webmasters/t...ernetsecuritynow.com/&bldomain=goarticles.com

 

[yhack]

I've lost quite a bit of ranking after the Google update earlier this month, one day my site drops out of the top 100, then the next it will be around 50th or more. From what I've read, where you are on Google can fluctuate for a couple of weeks after an update, so don't worry too much about where you are ranking right now.

 

[yhack]

Nice. What do you think you did which led to your success?