Getting your website to the top of Google searches

By Peter Zschunke Dec 11, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - The best website in the world won't do you any good if no one looks at it. And there are companies out there to help you rise to the top of Google's hitlist. Better yet, they're not just for businesses.

The fact is anyone can post something online, but there is some talent involved in getting Google's attention. Companies that help you do that are versed in the art of SEO (search engine optimization). Private individuals are increasingly focused on these services as they are finding they can't reach a large audience unless they scoot up the hitlists.

There's no reason to shell out a lot of money for SEO services though. There's a lot you can do to boost your site's presence. 'It's really not that difficult. It's not magic,' says SEO expert Heiner Hemken, who runs a website on the topic.

There are two areas of focus. 'On Page' SEO is targeted at the appearance of the site. 'Off Page' SEO looks at everything in the site's background.

Rene Wienholtzk, head of technology at internet search engine Strato, offers six tips to get more eyes on your private website.

1) 'On Page SEO starts with the right choice of keywords,' says Wienholtz. Just a few choice keywords stored in the metadata of the HTML document are better than many unimportant words, because search engines filter out everything above a certain limit. 'You should have a maximum of 10, but it's better to use five keywords that absolutely need mention.'

2) The choice of the right internet address is Wienholtz's second tip. Always try to pick a domain name that says something about the site's content.

3) Every website should have a meaningful title and a description that is included in the metadata under the 'description' title.

4) The website should have unique content, as well as text that includes the keywords. Search engines today will not be fooled by tricks like the one where hidden words appear in the same colour as the background.

5) Include alternative text descriptions of images and videos. These should be designated with alt, for alternative text, in the HTML code.

6) To save search engines some work, always set up an XML map. This map, which can be created in a sitemap generator, lays out the internal structure of the website. This is key for web offerings that include dynamic content, like technology from Ajax, which cannot always be picked up by search engines. To upload the sitemap, Google and Bing both have a link in their webmaster area.

'If a sitemap is available, then the robots can work their way through that easily,' explains Wienholtz, referring to the crawler software that feeds data to search engines.

Web hosts like Strato, where people can rent server space for their own website, also offer SEO tools to their clients. Such tools allow webmasters to check their contents versus those of other sites, such as those that use the same keywords.

'This competition analysis can give you ideas for your own optimization and let you learn from the competition,' says Joerg Lammers, spokesman for German internet provider 1&1. 'You have to do this kind of analysis permanently, otherwise you quickly lose relevance and end up way behind.'

If you're working with common keywords - like vacation, car or computer - then you have next to no chance of getting your site up to the top spot. 'But if you find a niche, then you have a chance to move up to the top,' explains Hemken.

There are also commercial SEO options, like Off-Page SEO, which focus on building up links that lead back to your own site. Those are a central factor in Google's PageRank, its central algorithm for weighting the popularity of a site.