What can I do to improve my Google rankings?

the main thing is you want consistency in how your website is referred to on the internet. if you declare "blue widgets" is your most important search phrase, then make sure you are listed as blue widgets everywhere. get yourself in all the directories as blue widgets and make sure everyone links to you with the text "blue widgets". use the term in your title, meta, h1, h2, and in bold and italic throughout the body of your text. use blue widgets in your alt image text. now google has a pretty good idea your site is about "blue widgets" and can return your site as a result with a greater confidence than before.

try to get a google directory listing and a dmoz listing.

I don't think I've spent that much time being careful in my description. I could probably contact my link buddies and see if they will change the description. I guess they would.

that should be the first thing you do. that and change your internal links to the correct anchor text also.

Most important of all: match your anchor text to your title tag! If your link reads "red widget sale" make sure your page title is "red widget sale".

to find you how you rank in anchor text, type: [b:c81de23d3c]allinanchor: your keywords[/b:c81de23d3c] lately, the results will be almost exact between the allinachor search and the actual results. this pretty much proves anchor text is king. at least right now with the current google.

don't forget two related commands: allinurl allintext use the same way: allinurl: your keyphrase

That allinanchor is very interesting. It appears to be almost a 100% match of the normal results.

The results are shifting around quite a bit lately. Seems like they're making some more changes to the algorhythm.

Another good tip. Never change the name of a page that has PageRank. You can change the text or whatever without losing the PR that the page already has. Deleteing pages that have PR is also a bad idea.

What a boring approach to SEO. Just sit around trading links all day.

that isn't very fun, either. :twisted: but it isn't a bad idea.

i would withhold judgement for the moment. google seems to be changing up the game again.

Submit your site to free directories like GoGuides.org, JoeAnt.com and if your site qualifies for it to Gimpsy.com. Hugo

A quick way to find link buddies and directories is to do the following in Google: +"your keywords" +"add link"

Research what keywords your customers are looking for and not what you think they are looking for. Allot of times people can fall in love with a term that nobody searches for.

[quote:3ad4955685="Chance"]Research what keywords your customers are looking for and not what you think they are looking for. Allot of times people can fall in love with a term that nobody searches for.[/quote:3ad4955685] that has been one of my big troubles. i check the inventory.overture.com tool and find some keyphrases. then i optimize and get a ranking, and then i find out no traffic exists at all.

Overture's results on keyword searches have really differed with googles results of keyword searches from what I have seen. I now use googles keyword searches and impressions to determine which keywords I go after for ranking. The only place I have been able to get this information so far is by using their adwords campain though. Since I have done this, my traffic has almost tripled.

that's not a bad idea at all. i can setup a little $20 campaign and find out what's happening in the "real world". i'm sure google has a ton more searches than overture anyway.

There is also a service called WordTracker but I have no experience with them.