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Get a Number One Google Ranking With This Simple Technique


You probably do this already - complete regular searches in Google for your key phrases and see how high you rank. It's well known that the first three results are far and away the sites that get the most clicks. If you can get one of the top three results in your key terms then you will have more targeted visitors coming to your site. If you can get the first result, well that is even better. Of course all your competitors want to do the same.

One of the great things about Google is that is updates quite frequently. That little GoogleBot is busy 24/7 indexing the web to make sure everyone gets the best answers to their search questions. I've recently been playing with a technique that I thought might be worth testing and because Google has updated so quickly I've been able to get a result within a few weeks, and I got the perfect result - a number one ranking for one of the key phrases I was after. In fact this technique worked so well that I got the number one result for a related search phrase too!

A Quick and Easy Google SEO Trick

The technique I used was to place an ad in a particularly highly ranked classified site. In this case it was the famous site Craigslist.org for London (http://london.craigslist.org/). This site is the original free classifieds trading community that has become a world wide phenomenon driven by word of mouth. But that's not important. What is important is that Craigslist is very popular and has a high PageRank, and most importantly you can place a free ad on the site anytime you want to. There are restrictions and limitations but it is easy to do, there is no reason you shouldn't make an ad or two. It's free promotion for your business that may happen to also help with your placement in Google SERPs.

Key Term: SERP - Short for Search Engine Results Page, the Web page that a search engine returns with the results of its search. The major search engines typically display three kinds of listings on their SERPs. Listings that have been indexed by the search engine's spider, listings that have been indexed into the search engine's directory by a human, and listings that are paid to be listed by the search engine.

A Practical Test

For testing I was after the search phrase "Thesis Proofreader" for my business site's thesis proofreading service. I entered the term into Google and noticed that a Craigslist entry was receiving a high result, but the subject and keywords were not highly targeted. However they were good enough to get a third page result in Google for that term. I went in and created a very simple ad in Craigslist that directly targeted my keywords and a week or two later I had the number one result for that term in the Google global SERP. Also because I had used the term "Essay" in the subject of the ad I managed to secure the first page result for "Essay Proofreader" as well. Not bad :).

A Bit Hit and Miss

I was surprised that it worked as well as it did but I know better than to expect that good a result every time. One important consideration in my test is that there just isn't much competition for my search phrase; hence it was easy to get the top result. If your market is more competitive your result likely won't be as good. Craigslist deletes ads in 45 days so it's not a permanent result either, you will need to keep going back to recreate your ad if you want to keep the result.

You should be sure to check the current results in Google to see if any free listing sites like Craigslist are pulling up high results for your terms. If you have some advertising cash to spend, see if any pay-for-entry directories or classifieds are pulling high results too. If there are then there is a good chance that if you create a well targeted ad you will have positive results.

It's important to do search research first so you know which city listings in Craigslist are pulling the high results. Ideally for an online business that can service the world you would have a Craigslist listing for every city, but that just may not be feasible and may break the Craigslist rules anyway. With search research you determine which city is pulling the best results for your terms, which could be caused by a whole number of reasons - backlinks to that particular Craigslist city, key terms - the amount of variables to consider are beyond human comprehension, let Google handle that and just take the results on face value.

Take the time to locate the best city based on current search results and place your entry in that city at the very least. If your business is specifically targeted at a geographical area then it is a good idea to do a comprehensive ad in your Craigslist city (if available) as well, it certainly won't hurt.

It's also important to note that there is nothing stopping competitors doing the same thing as you. The SEO war may spread into Craigslist and muddy the site, which would no doubt prompt a clampdown on commercial listings in Craigslist. Perhaps this technique is best for those operating in small or unique industries since it is unlikely that competitive action will ruin it for everyone.

Also note that Google itself is a completely uncontrollable variable in this equation. Google may decide that it will no longer count Craigslist entries. Maybe it will decide to only index for certain terms. Just accept that you can't control what Google decides to do, but you can test to see what results you can get. Not trying guarantees no results.

It's Too Easy Not to Test

There is no good reason not to use this technique. Classified sites want listings, it's what they do. You may or may not achieve better search engine results but at the least there is a chance that a browser may stumble across your ad and come shopping at your business. It takes very little time and usually is free so get out there and start creating those free ads. Just remember to use the right keywords and don't go overboard, you don't want all your incoming links to come from free directories because in the long run Google may penalise your results.

By Yaro Starak
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

Do you want to profit from your own successful home based Internet business?

Learn from Yaro Starak, a young entrepreneur from Australia. He works part time from home on several web based business that generate between $2,000 and $8,000 per month. Get your free articles and audio now - visit his Internet Business Blog.

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This is now essential to keep link partners honest. This problem is a direct consequence of the current page rank system and fierce competition for top rankings. It is easier to retain existing link partners than to continually find new ones. Points to look for when Assessing Potential Link Partners Before trading links, look carefully at the other site ? 1. If there is no link to the link directory on the index page ?Reject. You will get no traffic from that site. 2. Look at the structure of their link directory and count the number of clicks from their index page to where their link to you is likely to be located and then deduct that number from the PR of the site's index page. If that page is PR3 and there are three clicks to get to the page on which your link will be located, that page will have a PR0. That link will be worthless unless the site gets a minimum of a PR4. 3. If you have not already done so, download Google's tool bar. If the page rank bar is grayed out, when you are looking at a site, never trade links with that site. The grey bar is said to indicate that the site is banned by Google. I do not know if that is true but I have only ever seen two sites produce grey bars. 4. A growing number of sites with dynamically generated link directories have no page rank on any link pages even though the directories are often constructed in such a way that you would expect the page to rank to be 2 points below the home page. I do not know how most are achieving this. The visible way is to have multiple folders and index pages leading to the links pages and the number of clicks from the home page destroys any potential page rank for the link page. A rare method is to add a no index command for the link directory in their robots.txt file. Just remember links to such sites are one way links from your site to their site. You give them a good link and they give you a worthless link. A link on a page with a PR0 is a non indexed link and carries no value regardless of the page rank of the index page of the site to which it is attached. When you do a back link check on your domain in Google, you will notice that very few links to your domain that are on Google indexed pages with a PR of less than four are returned in your list of back links. This is why I and others consider that Google now discounts the value of such links. For indexed pages, count the number of links on the page. The first factor in determining the value of the link is the page rank of the page on which it is located. The second factor is the number of links on the page. The value of the link to you is roughly the page PR divided by the number of links. Of course no one outside of a chosen few at Google knows the actual formula but that is a rough approximation and the reason most webmasters will not trade links with sites with more than 40 links to a page unless the page has a very high PR. A link on the bottom of a good content page is always better value than a link on a directory page as more people are likely to click on it. When on the receiving end of a link exchange request, do not hesitate to ask for your link to be placed on a specific page and do not hesitate to reject link requests from sites that do not adhere to basic acceptable linking practices. When considering link requests from new sites, look at any other sites that belong to or have been built by the webmaster proposing the link exchange. Most importantly, look to see if existing link pages have been indexed and the structure of the directory. This will be a good indicator of what to expect for the new site. When you create your own link directory, consider a hand edited directory with the links at the same level as the rest of the pages on your site. That way your link pages will be only one point below your index page and you will attract more link requests because of that. Many high PR sites will not trade links with you unless you can place their link back on a minimum of a PR4 page. That way you can start shooting for the top once your index page makes a 5 as opposed to a 7 with the way many link directories are set up. When you are shooting for the top, it helps you get those high pr links you need to make it to the top.