In today’s market, top rank in Google is one of the most sought after items on the internet. Webmasters around the world compete day and night, constantly making changes to their sites, grabbing any opportunity for climbing up the ranking ladder. Some might say, “Whats the use competing with these websites? They have invested immense amounts of time and effort into achieving the rankings they now enjoy. How can I compete with them?” Well, all hope is not lost. There are several, absolutely free steps anyone can take to raise their rank and start receiving the traffic they desire.

First things first, make use of the tools already available. No matter what content management system your site uses (or none at all) you can create a Google sitemap for your site. Back in the day, search engines would rely only on incoming links to judge the quality of your site. With the invention of the sitemap, you can let Google know exactly what your site contains and receive the fast indexing you need. Keep in mind that it is best to have your site optimized for search engines (eg. use a SEO content management system), as they respond especially well to search engine friendly links.

To generate a sitemap for free online, check out http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Secondly, make sure that the majority of your site’s content is text-based. Search engines can’t read images or videos and rely mostly on the text content of your site to judge its value. Sites with little or no text content generally will not rank as highly as comparable sites with much more text. Keep in mind that your site will rank higher if you are consistently adding fresh content, it will keep search engines coming back for more.

Remember to ensure that the content on your site is relevant to your site’s keywords and meta-tags. When search engines crawl you site, they compare the actual content to your keywords and meta-tags and penalize sites that don’t match up.

Finally, make use of sites such as digg and technorati to get free, high-quality incoming links. Even though search engines have changed over the years, having lots of incoming links from other high-ranking sites will boost your ranking.

Good luck with all of your online adventures!

-The Digital Revolutions Team

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