Increase Your Search Engine Ranking
Your search engine ranking refers to how well your site ranks in a search for certain keywords on popular search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Generally you want to have your site appear on the first page of a search for keywords that are important to your website. For instance, a search on Google for “Kuhnline” returns this site in the number one slot.
Getting your site ranked higher in search listings is a very effective way to increase traffic to your site. At the same time, increasing your search ranking can be a delicate exercise that requires patience and attention to detail. It is also important to note that improperly using techniques to increase your sites visibility can actually damage your sites ranking. This is because search engine companies punish web designers that unfairly take advantage of the way sites are ranked.
The most popular search engine at the moment is Google. The Google Information for Webmasters page contains some very interesting information about how Google ranks sites.
Paid Listings
Some search sites like MSN and Yahoo! will give premium rankings to sites that pay a fee for listings. Although paying fees for listings can be a nice way to boost your ranking over the short term, those same sites that encourage you to pay will list a properly prepared site near the top of the list for a given keyword without having paid the fee. In the long term, rather than paying every search engine company a fee (there are hundreds search companies), you can employ discipline and apply proven techniques such as making sure to properly use keywords in your body copy to achieve the same effect.
Search engines have to list pages according to their relevance to a given search (rather than according to who paid the highest fee) in order to maintain credibility. Google understands this relationship and clearly marks paid listings as “Sponsored Links” and then lists the most relevant links below them.
Search Engine Optimization
Designing your site to be search engine friendly and increase your search ranking is known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO. The designers here at Kuhnline.com are quite capable and willing to help you increase your page ranking by upgrading your existing site and teaching you proper techniques to help make sure any future changes to your site will be search engine friendly.