First, go to toolbar.google.com and download Google toolbar, this will save you some time. Ok, now type in your keywords – “Custom Gaming Computers.” The first link should be overdrivepc.com (if it’s not, then someone may have already read this column and risen above them!) click to go there. When page loads, go to your Google Toolbar, click on Options > “More” Tab > Make sure “Page Info” box is checked. Then, click on blue circle with i in it. (This is aptly named: “Page Info”) It should drop down and allow you to select “Backward Links,” choose it. Now you should be looking at a Google search page again, but this one is different, it only shows pages that link to overdrivepc.com. (Wow, that’s handy!) At time of this article, there are 41 pages that link to site, and you can view them all. Some are other pages in site, others are third parties.

Get Your Site Some Friends! Follow each third party link and check out page. Does it have to do with your business? Would their visitors benefit from coming to your site? (The answer is probably yes) If so, email webmaster - there should be an email address somewhere on site. Ask him or her if they would link to your site. Be willing to trade links with them, or to pay for a good link with a high PR. That reminds me – look just to left of Page Info icon on your Google toolbar, and you should see a green bar. That is Page Rank of page you’re currently on. You want to target pages with higher page ranks than your own, because for each of those sites that link to yours, they effectively “give” you a little bit of their PR. Kinda like in high school when head of cheerleading squad flirted with nerd in hallway, she “gave” him more popularity.

By way, if you can manage to get a link from #1 site itself, do it!

Do this for all of these links you can, then move on to #2 listing for your keywords. Then #3, and so on. Don’t get discouraged if some webmasters don’t reply to you, it may take an email or two. If they say no, thank them for their time and move on. I try my best not to burn any bridges – you never know when you’ll need to contact that webmaster again, and if he remembers you were polite, that will make you look good.

Whew, Finally Done.

This is a very easy way to move up Google SERPS, no “expertise” required, just good old-fashioned hard work. It will take some time for Google to re-index those pages and realize that they have a link to you now. And it will take even longer for your PR to go up (from what I hear, it’s been around 3-4 months since last PR change [Today is 7/14/2005]) But be patient, get links upon links, and keep adding great content to your site, and you will jump up in SERPS by leaps and bounds.

To Your Success, and Your #1 Website!

There are also quite a few places on net where you can find articles that are free to reprint on your site. A few of them are http://www.EzineArticles.com, http://www.Content-Articles.com, and http://www.ArticlesFactory.com. As I said, there are many sites like these, but these are 3 best, in my opinion. Some article directories are focused on a single set of topics (like Business Marketing) and others, including three mentioned above, contain articles from many, many categories.

If you write your own articles, submitting them to as many article sites as possible, again including three I listed before. The more places you submit your article, more sites will pick it up – either through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or by cutting and pasting your article to their site. The latter option is preferable to you, because your article will stay on their site longer. This will work hard to generate you more traffic from visitors to those sites who read your article and increase your SE rankings through backlinks. (For more information, check out an article I wrote about backlinks at http://www.Content-Articles.com/article.aspx?i=24)

How often should I add new content?

Add new content at least weekly, and absolutely no less than monthly to give your customers reason to come back, and Search Engines will also increase your ranking because your site is active and you’ve got good content.

What about forums?

Forums can be great tools for site promotion, if you do it right. Do NOT post ads to a forum that isn’t for posting ads. You will do more to destroy your credibility than generate traffic. Put a link to your site in your signature, and post questions and answers to site, just like everyone else. If a topic that your site contains information about comes up, feel free to post URL in body of topic (make sure this is allowed by forum rules first) but always mention that it’s your site, so nobody is mislead and thinks post is a referral, which it’s not (because it’s your site).

These tips are just a few of things that you can do to increase your search engine rankings. Take your time and develop a good site, write quality articles, submit them to as many places as possible, and watch your ranking go up while visitors come in.