• Baring It All In Order To Prove This SEO Stuff Works •
• Actual Google Top Rankings Screenshots — The Proof Is In The Pudding! •

I promised that this post would be a on-going conversation, a journal of sorts, about how I am able to achieve high rankings and then maintain those rankings. I want to emphasize that the rankings I am sharing and discussing are ones that bring me lots of targeted visitors. These are NOT top-ten ranking keyword phrases that have zero traffic!

I know what the stumbling blocks are to trying to learn how to optimize your website or blog in order that it can rank highly. (Afterall, I wasn’t always an expert in SEO! I had to start from zero knowledge and move up from there.) I hope that what I share with you will really help you be more successful with your search engine rankings … and that means you’ll have much more targeted visitor traffic.

Alright, let me explain more about the keyword I’ve shown down below in the screen shot– the very competitive and good traffic generating keyword: garden art project.

Please note: today I have a #1 position … #2 has disappeared. Oh well … that’s the joy of dealing with the search engines. I’ve done NOTHING at all to change the webpage or the website. I know that this is just something that happens from time to time. Rankings can come, and rankings can go. But the important thing is that I am still #1

OK, let me give you some insight as to how I have gotten this #1 (and most times #2 also) ranking. “Garden art project” sure seems pretty general, doesn’t it? In certain ways it is, thusly it is harder to rank highly for, much harder than if I had targeted it to be a more specific keyword phrase, such as “floral garden art project”.

But, that keyword is one of the main keywords that describes the overall theme (niche) of the website www.The-Artistic-Garden.com So, I HAD to optimize for the rather general term.

How did I achieve and then maintain a top ranking like this for a long time? The simple fact is because I have properly optimized the Title tag and Description meta tag and the content on that page with the term. I will admit there is a bit of “advanced” SEO happening with the optimization technique I have employed in this situation, but not that advanced that I can’t discuss it with someone who is learning about SEO.

I’ll be talking about all the ins and outs, variables and such that can affect your rankings in my next entries. See you soon!

Entry made on: March 20, 2008 @ 13:07

It is one thing to say that you are an SEO expert or guru, but it is another thing to “put your money where your mouth is” and SHOW the world exactly how well the websites that you have worked on fare in the search engines.

I think that it is pretty obvious that the one thing you rarely see is the “SEO expert” laying it out on the table, showing you PROOF that the methods they talk about in their eBooks or manuals really work.

It is one thing to “talk” how to do SEO, but it is a whole ‘nother thing to make it “work”. Meaning … do these “experts” maintain top rankings for keywords that bring them lots of targeted traffic? Or are they ranking for easily gained top-spots in obscure niches because there really isn’t any competition to speak of? Or … possibly, do they not do very well at all when it comes to successful optimization techniques?

Well, tell you what I have decided to do in an effort to show you I REALLY DO know what I attempt to teach you here on my blog and in my most recent eBook: THE SEO EDGE: GET AHEAD OF YOUR COMPETITION EVERY TIME! If you’d like a free copy right now, please go to: “The SEO Edge”.

I am going to put my money where my mouth is, gang. I have been encouraged by my partner Damian Pang to map out, via my own personal SEO high rankings successes, a teaching tool of sorts to benefit those of you who come here to learn.

It is said a picture is worth a thousand words, to which I whole-heartedly agree. So in keeping with that proverb, I tell you what I am going to do for YOU. Yes, you …

In order that I be the very best SEO teacher that I can, I will be showing you actual screen shots of my Google rankings. Just like this screenshot:

Here is proof of my #1 and #2 Google rankings for the very competitive and high-traffic keyword: garden art project. (Results as of 3-19-08)

Please note there are over 2.4-million SERPs. In addition, the #1 listing is for my home page. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

I will be exposing many more of the actual keywords I have used and optimized on one of my websites, www.The-Artistic-Garden.com, in order that I can teach you better.

EGAD, Claudia! You’re going to let the competition see how you’re beating their pants off?? You’re going to divulge your keyword strategies?? Yup … guess I’ll have to if I am going to do what I said I’m going do! And that’s teach by real examples.

So, in the coming days, weeks, and months I will be teaching you through real-time examples, the art of optimization that can allow you to do the same with your sites. Stay tuned, please keep coming back, I promise I’ve got a lot to share.

• Are Your Organic Search Engine Rankings Dancing Around? •
• Has Your Site Suddenly Dropped Way Down In The SERPs? •

If you haven’t been fiddling around changing your pages, nor have you been trying out anything “black-hat” that could be considered SEO spam tactics … hold on! Take a deep breath and read up.

Here’s the scenario: you’ve been toiling away, adding quality content which is keyword optimized to your site; you’re not obsessively tweaking or messing with the existing content.

You decide to check up on some of your keyword phrases to see how you rank and OH-OH! The great ranking positions you were previously holding, or the ones that you were watching slowly rising up in their SERP positions are now WORSE than before.

What to do? What’s going on? For the new internet marketer, nothing short of panic normally sets in.

But … don’t get panicky! Fluctuation in organic search engine rankings is a GIVEN … hear me? It is going to happen and there is nothing you or I can do about it. It’s that old algorithm-thing happening.

When your search engine rankings fluctuate, or even if your site drops from the rankings, hold tight. Understand that these things happen in this industry, and they WILL happen to you. I can assure you they absolutely happen to me!

What Not To Do …

Please do NOT start fiddling and tweaking and making all sorts of changes to your pages. Don’t touch the content or the Title tag or META tags. OK? Trust me please.

What will most likely happen is that your pages will very shortly reappear right back where they were before. In some cases, they might hold a little lower ranking.  Or your rankings might even rank HIGHER than before.  As a matter of fact, this just happened to me the other day, and now I am #1 and #2 for a position I used to be #3 for. (Yoo-Hoo!)

Anyway, it’s way too common for site owners to PANIC in the short term, when it would be 100% wiser to just take it easy and ride the wave.

However, if you DID do something spammy or “black-hat” … or you were changing Title tags, or stuffing in more keywords, etc. … then you’d better STOP and take a good long look at the harm you’ve just inflicted upon your site.  Go back and make things right!  And please … learn a good SEO rankings lesson  from the mess you’ve just caused! 

For the rest of us, remember … take a deep breath and hang tight! (There-there, I promise it will be OK!)

I Optimized A Friend’s New Mini-Site and 24-Hrs Later …
She Had A Top Ten Ranking In Google For Her Main Keyword Phrase!

You know it sure can be gratifying to see the fruits of my SEO labor almost instantly rewarded. I’m like most everyone else … we want it “now”.  No matter what it is in life. And seeing rankings zoom into the top ten literally overnight is a pretty cool thing.

I’m quite accustomed to seeing dramatic rankings results within a week or two after I perform my search engine optimization “magic” on clients’ sites, but every now and then, I get a nice surprise and find that high rankings have been achieved within a day or two.

So what caused this quick recognition from Google? First, it was proper attention to the basic SEO details: keyword focused quality content; keyword focused Title tags and Description Meta tags; my expertise … AND … I submitted an XML sitemap to Google to get the brand new website spidered immediately.

What is an XML sitemap? Briefly, an XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs available on a site. The aim is to help site owners notify search engines about the URLs on a website that are available for indexing. The sitemap lets the spiders know what is available on a website. Google paved the way with utilizing this XML protocol, and now Yahoo and Ask also accept XML sitemaps. There are a number of things you have to understand about this subject, and I will be discussing sitemaps in another post. This post is not intended to teach you all the ins and outs.

So, by “manually” loading an XML sitemap into the root directory of my friend’s new mini-site, and then going into her Google Webmaster account to fill out the information that says “yes … a sitemap has been uploaded into this website’s root directory”, I alerted the Google spiders that it was time to come and visit her website.

Now, there is a lot of talk amongst SEO professionals as to the need for, use of or value of submitting an XML sitemap. However, I am of the feeling that at least in the very beginning stage(s) of lauching a new website or blog, that an XML sitemap is of value. Why wouldn’t it be? It instantly alerts Google that you’re ready to be spidered. You don’t have to sit there, wondering when the spiders are going to come crawling your way.

In addition, in instances like what happened within 24-hours to my friend’s site, it PROVES to me the value of submitting a sitemap to Google (or the other search engines that allow the same).

So, if you have a brand new site, I would suggest you submit an XML sitemap to help move things along and to let the spiders know you want them to come and visit for awhile.  Plus you never know, you might be in a position like my friend that you will be able to quickly grab a great ranking position.  (Of course ranking positions depend upon the niche, the competition, and all that other ’stuff’ we have to take into consideration.)

To learn more about Google’s requirements and what you need to do, go to Google’s Webmaster Tools Home Page, login to your account and look for the Sitemap information section. (Sorry but for some reason my Wordpress template is blowing out an https link otherwise I’d have taken you right to the section you need to read.)