Boost your site's search engine ranking
Plan your search engine onslaught
By Mike Slocombe for Internet Magazine, May 2004

1. Specialise content
Before you even start your site, take a look around to see what similarly-themed sites are already on the web.

If there's already several other popular sites in existence, consider specialising your content or aiming for niche markets.

You'll stand a far greater chance achieving a higher ranking in your chosen area.


2. Check out the competition.
Once you've decided on your theme, type related keywords into a search engine and see what sites come up.

See how you can improve on their content and style and work on finding a twist on the theme that will make your site uniquely interesting.
» Researching Web Sites


3. Do your research
Learn from highly ranking competitor sites by having a good sniff around their homepage to see what they're doing right.

Use 'view source' (right click on the web page) to rummage around in their meta tags and perhaps 'adopt' a few of their phrases if they're relevant to your site.

Be wary of using trademarked names.