higher ranking

First of all each search engine is different. The algos are always changing so the real nitty gritty you need to learn through constant experimentation.

Google currently represents 70% of direct traffic plus about 15-20% more through listings to other major ISPs and portals (like AOL and Yahoo).

So in effect almost 90% of your search traffic will come from Google listings if you follow the average (if you heavily optimize for one search engine over teh otehr this can change but that is the average).

So this is what I would do.

Just use sound SEO tactics.

You decided your goal is to become #1. Well think about that for a second.

What you need to do depends on the current algos AND your competitors.

To be #1 in all serps for this query ("dsfsdgfds") is easy.

Make that your domain anme and page title and you are done. You are number one.

To become number one for the query "yahoo" is practically impossible.

1) Yahoo has a page rank of 10 (so you'd need more backlinks than yahoo).

2) Yahoo has "yahoo" in the domain name. You'd need the shortest domain name with "yahoo" in it to come close to competing for this query. And no matter what you'd still lose in this criteria.

3) You'd need more backlinks with "yahoo" anchor text than yahoo has.

So the simple answer is sometimes it's not possible for you to do this. Many SEO's will promise to do this for you but most of them are liars. I can point you to some articles about shady SEOs. It's a business with more crooks than honest people.

Now you need to evaluate your goal. Why do you want to be number one? If you just like the idea of occupying the higest spot on SERPs pages you migth consider taking out PPC advertising simply for vanity's sake.

But I suspect that you want traffic. Not mere position on SERPS.

And here you need to ask yourself if you will really get more traffic for your query if you are number one or more with top ten positions on 20 queries.

Remember choose the queries with this criteria:

1) Popularity, the more popular the query the more traffic you will get from a high position with it.

2) Relevance. Amount of traffic is one thing. Quality traffic is another. For example, you can get a lot of junk traffic by tricking users into visiting your page. But you'll just waste bandwidth. They won't join, they won't buy and frankly most will be off your site in less than 10 seconds (no exagerration).

So hey, you can get a heap of traffic for junk keywords but it will be useless. Make sure your keywords fit the criteria.

Here is a SEO tool you can use, it has some info I wrote and it has some links that can help you measure keyword popularity.

http://search.able2know.com/About/3221.html

The limits for the tags there are the limits I recommend.

So now that you decided on strategy just follow the SEO basics. I've told them to you before. What you want is basically teh cleanest most text intensive concentrated keyword juice.

The rest is strategy you need to implement on the fly.

If you remember nothing else from what I said today remember this:

Search Engine Optimization is REACTIVE

This means you react to the situation. There's no "cookie cutter" solution to SEO. IF there were everyone would do it and it would no longer work.

There are SEO basics, which you already know a bit. But everything beyond that is a reaction to se algos, filters and your comprtitors for the query you are targeting.

You seem to want to learn everything at once. Let me put it this way, What you are asking is similar to this question:

"Teach me to be the richest stock exchanger on earth."

There is no answer to your question that is easy. SEO at the highest levels of competence is very competitive. What you need to do is react to the people you want to climb over on the SERPs.

Frankly, I suggest you get help. Find a good SEO to teach you or do it for you. You can't learn in a few days what SEOs know from years of experience.

Most of this you need to learn through experimentation. I can tell you any of the generic info you need, but the info that makes the difference all comes down to the choices you make to react to the serps you are targeting.

The number 1 position on any query is possible. But it will not just be effort it will be money as well.

For e.g. if you want the number one position for the "yahoo" query (on a respectable engine like Google, other engines you could pay 5 bucks for) you may well have to spend a few hundred million dollars.

So don't bet big eyes. First realize what is within your reach. Reach smaller goals like top ten positions on multiple queriesfirst and move to higher targets later.

Consider a managed PPC program.

If you are interested in commercial services for SEO and promotion I can help. But frankly, the first thing I'll probably tell you is to re-evaluate your goals. I would not let you get big eyes and take your money from you. You need to be realistic and work up from there.

Of course, feel free to ask any questions here. I answer them for free providing I have the time (and as long as they are not very site-specific).

I don't know the ins and outs of how they work, but I've noticed how most of what Google comes up with are commercial web sites rather than the non-commercial variety. P*sses me off! I'm really disgruntled in general with how the internet has changed over the last few years. I liked it better before everyone and his dog was online.

Just MHO.

I understand what you mean. I guess I'm struggling with "steps" if you will?

like, I have to get into the mind of the person who I would want on my site and then target them, right?

I hear "content is king", but for a forum I don't always get to decide what the content is, sure I can guide it, but I certainly can't dictate it. I could make static content, but it wouldn't go on the index page, maybe that would be a good reason for the portal page in the front.

I'm not aiming for number one on google, that's rediculous to me because even if I did then most of my time, I feel, would be spent on trying to stay there and out do the other guy. Being on the first page is great, better than being number one because it's too much effort for me.

Sorry for the mentality of impatient learning, I tend to get frustrated with what I don't know.

Page ranking seems to be a combination of your content and the links leading to you which confirm your content. But that almost seems too easy, it almost feels like all I have to do is get as many site relevant links to me and I'll get a higher ranking; sounds way too simple.

How would you define goals for a website doing seo? I tend to think of goals like "change peoples lives". Should a part of my goal be who I am aiming for? I find that my ideal target group is small and not always internet savvy or computer/internet intimidated. So I tend define my target more general than ideal and then bring awareness so that they become more ideal, does that make any sense or just to me?

So, the goal would be comprised of the audience and what else? The practical aspect, what I want to achieve?

Sorry if I'm talking a lot, it's just that it really helps for me to talk it out so I get a handle on what I need to do.

Hope I'm not speaking down to you, but...are you using meta tags?

Yes.

For example, if you are selling apples you probably want people who like apples. People who buy food online. People who happen to be searching for apples to buy online at the very moment.....

So if you can get to first place for "apple" you will get reasonbly targeted traffic.

But look, apple computers is going to be tough to beat. Hmm, with the very general query "apples" the competition is too fierce.

So then you choose combinations of queries like "buy apples online" and hit that level.

To know when you are doing something right analyze your logs. See how popular queries are (look at the link I gave you above. It contains like to a few very important tools.



So from this you realize that you have the disadvantage of not controlling content and formatting. But you have the advantage of quantity, with more than you could produce by yourself.

This makes it hard to be really competitive on targeted keywords and queries. But if you template the content well you will have depth.

I could make static content, but it wouldn't go on the index page, maybe that would be a good reason for the portal page in the front.

Now you're thinkin'!



No worries, I don't mind.



Yep, this is really the most important thing Google did to become the number one search engine. The backlinks are a form of democracy.

Now above caprice mentioned the prevalence of search engine spam. With SEO you can get to the top of the results.

Ever hear of a "google bomb". You know, searching for "weapons of mass destruction" or "french military victories"?

Those people got those pages simply by getting a bunch of links pointing to the page using that query as anchor text.



Depends on the site and what they want.



Well, backlinks for one. Quality backlinks. Quality content. Good design and layout.

There are many other details but doling all of the above is the most important of the "cookie cutter" advice one can give.

what do you mean by templating the content?

caprice: not looking down at me at all. I use meta tags, I need to tidy up on them though, but that's for keywords. lately I've been working on getting links from other sites, there's not much I can do about google, it will come around on it's own in time. I'm also working on dmoz, I noticed a lot of sites take from dmoz, so that will help too I hope.

What I mean is stuff like my SEO mod. Make sure as much as you can control is optimized.

This site does pretty well, and I never did serious SEO on it.

Do you use the meta "description" too? You can offer up more than just keywords there.

yes, I use descriptions as well. I find that I am constantly changing it, which is a good thing, IMHO.

would you say you have members from search engines or backlinks more?

Search engines. I'd say the ratio is several hundred to one. But note that you need backlinks to get good positions in search engines. ;-)

of course, the catch 22. Out of curiousity how did you go about getting backlinks?

I'm just going to google and finding sites relevant to mine and either finding the "add url" or emailing the webmaster.

Unless I am engaged in commercial SEO I let people find the site and link to it themselves.

pfff, must be great to be popular. =)

You only need a couple of backlinks to get in the search engines.

The rest is to improve position.

So what I do is just put a link on one of teh sites I've already got indexed. The rest takes care of itself.

Now if I am trying to boost rankings, then I'd exchange links with other sites.