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Reaching The Top With Antiques and Collectibles Online
Due to the rise of Antiques, Collectibles and Auction News from nothing to the top of the major search engines like: Google, AOL, Yahoo! and MSN, I have received a number of calls and emails asking how was this accomplished. My first answer is blood, sweat and tears! Rather than continually answering these same questions repeatedly on an individual basis, I thought it best to share with each of you how you can accomplish the same for your own business website(s).
First things first…
Having a quality website with content updated regularly to maintain your readers interests can not be overstated. Without a reason for visitors to keep coming, there is no reason to be online and/or at the top of the search engines in my humble opinion.
So often I see Internet sites that have not been updated in months or even years! It’s no wonder their visitor count stays low. Then I see sites that have a few pages and no way to contact the owners. I personally avoid doing business with such sites as I wonder about my ability to deal with them regarding problems and/or other conflicts.
Then you get to the pictures, layout, etc. of the site. Well, first impressions play a significant factor in many areas of our lives.
Second…
Hosting of a website is a large factor and this is especially true when your site is slow to load or fails entirely. I cannot tell you the number of times I have tried to visit sites with direct links only to find their hosting is down for whatever reason. To me, this is the same as going to your place of business and the doors are closed with no forewarning.
Third…
So how do I get to the top of the search engines?
Each of the major search engines has its own nuances to deal with. For instance, some still take the META tags into account while others may not or at least minimize the value. Some rely on quantity of links pointing to your site while others rely more on themed text/content. What this all adds up to is that you need to build a solid foundation with your site to include each of these factors to appease each of the major search engines instead of just one or two.
Steps to success with the SERPs:
- Include quality META tags in the header of your sites pages unique to each individual page
- Obtain as many inbound links from other sites not hosted on the same server as your site as possible that are quality for your readers
- Continue adding and updating the content on your site to continually bring site visitors back for more
- Write articles/posts to be published on other websites of similar theme to your own while not exact duplicates of each other article/post
Now, these steps will take time and effort to accomplish. Also, there are challenges like what text to use for the links. I would suggest visiting sites with Search Engine Optimization (”SEO”) tools like SEO Centro’s Keyword Suggestion Tool.
Example Results for “Antiques”:
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As you can see from the above, each of the search engines has different suggestions. Finding what is right for your needs and creating both quantity and quality of inbound links are a major factor to your online success when reaching the top with Antiques and Collectibles online.
[…] The Top With Antiques and Collectibles Online unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptDue to the rise of Antiques, […]
January 16th, 2008 at 12:47 am