To get better ranking without paying money the next factors are (& a number of smaller ones) can give you an advantage that a variety of SEO (search engine optimization) companies will charge big dollars for (listed in no particular order);

- Adding new content consistently. Search engines see this as win-win value for searchers

- Having pdfs and multimedia (audio casts, video casts) ideally on your site. But do not be limited to only there because they will get found and drive traffic to the site if they are on other high traffic sites getting watched/listened to.

- Have external articles with your hot topics that can be found on other high traffic sites and link back to your site.

- Have a blog outside your site with a premier host (for example Blogspot, Wordpress, TypePad, etc) getting regular high traffic and new content. Blogs as new social media are given somewhat higher preference for faster new content indexing, but they still need traffic to beat out other pages.

- The Biggest factor is traffic. The more people that visit the site the more the ranking increases and out ranks other sites with competitive content and information.

- Content, context and relevance. Having a keyword but not having it repeated multiple times in the body of text has little impact because search engines know you’re trying to outsmart them. - Referring links. The more outside sites that have high traffic & your link, search engines look interpret that as you having the content people want to see and gives you preference.

- History. Other sites that may have done well with those keywords in the past get a nominal preference over your newer site.

- Include keywords in title and first 2 sentences on the page. This can help boost ranking if the exact keywords are used here. The trouble is using your keywords is not usually the most compelling content to engage readers.

I’ve talked to other marketing folk and they have the same issue I always fight, good search engine writing is not necessarily grabbing for a reader.

- Indexing site time. Sites without heavy traffic can take up to 6 weeks for new content to be indexed and show as a return for a search engine request as you did today. With very high traffic (hundreds to thousands of visitors/day) new keywords will show content with minutes to 48 hours.

However - honest SEO experts and marketers will say you simply need to spend advertising dollars online and offline otherwise you don’t know which of the factors above are keeping 40 pages ahead of you. There was a major forum of online marketing in November in Toronto where 4 national multi-million dollar companies definitively concluded that even though they used the above techniques and more, they still had to spend significantly online and offline to have top page rankings and there are no true shortcuts.

Lastly, if you are not going the route of paying equivalent dollars online to advertise your site there are a multitude of free options as noted BUT be cautious there is no magic bullet that makes it all happen. The formula to consider for free online marketing is -

What are the hours and dollar value of the hours that will be spent in manual labor posting and maintaining information/ads. For example, to get a large online presence started it’s not unrealistic to budget at least 40-120 hours of work. Assume the value/salary for those hours is $25. Therefore your advertising spend is $1,000 - $3,000 - plus the cost of opportunity, meaning you (or your staff) would have been doing something else during that time for the business if you had spent the money on advertising and not labor. The full cost for getting started would equal $2,000-$6,000 as an absolute minimum.

To maintain the “free” postings to ensure highly prominent content that will take your ranking up and keep it there, expect to spend at least 5-20 hours a week minimum (using the above labor formula) at a cost of $250 - $1,000. When you add your total plan for the year together you are looking at spending/investing $15,000 to $58,000 as minimum.

Keep in mind the rule of advertising is the more visible you are where your customers are at, the greater your effectiveness for reaching them. Hence, all the numbers noted are for only essential presence, not necessarily leading visibility where you achieve the result of being “everywhere” your customers go online.

In closing, consider that having a successful online presence that drives traffic to your business, like offline advertising does, be prepared to have a budget for labor equivalent to actual advertising spend as you will be paying for whatever you pursue if you want significant results. The matrix of factors noted at the start of this article is what search engines look for and the more of the points you are active in the greater the chance you will control your page ranking for your keyword searches.