secrets to higher search engine results

Welcom to AR!  You'll find a lot of good information on SEO (search engine optimization) here.  If I may suggest, check out Karen George and Lonn Dugan's blogs.  There are some other great folks who have helped me out, but these two have been particularly helpful. 

I have raised my company's web site from being several hundred pages back on google to being on the second page of a google search for "St. Louis real estate".  Best of luck to you!

Bob Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc. 

meta tags help. if you don't know what that is (and you probably don't since your asking for answers), talk to whoever works on your website. meta tags help search engine robots find and list your site.

another thing that works great is linking sites. for some unkown reason if there is a link on another site that will bring visitors to your site, search engine robots seem to pick up on this more. I did hear that it is not good to have too many links though.

good luck

Hi Becky - Welcome to the ActiveRain Community and congrats on your 1st blog.  Might I suggest a few looks for you to explore before I answer your question.

Check out the Activerain's blogger start up kit - Great links to explore

http://activerain.com/blogsview/209646/Blogger-Startup-Kit

Next is the points scoring faq for active rain,  a great resource on points

http://activerain.com/action/default/scoring_faq 

And now to answer your question:

Becky, SEO is very complex especially with Google, they are so air tight with their formulas they will not release to the public due to keeping everything unbiased, but there is hope because SEO do have some sort of idea and guidelines to help boost your rankings.

Optimizing your website can be different than optimizing your activerain profile, so for now I will point out key points for your activerain exposure on Google.

The people you mentioned who had higher rankings could be due to the following

1.) Time - The longer you have you activerain profile, the better Google likes you.  Its like wine the more time the better.

2.) Keywords, depending on what keywords you searched could affect the ranking.  For example if you searched Tampa Florida Realtors the Tampa Florida profiles will show up better because you are listed as Vero Beach in Active rain.

3.) the first 4 letters of your blog title helps determine where to place in Google's ranking, if you want to be more exposed in your I suggest you title some of your blogs with your area, title, and expertise..like Vero Beach Florida Homes for Sale update.

Well hopefully these few hints, helped with some insight, just keep on blogging and being active by contributing information to others while blogging about your expertise in your area and time will surely pay off for you!

Hi Becky.  Thanks for the question.  Not because I have an answer, but I am clueless.  I just keep reading, posting, and commenting and hope the rest falls into place.

Good luck,

Ken

Becky,

a link is anything that you can click on that would take you to another page. except the link you need is on a different website that if clicked would bring that person to your website.

ex: you and a friend each have a website. you have a link on your website that when clicked takes you to her website. and she would have the same on hers. that's what the linking means.

many websites have a favorite links (or sites) section. this is why they have that.

Super Job!

I will be sure to check into these suggestions!

Tom Davis Realtor - Delaware

This blog has helped me also. I am just like Becky, looking for answers to this high tech world. I have learned so very much here on AR.  Will monitor this to get more educated...:)