Ranking in Google Places for several searches is not just easy. This also shows that Google Places has evolved to become very important. Google Places usually occupy the top segment of the result page for a search phrase. As a result, you may rank number one in a particular keyword, you would notice that more than three Google Places are ranking above your number one position.

Now, what techniques are effective when it comes to ranking high in Google Places?

1. Business Page Set Up
   The initial step towards ranking high in Google Places is to set up your business page. This is as simple as filling out your profile on Google Places. Google account is what you need and it does not cost you anything to own one, it is also easy to set up.
2. Getting Listed
   Getting listed is very necessary if you must generate the most excellent citations. Their sources could be from pages like Superpages, Yahoo, Insiderpages and others. When you are listed, it becomes easier to provide Google with each bit of information relevant to your business. Ensure that you include every possible detail, do not leave any essential field. This is very beneficial, detailed information is capable of influencing your rankings for a wide range of search terms.
3. Citations
   Simply put, citation is mentioning of your business and its offerings on another website. Try your best to get the closest you can to the precise match of your Google Places. Therefore, ensure that your description, link, contact info and just any relevant info matches your Google Places page. Your organic ranking would be positively affected as well.
4. Ensure that Your Citations are Accurate
   This includes the existing citations and the ones you are getting listed for. It would be a fruitless effort if you get listed with the wrong information.  Check for accuracy in the aspect of your names, phone numbers as well as addresses. Also, check for accuracy regarding the details on your website and ensure it is exactly the same as the one to be listed.
5. Reviews
   Reviews are proof of trust; it is a powerful tool when it comes to getting citation indexed  and attaining high rank in Google; it also helps in Google Places listing. So, strive for as many reviews as possible from different sites. Encourage both suppliers and customers to leave reviews. Also, you can secure mutual agreement reviews from companies or businesses within your industry.
6. It is Helpful to Build more Links
   This is not just the regular SEO link building that points back to your website; go ahead with more local links that include your address, business name, URL as well as phone number.

These valuable tips are too effective to be neglected! Swing into action without delay.

The SEO tips and techniques featured in this article were culled from the live chat that Google’s Matt Cutts granted on YouTube.

Tip One: All hope for regaining ranking is not lost for penalized websites
A big company’s website was penalized due to excess paid links featured on their site. The company which is JC Penney did a lot of work to fix the issues and filed a formal request for another chance afterwards. Well, it may interest you that filing a formal reconsideration request was possible for the company in question because of its size. Well, a small company may go down the drain when such issue arises. Therefore, it is better to play safe by using only endorsed or safe link generation techniques.

Tip Two: Google’s Panda is being considered by Google for more language options
The target of Google’s Panda update is content farms (also known as article directories) as well as poor quality sites. Well, it is not as though these types of website are as common in multiple languages. However, Google is set to bring out the Panda update to multiple languages when the testing period is over.

Tip Three: A Ranking Signal to Look out for is Data from Blocked Sites
It is possible for people searching through Google to block sites in search result. When sufficient number of users block a particular website, this is a signal that the blocked site is of poor quality.

Tip Four: When pointing links to your own website, do not use the nofollow attribute
This rule which was rolled out by Google’s Matt Cutt also applies to links to privacy policy on your website. The nofollow attribute should be employed for external links that are not completely reliable. The reputation of a site could be dented by the site you link to.

Tip Five: Another ranking signal is going to be Google’s + 1
Presently, Google’s + 1 is the answer provided by Google to Facebook’s ‘Like’ button.  In no distant time, Google is likely to offer this feature to those who own websites. The feature would also become a ranking signal.

Tip Six: Your site’s IP address can be a determining factor for its ranking
If you desire to rank high on Google, your chances would be high if the site features a French IP address.

Tip Seven: Prevent duplicate content by employing the canonical tag and 301 redirects
These tools would help you keep off from duplicate content issues, especially when you have the same content in several URLs on your site.

Finally, you can use Top10 Optimizer to get direction on how to acquire SEO skills to optimize your webpages for Google ranking.

The quickest way to have your website listed on Google’s search result page is to ensure that your website features all that is required by Google. And what are those requirements?

1. Your server has to be Google-friendly, in such way that it becomes easier for Google to index your page.So, what should you do to make your server and webpages Google indexing friendly?
   • Get rid of the ‘disallow’ lines in your robots.txt file if necessary.
   • Do not feature ‘noindex’ tags on your webpages – check to ensure that such tags are not found in your webpages.
   • Also, your web server would not be Google indexing-friendly if it uses cloaking scripts or bot blocking software.
2. Google indexes webpages with quality backlinks faster.Google bots often visit websites that have more quality backlinks pointing to them. Thus Google would be fast to feature your webpage on its search result page if your site has good backlinks that point to it.

   Bear this in mind; you need to wait for a while before Google can display your site on its search result page – why? Here are the reasons below;

   • Technical reasons: it is the procedure with this search engine, for an optimized website to wait for a while before it is indexed. Even when the bot eventually visits your website, it may only crawl some pages and leave some, and not all the pages crawled by the bot would undergo indexing.For the indexed pages, they would be parsed – the parsing process assigns the indexed pages to search queries. Again, why you must wait for a while is that Google would need to assess the content featured on your site and compare it with other websites’ contents, and subsequently rate your site in terms of quality. The entire process drags on for a while. However, if you have more backlinks pointing to your site, the process will speed up.
   • Competitive keywords: getting listed on Google search result page takes longer time for competitive keywords. So, you may need to target less competitive keywords first, then after achieving chains of top 10 ranking for these keywords, your chances of ranking higher for the highly competitive keywords would increase greatly.
   • Also, Google would take time to evaluate the quality of a new website, so ranking on Google’s top 10 search result page takes time for a new website. But as the website gets older and generates multiple quality backlinks, the chances of getting to Google’s result page increases.
3. Make your website meaningful to Google
   Google is slow to index single-page site. Google is likely not to find substantial valuable content on such site, especially a completely Flash site.
   Do not focus on just few pages of your website when optimizing your site, work on all the pages and fill them with valuable contents worth presenting to visitors. Google is concerned with presenting the most excellent webpages to web visitors who pass through it to search for information.

Don’t be deceived, there’s no short-cut to climbing to Google’s top 10 search result page. High quality content and valuable backlinks are necessary.

Right now, the dust has settled a bit on Google’s latest ‘farmer’ update – thus, this is the right time to let you know how you can take advantage of it as an article marketer. No doubts, some people out there are saying that this latest development means the end for article marketing – well, we’ve been hearing that for decades now. The truth is that article marketing has come to stay.

Let’s begin by saying that the essence of the ‘farmer’ update was to provide searchers with sites that feature high quality content when they are looking for something on the web. Yes, this is exactly the intention; Google is of the opinion that those who carry out searches through their search engine (primary users, not webmasters) are worth rewarding with enhanced user experience. Well, you don’t blame them for that – a good number of webpages are merely spammy, crappy, and are focused solely on money making and do not care about featuring quality and valuable information.

That’s the issue, a lot of people are tired of being provided with craps when they surf the web for information. Just imagine for  a moment what would happen to a restaurant that serves low quality meal, it will go out of business of course, in just a little while. If searchers keep on clicking on the back button each time Google displays its search result, that speaks volume.

Thus, if your webpages or articles feature high quality information, and if such pieces of information have been submitted effectively to reach out a wider audience, you are bound to get the reward of your labor more than those who did not get it right with their contents. So, if you are complaining about the latest algorithm change as an article marketer, it implies that you don’t have quality content or articles to offer.

Back to latest Google algorithm topic; Google states that, just approximately 12 percent of the search terms are affected by this latest development in its algorithm. Therefore, it can be deduced that the change has got more to do with some topics than any other thing.

Obviously, some search terms are more likely to attract detestable content or website compared to other search terms. It really keeps the webmasters wondering what these search terms may be and keeps them on their toes.

Places Search is one of the latest developments on Google. Google Search is the former Google Local/Google Maps. Sites listed in Google Places are currently listed on top of the search result pages when local searches are conducted. If your business is local area based, it is an excellent idea that you get listed in Google Places.

Tips on Optimizing Your Google Places Listing

There are several factors that influence the way your website is listed on Google Places. Some of those factors include your business’ location, your keywords as well as the industry your business is inclined to.

• First Ranking Feature: Your Address

Do you want to rank high for keywords associated with a given city? If yes, then it is necessary that your business be located in such a city. For instance, if you want your business to be discovered for local searches in New York, then the physical address of your business must be in New York.

• Second Ranking Feature: Your Business Category Listing Must be Correct

It is important that your business be listed in the appropriate category on Google Places. It would be a serious mistake and to your disadvantage if you list auto business under real estate category on Google Places!

• Third Ranking Feature: Put Your Main Keyword in Your Business Name

If you want to improve your chances of being listed in the Google Places results for higher ranking in the main Google result page, then you must ensure that your business’s name contains your main keyword – the keyword you would want visitors to find you with. For instance, if you run an auto business, try and incorporate auto or car in your business name – e.g. John Mark’s Auto.

• Fourth Ranking Feature: Your Business Web References or Citations

Web references or citations refer to the mentions of your business information – especially your business name and address on other websites. It doesn’t matter whether or not the webpages referencing your business name are linked to your website or not. Some webpages that may list your business address without linking to your site include the local chamber of commerce or yellow pages directory. Citations of your business helps improve its chances of being listed for local searches, hence higher ranking.

• Fifth Ranking Feature: Positive Reviews

Basically, Google Places is a recommendation search engine; all it does is to recommend local businesses in the search results; it recommends local plumbers, restaurants, hotels and many others. Ensure that your business is worth recommending by offering quality products as well as services.

Positive reviews as well as ratings enable Google to place more value on your business. Thus, it is good idea to encourage your customers to leave positive ratings and reviews when they are pleased with your services.

• Sixth Ranking Feature: Nearness to the Searched Location

The nearer your business is to the search location, the more chance it has to be listed in the search results.

Take advantage of Google Places today. Target your customer base within local domains and extend your business reach by increasing your search engine ranking for local searches.

You can push your business to the top rankings on the most popular search engines much quicker by using the an array of useful web tools. These useful tools will translate your wish for enhanced visibility and website optimization into an absolute reality.

This is the technical aspect of online marketing, and since search engines are text-based, you must essentially track your website to ascertain the degree of your website’s search engine friendliness. It is at this juncture that SEO tools play a great role.

Optimization Enhancement Tools

You can find a wide range of web and internet tools at your disposal to track and augment your website for better search engine ranking. Traffic can be increased to your site and your business prospects can increase with a good search engine ranking.
The major reason for promoting your business on the web is to become popular and more visible.

The helpful web tools for optimizing your website include:

• Link tools
  Search engine optimization (SEO) enhancement depends on Links to a large extent. It is a website optimization strategy. With the link tools, your website’s incoming and outgoing links are evaluated to ascertain the ones that are useful. In order to get to the links that a given keyphrase leads to, there are certain link gears that can assist you; and some can help you examine multiple incoming links or backlinks so that the pages that link to your site can be tracked. The bedrock of SEO is back-links. You may also use the software to verify your reciprocal links and ascertain whether or not they link to your site.
• Search engine tools
  Websites are indexed into categories by major search engines. Using the search engine tool, it is possible to determine a single website’s number of pages stored in a main search engine. The spiders or robots feature of search engines crawl web pages to find their content; subsequently, these websites are indexed, processed and their relevance determined by the search engine spiders. This is a helpful tool for viewing the listings of your site on major search engines. You will also review statistics that aid optimization and learn the way your site is viewed and assessed by spider bots.
• Keyword tools
  You cannot dispute the fact that search engines are text driven, and that they are not humans. Therefore, keywords play an essential role and can drive enormous traffic to your website when used appropriately. There are web tools that can help you determine keyword density, so that you can appropriately optimize your website’s text. You can also employ these tools when analyzing keywords and can obtain valuable text suggestions as well. It is also possible to check position of several keywords in a search engine on a given website, so that you may generate ideas on how to enhance your keywords.
• Authority link tools
  With these web tools, you can link to multiple authority sites or URLs of the same niche or category and acquire inbound links from them. This tool is especially effective for enhancing visibility on educational sites.
• Other tools
  There are several other miscellaneous tools like the various web tools you can use to verify your website rank and page rank in addition to having a page heat check. All of them result in improved visibility and better SEO ranking. Other activities that you can embark on with these miscellaneous tools are web page loading speed check, HTML codes validity check and text encrypting.

Web tools are essential new add-ons that assist you in realizing your website optimization objective; they are also valuable internet marketing tools via research as well as analysis.

There is no controversy about it; keywords are the basis of any search engine optimization campaign.
They will either make or mar it.

If you choose keywords that are highly competitive, getting result will take an extended period of time,
and that too, with much struggle.

And if you opt for very generic phrases, just be sure of poor conversions.
This is just what it is all about.Now, it is clear to you that extensive keyword research and choice
of good keywords are very essential.How can you carry out a through keyword research?

Check the tips given below.

• Begin with a thought-provoking session that will lead you into identifying and listing all the likely keywords and terms that web visitors are likely to enter to search for your offering.Also in this brainstorming segment, it is important that you bring yourself to think just as what the potential customer would do.

• Carry out further research to keep on building the keyword list.

• It is also sensible to have idea of the keywords or terms that your competitors are using; so you need to do some research on your competitors.

• Thoroughly examine your web stats and logs; this can offer you a valuable source of keyphrases and terms of what visitors are already entering to look for you on the search engines. Get those keywords and improve your rankings on them so that your chances for better traffic can be increased.

• Another place to look within your website is the search tool/feature (if you have one).The logs on this feature will reveal to you what visitors are looking for when they come to your site.This will also give you an idea of what words and phrases to include in your keyword list.

• Next, carry out an analysis on the keyword list you’ve built to find out the degree of traffic they can generate, and their rate of competition as well.

• Now, it’s time to segment your keyword list.Bring out the longer-phrases keywords (low hanging fruit) that are less traffic prone.
  These keywords can serve as your starting point since they can rank easily, and reasonably swifter.

Then, bring forth the words or terms that are relatively competitive, more traffic-prone and will rank for a fairly longer time – this will be your second segment list.The segmentation process is worth it;while you await the relatively more competitive keywords to start yielding result, the low hanging fruit list must have started generating traffic for you already.

Remember, too generic and less-targeted keywords will take considerably prolonged period of time to rank;also, conversion of traffic is most likely not to happen.Using very specific key phrases would not generate you substantial traffic as well.So what do you do?

Employ a three-level technique;

• Broad Based:
  It consists of single keywords and relatively short phrases, lots of traffic, generic to the industry, and relatively low conversions.
• Focused Keywords:
  Here you will find phrases that are fairly shorter.The phrases are centred on your offering.Higher traffic numbers is also a feature of the ‘focused’ level.
• The Long Tail Keywords – Laser Focused:
  This consists of more targeted and longer key phrases, higher conversion rates, and smaller traffic numbers.

If you are into internet marketing and have an online business, then you are well aware that unless you have
good traffic to your site, it will be a futile effort.The more number of people visit your site,
the more business you can achieve.

There are few methods which can bring relevant visitors to your website.
To improve the search engine rankings of your site, you need to concentrate on three principles-
1-Relevancy, 2-Popularity  3-Originality.

Relevancy or appropriateness:
Relevancy is one of the key elements for the website to be search engine friendly.

• The content and links to the site should be relevant to the service you are providing or the object you are trying to sell.
  For example, if your site is about furniture, then make sure you have content that directly refers to furniture and related terms. No need to talk about the construction of a drawing or living room. Most of the search engines scrutinize websites for their relevance relating to a given term.
• The use of appropriate keywords also plays an important role to attracting visitors or traffic.
  Make the keyword unique and relevant to your topic. Also use the keyword effectively.
• The inbound and outbound links to your site are also important for the page ranking
  therefore they should also be relevant.

Reputation or popularity:
The site should not only have the relevant content but it should also be popular.
The reputation or popularity of a site depends upon its links.

• The numbers of links that are pointing to your site i.e. the inbound links are the best way to gauge the popularity of a site.
• The links should be from reputed and relevant sites.
• The more popular the link site is, the more traffic will land on your site.
• Never buy links or get links from link farms
  Get genuine links from the sites that exchange links. This will increase the popularity of your site.

Originality or uniqueness:
The uniqueness and originality of your website is also an important principle to increase its traffic.

• Spinning is a key element to keep your content unique and original.
  Change the keywords and title to get it noticed on the search engine as a new article.
• Make many versions of the content based on your keyword and host it on different servers.
  Put back links to the original article. This will improve the ranking of your page.

These few simple steps will increase your traffic manifold and you can see your business growing.

Google has in a recent statement, made it public that they have commenced using website upload speed as part of the 200 signals that determines the placement of a website in Google’s search result page.

Since the speed of a page upload shows the response time of a website in replying to a web request, Google has decided to consider site speed in their search rankings. In order to ascertain the speed of a website in comparison with other websites, they will employ a wide range of sources.

Effect of the decision on your website ranking
Math Cutts from Google affirms that the new development will affect only certain websites and that less than 1% of search queries will be altered as a result of including website speed in their ranking factor. This implies that only fewer search results will be affected.
This is because, the average search request returns about 10 search results on each page.

Although 1% seems insignificant, it may pose an issue if your website is among the webpages that will drop in their ranking. Presently, this is only applicable to web visitors who are searching on Google in English.

Techniques for Keeping your Web Pages Listed on top Google Search Results

Take a tour of these simple techniques and enhance the speed of your web pages.

• Go for a fast and dependable web host that has excellent connection to the internet. You can encounter problems by settling for a “cheap” web host.
• Merge external JavaScript code files into a single file. When the server has fewer files to request, your web pages will load faster.
• In order to make the JavaScript smaller, you need to compress your JavaScript code.
• Merge external CSS files to a single file, and then compress the CSS files.
• Enable gZip compression; but this is only if it is supported by your web server. This is what a web host can help you achieve.
• The images in your website should be as fewer as possible, and ensure that the images are compressed. A good number of graphic tools will give you the option to select a compression rate when an image is being saved for the web.
• At the end of your web pages, include tracking codes as well as JavaScript snippets.

Those who search the web are usually desirous of immediate result, and as such are not willing to wait even a moment longer. When your web pages load faster, there is an increased chance of visitors getting to see your website contents.

Web page speed is not the top ranking signal used by Google. This is confirmed by a statement made towards the end of Google’s page speed announcement; “Although site speed is a latest signal factor, the relevance of the page is weightier than its speed when accomplishing ranking”.

However, it is essential that you optimize the speed of your web pages; you also need to have other features of your web pages optimized in order to be listed on Google’s first result page.

Webmasters would do their best to get listed on Google’s first result page. However, a vast majority of them do not embark on the right techniques necessary for achieving this end.

A single strategy will definitely not get you listed among the first 10 rankings on Google’s result page. You need to work on all possible elements of your website in order to increase the chances of being listed.

Explore the top 5 factors listed below that influence your website’s ranking on Google’s search results:

1. Accessibility of the Website
It is senseless to embark on optimization of your web pages when your web pages are not accessible by search engines.

• The accessibility of the search engines to your website should be made possible by your robots.Txt file. If this file has errors in it, then a lot of search engines will not access your site, or even list it.
• Also, the underlying HTML codes of your web pages must be free of errors, the correct response code should be returned by your web server. Your web page contents should be such that the search engine spiders can read them.

Prior to your web pages optimization, verify if the contents of your web pages are readable to the search engines. This can be achieved with a spider simulator.

2. Site Architecture
Google is only interested in displaying relevant sites in the search result page. Ensuring that there is relationship between the pages of your website is a good way to be ranked among the top 10 positions in Google search results. Therefore, don’t structure your website in a way that makes it look more like a collection of random web pages.

The arrangement of your web pages should indicate to Google that your site is related to a central topic. It is necessary that the pages of your website be linked. A web visitor should be able to access your site with few clicks.

The categorization of your website contents should be made easier for search engine by the way you structure your links and directory.

3. Keywords
Among the top secrets of earning a higher ranking on Google, is the right choice of keywords. A wrong selection of keywords means total failure of your campaign.

• Different pages of your website should be optimized for different keyphrases. It is better to have more pages of your website optimized.
• Begin with highly targeted keyphrases that have different keywords – e.g. “get a cheap web designer in Chicago”
• When you have attained good ranking for your targeted keyphrases, move on to the ones that are more general – e.g. “web designers in Chicago”.

Generally, the conversion rate for targeted keywords is much higher when compared to general keywords.
Again, consider the nature of visitors that will be attracted with the keyphrase based on whether they want to make an actual purchase or just need some information.

4. Uniqueness of Website Content
If your website contents are a mere duplication of articles and links from other websites, then don’t even hope to earn high rankings.

Distinguish your site from the crowd by creating high quality and unique content; also ensure that the articles are centred on your general topic. Your website should contain useful resources.

5. Other Websites that Link to Your Website
One of the top factors for ranking high in Google is the links from other websites. But ensure that such links are from relevant and quality websites