How I Got to Be Number One on Google and Yahoo - Without Even Trying!

by Avril Harper

I’m no Internet guru and I didn’t set out to register number one on Google, or Yahoo, with one of my sites. But that’s the way it happened and much faster than I thought possible.

Go on, try it out, go to www.google.com or www.yahoo.com, key in ‘mystery shopping business’ and you’ll see the site for one of my books ranks number one on both. Or at least it did just a few hours ago.

How is it done?

Well, as I said, I didn’t set out to be number one, it sort of happened by accident. Or luck perhaps! In fact, until I read Phil Wiley’s MINISITE PROFITS I had no idea I’d used four of the easiest techniques already to almost guarantee a high placement on those two vital search engines.

Look at the site if you like, it’s at www.castleedenbooks.com - but unless you’ve read Phil’s book, you might not spot the simple techniques involved, which required no programming as such and no need whatsoever to study search engine positioning.

It’s all to do with what Phil calls ‘Keyword Density’ and it means making frequent reference to key words and phrases individuals might use to locate sites similar to yours.

Based on keyword density (though I didn’t know it at the time) this is what I had already done to get that high placement for my course: The Ultimate Guide to Starting Your Own Mystery Shopping Business:

1. The title of the book includes the phrase ‘mystery shopping business’.
2. The title of the Internet page includes the phrase ‘mystery shopping business’.
3. The phrase ‘mystery shopping business’ appears regularly throughout the text on several pages of the site.
4. The metatags, descriptions and keywords for my site include the phrase ‘mystery shopping business’.

Everyone knows how important keywords are to your chance of appearing high on the list of sites returned by a search engine when an individual uses specific words and phrases to access sites.

For most of us that means adding suitable words and phrases in the ‘Web Properties’ section of our web design software. That’s if you design your own pages using such as Microsoft Publisher or other newbie friendly program. Use ready-made templates and you might not get the chance to add keywords this way.

Not the big problem it once might have been! The fact is search engines select keywords from various areas of a site to determine how high it will rank when someone keys in the appropriate words. The more times a specific word or phrase appears, the more important your site will appear to search engines, and the more likely it will feature high in the rankings.

So all those references I’d already made to ‘mystery shopping business’ ranked my site number one. But there were in fact several other techniques I could have used to get that high placement as MINISITE PROFITS proved, sadly too late for one.

Those other techniques to increase keyword density?

• Choose a domain name based on appropriate keywords for your products. Mine, www.castleedenbooks.com - too late to change that, but my UK site for the same product became www.mystery-shopping.org.uk Excellent!
• Add articles containing keywords to your site and distribute them freely for others to publish online. Use keywords in titles and give a hyperlink back to your site.
• Include keywords in titles of graphics on your site. Do the same for downloads and bonus items, and dot them liberally into testimonials for your product. So when someone writes: “I loved your book”, ask permission to use the testimonial changed to “I loved The Ultimate Guide to Starting Your Own Mystery Shopping Business”.
• Promote a contest online to win a copy of The Ultimate Guide to Starting Your Own Mystery Shopping Business.
• Add a forum called ‘Meet Other Mystery Shopping Business Owners’…………….
• Include an ‘About the Author’ page and be sure to list the title of your latest book: The Ultimate Guide to Starting Your Own ….. Okay, enough already!

Get the idea? Of course you do, but don’t overdo it, the trick is to use, not confuse search engines, and certainly not to abuse them!