website ranking

[speechless1]

Can anyone explain how best to get a website ranked on the first page following a search. We need to better advertise our flying school and find that if we type in keywords on google, our website is nowhere to be seen, although other schools are there on the top. They have the backing of an IT department, whereas we dont have two pennies to rub together. Help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[timmcat]

I use Google Adwords - the ad boxes you see on the right hand side of the page. Results are linked to keywords you specify, and the budget you can afford to set per word, and total spend per day (higher budget, more chance of being in the top few spots). You pay per 'click through'. Your daily budget (of your choice) ensures no one can maliciously hike up your credit card bill.

To give an idea, I spend around £150 pm - I know others who spend over £1000, but with outstanding success.

Hope this helps.

[JediDude]

In order to get a first page ranking on google you need to have as many other ranked sites as possible linking to your site.

[AlphaMale]

I am with Jedi on this one.

Look at your site as a path way and not a dead end.

Imagine as a user you want to flow through your site and still have websites to go off to.

I am still reading 'SEO for Dummies' and it has loads of good tips that were never taught to me at university.

One of the best sites to link your site to is the BBC site :ok:

Use the weather page as a link is my advise ;) ... I have linked a the BBC Motorsport page to a motorcycle site I have made - works well too. If you show google you only 'hang out' with other good sites they will give you a better rating.

No more tips or I'll have no customers/business and I'll never be able to get my PPL done :ugh:

Andy
(web designer)

[planecrazy.eu]

The world of SEO is no simple one, Google have just changed the way they do some of there rankings, only a few weeks back. As said above, the best way to get in the Engines is to get a good link from a good website. I have had a website for four years, and by placing a link to my new site on it a few months back i got into the search engines within days. The biggest trick is to make the website look as relevent as possible without going over the top, if you go too far, they will ban you or give you a low rank as it will look like spam.

Having good links inbound is not the only trick, there are many many tricks and optimizations you can do. Also too many links to quick pointing to your website sets the alarms off with google and will not help the website. Google look for regular updated content, and no repetitions or duplicate content. They like to see a slow progression with websites that link into yours, this all takes time, around 4-6 months to get a proper job done.

Adwords are good, but this is paid (obvious). If you have a good optimized site you will get free visitors that can then be topped up with paid ones, rather than relying on paid visitors from the off.

SEO for dummies is a great book, teaches the basics of SEO, but go on the net and do some further research, especially with Google as they change things fairly regular.

Also using some good stats scripts are good, you can see what visitors are typing in the engines to get to your site, you can then optimize for these keywords.

[TimS]

Picking up on the good advice above .....

Put a links page on your site - then identify local hotels, pubs, restaurants, camp/caravan sites, entertainment centres etc locate their sites and email their webmaster offering to swap links (perhaps indicating that you bring a number of visitors to the area who would be interested in such facilities and that you intend to build up a comprehensive 'gateway' for local viistors etc).

Also go to all the local facility providers (council, tourist board, chamber of commerce etc) on the same basis.

Identify any 'local' sites you can and approach on same basis.

Make sure your keywords/met-tags are comprehensive.

If that lot doesn't work (it is time consuming and fairly slow progress) then consider going to one of the search engine optimisation companies - they can be very good value (but go for one of the guaranteed performance deals).

I hope that helps.

TimS