First, the jargon.
Back link: this is where a website links to your site; i.e. Site X has a link pointing to your site, so your site has a back link from Site X
One-way link: where only site X links to your site, but your site does NOT link to site X
Reciprocal link: where two sites have swapped links so they both link to each other
Anchor text: the text/description that is associated with your link on the back link site.
Page rank: Google’s proprietary system for assigning a value (from 1-10 where 10 is best) to the combined number and the quality of back links pointing to your site. Often abbreviated to “PR”
Search Engine Results Page (SERP): we use the terms “SERPs” to refer to the search engine results page, and the position of a site on it. So if a website has a SERP of 3, it means for a particular keyword search it appears on page 3 of the results. Note that some people use SERP to refer to the position on the page, so that a SERP of 3 may also mean the site appears at #3 on the first page.

Check you page rank and backlinks now! Quick and easy Page rank checking at http://www.quickpagerank.com/

So, what does it all mean?
In the online marketing world, Page Rank means a lot. Increasing a website’s PR is one of the major foci of online marketing.

The goal is to get as high a PR as possible for your site. PR is measured by a proprietary algorithm belonging to Google. What Google does is measure the quality of the site linking to your site. How does it do this? By measuring, amongst other things, that site’s PR. There is also evidence that the degree of relatedness of content is also important. If you site is an e.g. Real estate website, then a back link from a site dealing in scuba gear may not be worth much to you. But back links from sites that have good PR and are related to you (e.g. by industry or by region/location) are well worth pursuing. By increasing the number and quality of links pointing to your site, over time you will increase your PR.

Note also that many other engines also use back links as part of their SERP algorithm. Some may not be as sophisticated as Google, but many measure the number of back links in their index and use this as part of how they rank your site under a particular search.

You can check your back links and page rank at http://www.quickpagerank.com/

So how do I improve my Page Rank?
Firstly, make sure your site has good quality content. Make other sites and their owners want to link to you. Then get out on the web and start making propositions to other website owners in related fields.

Ideally, you will get links from sites that have a higher Page Rank than yours, but this isn’t always possible. What you should look for are sites that:
Have good content
Are relevant or related to your site
Have some Page Rank already (i.e. not brand new)
Also, older domains may do better than newer domains

Some of the do nots.
Be wary of FFA (Free For All) sites; often these do you no good and can actually do you damage as they tend to be viewed as spam sites by some engines.
Don’t “spam” your anchor text; make it relevant and don’t overload it with keywords or repetitions.
Vary your anchor text. Use different variations or re-writes of anchor text on different sites.
Make sure the page where your link will be placed has been indexed by the search engines. If it has not been indexed (or can’t be for whatever reason) then you won’t get any benefit from it.
Make sure that the pages you place links on have limits to the number of links listed. Single figures are ideal, but not always possible.

The answer is: Yes, you can! The basics of search engine optimisation in applied web marketing are simple. It’s all to do with the keyword content of your text copy, and can be summarised in seven points.

1. Register a good domain name which reflects what your site is about. Even if you are an established business, don’t register www.FredJones.com if you make widgets. Rather, you want to register something like www.BestWidgets.com because that would inspire confidence in people looking for quality widgets who would not necessarily have heard of Fred Jones the widget-maker.

2. Name your page URLs based on reasons similar to the above for your web promotion, except now you can be more specific. Search engines like to know what your page is about. Name a page after a product (BigYellowWidgets.htm) or a service or action (Buy-Widgets-by-Post.htm) on one of the sales pages.

3. The text in the title tag is crucial in letting search engines know what each page is about. Put your important keywords in your title tags, using both the singular and plural versions (people will search for both) and make these tags different and specific for each page. For example, “Widgets and After Sales Widget Services”. Whatever you do, don’t call the home page “Index”, but treat it almost as a mini-description.

4. The other tags (at the top of the html page) between the two “HEAD” tags are not as important as the title tag, but the description tag is still used by some search engines in displaying what you would like web users to see when they scroll down a page of search results. Some search engines don’t use the description tag at all; others, like Google, sometimes use part of it together with part of the main body text surrounding prominent keywords on your page. So you may as well treat the description tag seriously; make it brief (about 25 to 30 words) and as comprehensive as possible in the short space allowed. Make sure you have your popular keywords included within your description tag. The ALT tag is used for a very short description of an image or graphic file, and is what is displayed if you allow your mouse pointer to hover above a graphic. These days it is not considered important for search engines. The COMMENT tag is never displayed on the body page, and is used by coders and designers as an instruction or reminder to themselves about what that section of html coding should be doing; in the past, some webmasters in their quest for website promotion and search engine ranking used to stuff keywords in the comments tags, but now it is generally acknowledged that the main search engines pay little or no attention to these.

5. Keyword density. Each search engine has its own preference as to how many times a keyword phrase appears on the page in order to signify the relevance of that keyword phrase (in other words, in order to help the search engine understand what the page is about). Around 5 to 8 per cent is a rough guide as to the optimal level. Don’t overdo it, otherwise it will be seen as spam or keyword-stuffing. Also use your keywords in the headings tags H1 and H2. There is an H3 tag as well, but it is doubtful whether search engines bother with that, as it is perceived as less prominent on the page, therefore less relevant to what the page is about.

6. Don’t forget good linking in your website marketing. Search engines will judge the importance of your web pages to some extent on the number and quality of incoming links from other sites. Ask other webmasters with sites on similar themes to yours for a link, in exchange for a link back. These sites should not be in competition with yours, but should be similarly themed. You may occasionally be asked by other webmasters if they can link to your site. If this is so then have a look at their site; make sure that their site is relevant, that it has at least some Page Rank, and that it just “feels” good, and has no nasty surprises like redirects or unexpected popups. You don’t want to be associated with a “bad neighborhood”!

7. Make sure that important keywords are included in the anchor text within inbound links from other sites. This is crucial to search engines when they try to figure out the relevance and importance of your pages. The inbound link from the other site should take the form of something like this (I’m using normal brackets instead of angle brackets so as not to use compromising html): (A HREF=”http://www.Yoursite.com”) your important keywords included here(/A). You should definitely avoid something like (A HREF=”http://www.Yoursite.com”)click here(/A), which tells search engines nothing except that your site is about “click here”. Be careful!

Although no Leeds SEO company can guarantee a high ranking for your site, here are some tips for raising your search engine ranking. Using these tips will not get you to the top unless your site is the best out there, but they will at least put you into the positioning that you truly deserve. After all, the internet is basically a free market. You will naturally flow into the place that you deserve and many search engines try to insure that you do not rise above or fall below this position. This is why they are so strict, and this is why you must keep yourself on good terms with them.

1) Content is an important factor in high search engine rankings. Make sure that you have plenty of content throughout your site with your target keywords in the articles. Its also worth doing a search for websites similar to yours and taking a look at their articles for ideas. The more content you have the better. It is generally a good idea to have between three hundred and five hundred words per page, but more important than a quantity of content is the quality of the content that you are providing. You cannot just put out three hundred words of jargon and expect your visitors to find it interesting and stick around for the long haul.

2) Your websites URL can help you rank higher with the search engines if it contains your keywords. However, dont think that naming your site after your keywords will always help your rankings you need to do more than just that.

3) Search terms should be written out in text, instead of graphics. If you do use pictures, be sure to give them alt tags. The alt tags in your pictures are almost as important as text. Its also a good idea to put some of your key words in links to other pages. In the eyes of a search engine it is almost as good to have a link to a page full of the content that the visitor is looking for as it is to have the content that the visitor is looking for on your page. If a visitor is looking for something that you are linking to and he or she finds your page, they may look around your site on the way through.

4) The title of your page is very important, and making sure that you choose it wisely will make a big difference. Terms such free article on safe children’s toys, or contact the children’s toy expert today are good to use as titles, for example they would get you a high ranking. The title area is the most important place to include your keyword phrases, so make sure that you put them all in.

5) The navigation menu that appears on each page of your website should include your pages title.

6) Dont just use the most popular keyword phrases the market is so competitive that you should be sure to include some niche keywords too.

7) Make sure that you dont have a lot of irrelevant links on your site. The more closely related to your site your links are, the better your chances of being ranked in a higher position.

You need to periodically update the content of your website, even if its only a slight change, as websites like sites that are kept updated.

9) You need to consider the fact most search engines dont like automatic submissions or multiple submissions submit once, manually.

10) Always be on the look out for Leeds SEO news staying up to date and using the latest techniques will help you stay one step ahead of your competition.