what is the best way for free to get your rankings up on a search engine. Also is there a way to submit your site to google. I've just recently created my websute www.themortgagerx.com and would like to get more traffic going there through search engines.

http://dmoz.org/add.html
http://www.alltheweb.com/help/webmaster/submit_site
http://addurl.altavista.com/
http://www.google.com/addurl.html

These are just a few... hope that helps.

-J

There is no simple answer to that except hire someone who knows SEO to optimize your site or take the time to learn how to do it yourself.

If you only do one thing it should probably be to acquire many quality links pointing to your website (with your target keywords in the link text preferrably) from other sites and directories that are relevant to your business. Just that alone would result in your site showing up for searches in some search engines.

It sounds simple but isn't - it is a lot of hard work

Well, generally speaking you need lots of content. Content is still king in my opinion. You need a website that converts as well, sure being ranked #1 is great, but if you can't get anyone to actually contact you about the services you provide that #1 ranking is moot.

Specifically speaking your website could use a lot of work in the SEO department. You should also keep in mind that it takes time to get indexed. It make take weeks or months for the search engines to really do a complete crawl of your site, so don't expect overnight results.

Which keywords are you targeting? If you're targeting very competitive keywords you're going to have to do a lot of work and wait quite a while before you will be in the top ten.

Robert,

Since you're just starting out, thought I'd share some thoughts about your site. This isn't meant to be critical. Just some things you may not know.

Search engines change their method for ranking sites quite often. But, its pretty safe to say that they are looking for relevancy as a key factor, along with quality incoming links.

Your meta tags (Page Title, Description, and Keywords) along with your site copy must all "match" to be considered relevant. Right now, you don't have a Description, and you should add one for each page. Also, your page title for your home page is MortgageRx. Not a term commonly searched for, I'd bet! Try a title with your keywords in it.

Your home page doesn't have much information "above the fold", meaning that when a visitor lands on your site, they don't see much without scrolling. That's a visitor issue as well as a search engine issue. Try putting content right at the top of the page that contains your keywords.

If you don't know what keywords are best to go after, you might want to check out WordTracker.com. Pay for a day's worth of service, and figure out which are the best keywords to use.

Another thing to consider is that your site is very wide. Anyone using an 800x600 browser setting would have to scroll from right to left, as well as up and down. Generally, people don't like scrolling, and may not stay on the site long enough to do you any good.

I'd add a Contact button to the navigation bar. And, since you have your own domain, set up a mailbox there. It can forward to your AOL account, but it looks more professional.

Your header is a bit distorted. You might want to take a look at that image file and figure out what is causing the distortion.

Hope some of this is helpful as you increase your knowledge of selling on the web!

Kathleen

This guy is not free but he's done wonders with my website.

http://www.erpositioning.com/index.html

If you want to get your site's ranking up as high as possible Ed's your guy.

We are a licensed real estate brokerage in Las Vegas. We are only 1 of 2 online real estate companies. We currently rank in most Top 10 search engines for "Las Vegas Homes" and "Las Vegas Real Estate". I've found that link-exchanging and building relationships with realtors all across the US has placed us in the #1-#3 spots consitantly. If you are interested in linking to us, we will gladly exchange links with your website.

Regards,

Amir Feinsilber
Bid4Agents.com Realty
http://www.bid4agents.com/links/links.html

To Get into the Search Engines yourself we suggest:

1. not submitting directly to Google as they don't like it and it can hurt your ranking

2. add unique, quality content to your site (no canned "reports" as they do not help as many agents have the same "reports" on their sites

3. add a blog

4. submit to dmoz

5. add as much info about your listings as possible as this is content that is searched all the time. (stainless steal, specific addresses, etc)

6. add your listings to craigslist with a link to your site

7. if you have an all flash site get a new site

8. ensure your text is actual text - not images

9. put your URL in your email signature

10. blog, blog, blog

Any questions please feel free to contact me.

Steve - steve@combustionlistings.com
http://www.combustionlistings.com

HAH! . Is this some kind of joke? Google doesn't like it when you submit your site? It hurts your ranking? Where did you come up with this idea?

Here is further support that the above statement is bunk.

This is from Google

You can read more here:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html

You are correct, but people that submit themselves to google will be given a poorer page rank than those who are organicly found.

ubertor is absolutley right, and so are both of you, Its not going to hurt you to submit to google, but your never going to get the same pagerank as someone that doesn't submit.

If you are happy showing up on the 3rd page of google, definatley add yourself to google, if you want to be number one, don't do it.

Greg

This is absolutely false also. Your position in search engine result pages have NOTHING to do with whether or not you have submitted your page to google. Where are you coming up with this stuff?

Greg is right,

You'll not be penalized for submitting however doing so is merely an excercise in futility. We haven't submitted a site in years. That's just not how it's done. It should also be a HUGE red flag for self proclaimed search engine marketers that want to charge you for "submitting your site". Don't waste your money

The idea that submitting your site is somehow bad is the problem. I too have not "submitted" a site in the past 6 or 7 years, however to claim that it's bad to do so is just misinformation.

Every page on the internet has some PR, that's just how PR works, sure it's small, something like .15, but every page has page rank.

Also PR does not determine SERPs so pg. 1 vs pg. 3 can't be determined from PR alone.

Definitely not bad...just silly

How many of you still get buried in spam emails from seo fakes selling things like " agressively submit your sites weekly to the search engines" and other bologna...LOL
I'm not big on the government controlling things but there should be something done to stop the fleecing of unknowing realtors and anyone else for that matter.

My favorite is the sales guys that call these people and have them download the spyware that turns text into links to their site and then tell them it works for real....unbelievable

Hehe, fair enough.

Just to repeat it...

An "SEO" firm that thinks submitting your site to search engines is a step if the SEO process doesn't know what they're talking about.

Page rank isn't attributed to a page until Google crawls it.

Yes, but it doesn't matter if google finds the site via a link or because you used the submit feature.

It matters from a page rank perspective as he stated earlier. If Google doesnt find it via a link (vote) from another page, but only because of the url submission, then it is deemed less important by Google. Google prefers to find pages with their bots.

As far as Google goes, as long as you submit your site to some decent directories, it will be found through spidering. Since most Google "experts" believe that it is better to be "found" through spidering than through direct submission -- why would you want to risk it?

For the other search engines, do what you want to do. With Google, let them find you.

submitting to any search engines is a waste of time unless you get in your time machine and go back a few years...

That was funny.

Why can't we put up our own avatars?

Any suggestions for my site?
Thanks.

Any suggestions for my site?
Thanks.
http://www.harriscompanyrec.com

I can assure you that if you submit to google or are found by a link makes no difference. The only difference is that it is quicker most of the time by the links. and one of the first post mentioned craigslist.org. this is a trick I have been using for a few years. This site is crawled on a daily basis and has pretty good PR on all of its pages. Then your link is found quickly, and then your site is indexed quickly.

"Its not going to hurt you to submit to google, but your never going to get the same pagerank as someone that doesn't submit.

If you are happy showing up on the 3rd page of google, definatley add yourself to google, if you want to be number one, don't do it."

This is GREAT to know... so all I have to do is submit all my competitors websites, and they will fall to the 3rd page! Wow, it will be easy for me to be #1 after all!

Where do you guys come up with this stuff???

Google has a method of giving rank to a page. the AVERAGE rank passed to a page from a properly anchored link from an AUTHORITY site is .015 .There is an actual formula. So, the the theory of the difference between first page and 3rd page results from the difference of submissions verses being found by a link has almost NO difference! If you want to check the facts. go to googles algorithm.m Now. not many NEW sites will get their first link from a PR7 or higher. which in turn means that the above stated factor of .015 will be much lower.

This is the problem with all of these so called SEO experts. They speak a lot about nothing. and most of the time they learned it from someone who did not know what they were talking about anyway and are passing along nothing but rumor. I can assure you that SEO is very simple. Like I always say. stick to the basics and you will do fine!

First you said this, which isnt accurate:
There is no AVERAGE involved in the formula.

Then you said this, which after reading your 1st paragraph had me lmao:

Not all links give as much as some. a non related will NOT pass .015 / an authority site with decent relevence will. No I can stop your laughing because I can PROVE what I said! I can actualy check backlinks or links (IB) and actualy tell you the actual Value of that link. You see, you are a prime example!!!!! I assure you that anything that i say or post, I can back up!!!!!!!! you can actualy lose page rank(or should i keep you from laughing and say part of link value?) by linking to lower PR sites(bleeding). A PR six linking to a new PR0 will lose more than it will gain on AVERAGE(there is that word again, and I can prove this also). But the proof is in the pudding! you go ahead and follow your amusing little fads and heresay while I am waving to you from the top of the serps! I want you to think about this for a min. if you had a pr6 site, would you link to a pr0 on an exchange and expect to get equal value for the PR0 linking to you that you give to it? I think not!!! Use some common sense! Why do you try to find (QUALITY) links if they are the same(If all links have .015)? you are trying to find fault and just destroyed your own post! The "average" may not have been the correct way to explain it. .015 is the BASE formula for link value. woulden't BASE and average be close to the same? I also have software that calculates link value. and can do it with a pen and paper. So before you cry yourself to tears , you need to pay attention before you cry over your site not being able to beat the # 1 site in the serps! so now I am LMAO at you! SEE YOU FROM THE TOP!

Worrying about Page Rank is a waste of time. It is not what it once was a few years ago. I have a directory site where everyone listed in it gets a PR4 link and most that link back to me do so from PR0 pages. Just few link back from PR3 or 4 pages.

That has not stopped me from having excellent rankings including #1 for "Realtor Directory" and "Real Estate Agent Directory" and top 10's for most geographic keywords that we are targeting.

Just worry about whether the page linking to you is actually spiderable and listed in Google - and forget about Page Rank as it means little now.

I understand this. I was ansewring an attack by another person who is obviously misled. All links have value if they will be credited(indexed) just some have more value than others. As far as PR goes, I beat pr5 and PR6 sites with low PR sites all the time in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. You can also beat sites with 10,000 links with 200 links if your relevence,internal link structure, anchor text and onpage are better than theirs for the respective keywords. SEO is not rocket science, You find out what the # 1 site is doing and then do it better. it is that simple.

Reply to SEO posts. Know that Doug, who keeps a low profile, knows what he is talking about. You can trust his advice implicity. He doesn't play brain games and is about the most knowledgeable and credible fellow out there in this end of the real estate help world, today.

"Going where tomorrow is - hope to see you there." Carolyne

Proudly putting my name to my work ~ CAROLYNE ~ Realty Corp.
Brampton real estate = http://www.carolyne.com

http://www.TechOrganizer.com = http://www.MyBackUpBook.com/

I see post by him in almost every part of the forum! Is this what you call low profile?

I think he runs the place.

he does, and I respect him also!

My, my. A little controversy. It's almost like in the SE forums. ;-)

Hey Mike.... What don't you understand about not spamming the forums ...

To all,

I have been involved with reciprocal linking for over 8 years. We have worked with hundreds of domains, in a lot of very different circumstances.

Here's a fact - most of what is written about linking and SEO is total bunk. The "experts" in the SEO industry who are the most vocal and get the big time speaking gigs, write the books, etc. are some of the most confused, especially about reciprocation and it's affect on the engines. Some of them have obvious conflicts of interest, and promote their own solutions, regardelss of the excess cost to their clients.


Here's what we have learned, in a nutshell:

Link to and from as many home and real estate-related sites as you can, be it via reciprocation, or other legitimate means. That is proper BRANDING, not just reciprocation for SE purposes. The WWW is a network of links.

The SE results DERIVE FROM good branding-focused linking practices, combined with good content and optimization.

Do not even consider PageRank in this. That is a Google-centric number and not even reliable. You can get different PR for a site, depending upon the server delivering the info.

There are other engines. MSN is easy to rank in with some basic work. YAHOO! hard to figure out. Anyone who has some tips, pass them along. Google prefers established sites, so, the time to start getting established is NOW.

DO NOT enter into link networks where everyone else posts the exact same links. Bad news. Not an automatic penalty, but risky.

Here's a multi-page document that was specifically written for real estate professionals, using real estate examples:


Search Engine Optimization Basics For Real Estate-Related Websites

I hope it helps.