Google is the dominant player on the web. Google is FREE to list and a good ranking on Google goes a long way to obtain general search engine recognition.

Paid advertising schemes are announced from time to time. Paid advertising has to be approached with caution. Research seems to indicate the people tend to got straight to the search results and avoid "sponsor" or paid advertising displayed in conjunction with the actual results

So .. how do we get on the biggest search engine ?

The exact method of how Google reads a webpage is a closely guarded secret.

Microsoft is now building a very similar engine to compete with Google

For Small Businesses on the web, it is indeed a struggle to compete under Google rating system.

Large established websites with lots of internal and incoming external links are favoured.

New and small websites have to battle for rankings by ensuring their sites are optimized for Google.

 

Here is a summary of what the Google robot prefers.

(Googlebot - the program that continuously gathers web information and stores it on Google's Database)

• Text is king - Googlebot cannot read images.
• The Title should contain key phrases.
• Meta Tags especially the keyword tag are given little importance.
• The use of frames is not beneficial.
• Pages updated with new content on a regular basis.
• Headers with descriptive paragraphs are recommended.
• Plain Text links to the rest of your website.
• A site map page
• Encourage links between you and other websites.

There are other technical issues but basically that's it.

No cheating, no hidden text, links, redirects, etc, just plain old text information about your product incorporated the key words you wish to rank on.

 

Have a look at the front of your site to see how much text is there for Googlebot to read. Are your key phrases in the title and the initial text ?

New information is placed on the web all the time so keep your pages updated.  "Setting and forgetting" a web site will allow your site to slip in visibility

 

Lastly a cautionary note. An improvement can be made on your ranks if the above is applied to your page. If Google arbitrarily decides to alter criteria again, we have to start again. It is an ongoing process.
 

Given time, you CAN get ranked with Google
Phrase	Rank	Site	Test
Dive Queensland	1	divequeensland.com.au	test
child head protection	3	headbumpa.com.au	test
scuba diving coral sea	1	undersea.com.au	test
resortwear Port Douglas	1	josephinesnoosa.com.au	test
Brisbane Yoga	2	discoveryoga.com.au	test
Brisbane jewellery manufacture	1	brilliantfacets.com.au	test
Rescue Medical Technician	2	firstresponseaustralia.com.au	test
Coral Sea cephalopods	1	australiancephalopods.com	test
Mangrove Man	1	mangroveman.com.au	test
Yongala	1	townsvillematimemuseum.org.au	test
Len Zell	1	lenzell.com	test
Underwater Film and Television	2	numa.com.au	test
Ship Surveyors Cairns	1	russlarkinassociates.com.au	test
cushioned playing surfaces	1	sportsprosurfaces.com.au	test
Minke Whale	2	minkewhale.org	test
Shark Research	3	sharkresearch.com	test
organic coffee exporters	1	coffeeconnections.biz	test
Cheap hosting Brisbane	1	smallpond.com.au	test