Did you believe this? If your like me you've probably seen a million pages and emails like this that claim they can work miracles for you in all the search engines. They claim everything from having inside information or special relationships with Google and all the search engines.

The simple Truth is this: No one can guarantee top listings on any search engine, in fact, no one can even guarantee that you'll ever be listed. So beware of big claims and unethical SEO firms as there are many out there.

So how do you get top listings in the major search engines. Let me try to answer that as simply as I can without thoroughly confusing you. CONTENT - yes that's right... content is still king... the more you try to fool search engines the more damage you'll do to your rankings. Search engines are getting smarter and smarter and they have seen every trick in the book done by every unethical SEO/SEM firm and spammer out there. So don't fall pray to the hype and false claims.

Here's the big Search Engine Secret
Well Written and Related Content, Relevant Page Titles and Meta-tag Descriptions. So there you have it, the secret is out... if anyone tries to tell you different or convince you otherwise - put away your check book and run. Yes, there are other things you can do to help your rankings using the 3 items above and a few more.

How to improve your chances in the search engines rankings:

• Know your top keywords.. Use Yahoo's Keyword Tool
  http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/?mkt=us<=en_US or Goggle's Sandbox
  https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox to find what users are actually typing into the search engines to find sites like yours. Once you have all your top keywords - don't loose them... you will use these over and over and over again.
  
  
• Use your top keywords in the content of your pages, in your page titles and in your mate-tag descriptions. I don't mean to use pages that are filled with nothing but keywords, use them in Real Sentences. Pages that are nothing but keywords will hurt you in the search engines, this is called keyword stuffing and will hurt your rankings or worse yet, get your site delisted or banned from the search engines. Simply take your current site content and use your top keywords in appropriate places where they make sense in real sentences.
  
  
• Don't over use keywords or try to use to many on one single page. Have your main keyword in the title, the description and a couple times on the page content is usually sufficient. Do this for every page of your site optimizing it for the subject of that particular page using the relevant keywords from your research. I see so many sites with the same Title and Meta Descriptions on every page. Make sure yours are different.
  
  
• Get as many high value links as possible. Best way to determine High Value links is to install the Google Toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/ and use Google's Page Rank to determine link value. You can also use out PR Tool at http://www.i4market.com/tools/rankcheck.html. The higher the rank the better. You may have to pay for links on PR7 or higher sites - but don't pay too much. You can also use Alexa Traffic Rank or their toolbar - http://www.alexa.com/. The more High Value links you have the better your Search Engine Popularity will be.
  
  
• Install Link Exchange Software... but be selective about the link exchanges you approve.
  
  
• Add value added relevant content to your site, such as articles, news, blogs or tools related to your business or industry. This will increase your search engine saturation. A site with 100 pages of good quality content has much a better chance of being found than a site with only 10 pages.
  
  
• Use Google XML Site Maps or find and company that will create one for you.
  http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html
  
  
• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, break the site map into separate pages.
  
  
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. Search Engines do not recognize text contained in images or flash content. If you must use images, then always use the Alt tag to describe the link.
  
  
• Check for broken links and correct HTML.
  
  
• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few. Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your URLs, as Google does not include these pages.
  
  
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
  
  
• Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it's current for your site so that you don't accidentally block the spiders from content you want included.
  
  
• Understand the difference between a Search Engine and a Directory. A Search engine uses spidering technology and will search the web for new sites. Directories will not seek you out and you will have to be tell them about your new site manually.
  
  
• Revisit your keywords on a regular basis. There are a 1000's ways to search for the same thing, search patterns change from time to time. You'll want to keep up with those changes.
  
  
• Submit your site to the search engines if it has never been submitted or you are not listed in that particular engine. Most search engines still have a free submit for the "Natural Listings", yet they may not be easy to find. You can find Google's ADD URL here http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
  
  
• Submit your site to the Directories including Yahoo! and DMOZ. DMOZ http://www.dmoz.org/ is the Open Directory Project and is used to power thousands of other sites and directories - Inclusion in this directory gets you links in 1000's of other sites. DMOZ is also the directory Google uses. http://directory.google.com/ WHAT NOT TO DO. -- Don't Use hidden text or links -- Don't Use doorway or gateway pages. -- Don't Use pages that redirect users to other places. -- Don't use any type of cloaking technology - no matter how great it sounds. It might work for a short time - but you will get caught. -- Don't use Flash content for important information. Flash is an application that is completely invisible to most search engines. Flash is good for animations and other page elements - not for an entire site unless you also have an html version. -- Don't Use Misleading or overly repeated words -- Don't Use Bait & Switch tactics... they don't work. -- Don't Use Duplicate sites or pages -- Stay away from Free For All or Link Farms schemes, as these will only hurt you.

There are many things that affect your rankings then just the content on your pages, so DON'T obsess about being #1 - you may never get there no matter what you do. Your time is better spent operating your business in areas you have more control over. Following the above guidelines will get you the best results your site will achieve. That's not to say that there is not more you can do - but these are the main items that will effect your rankings in the SERP's (Search Engine Result Pages).

The internet a huge place and technology changes all the time - so do the search engines - a site that is #1 today might be #1001 tomorrow. You can try to do all this yourself or you can hire a company that specializes in SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing), however beware, there are many that will separate you from your money quickly and leave you with little to no results.

We suggest you take some advice from Google concerning selecting an SEO firm for your company.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/seo.html Above all else - remember this - There are NO GUARANTEES in any type of marketing campaigns, be it on the web, in print, on television or radio. So spend prudently and select your Marketing firm wisely!