I've been runing www.hobby-estore.com for two years. I managed to be on top of yahoo and msn for my top keywords such as rc helicopters, radio control helicopters, rc airplanes, etc. however, I never was able to get in top 30 for Google. recently I changed my home page and I am dropping in ranking on Yahoo and MSN. some one can give any idea on how I can get on top of Google?

You have to increase your inbound links. Concentrate on link building

Check the competition for helicopter
http://www.google.co.in/search?q=allinurl%3Arc+helicopter&btnG=Search&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial

http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=allintitle%3Arc+helicopter&btnG=Search&meta=

The competition is not that much big.,

Update your compright info to 2006

*..some one can give any idea on how I can get on top of Google?*

You could stop digging, similar pages brings up some unpleasant results, while pages such as www.hobby-estore.com/shopping-links.html won't be doing you many favours either....

Hi there weblegend,

It's probably not your homepage. Google loves to see keywords inside the anchor text of your inbound links. This is an important part of off-site optimization.

Remember the stories about querying Miserable Failure in Google and getting the biography of President Bush at the top of the listings? Guess what? George Bush's biography includes neither miserable nor failure. It ranks because so many folks have linked to President Bush using those words.

So put your homepage back to the way it was when MSN and Yahoo! were ranking it well. Then write three or four different text links that use the keywords and phrases you wish to rank for. Then get out there and start getting new links. -- Good luck! :D

I did run a link exchange program. but don't know how much that helps. what about buying some text links?

Try to submit your sites to quality paid directories and free directories with good page rank. Dont spend unneccarily on link exchanges.,

Also submit some free press releases (prweb.com, prleap.com etc.,) and write related articles in article submission sites (these wont help very much, but it does not cost you anything so you can try these out)

Ditch the link exchanges, or only exhange with real quality sites of very similar theme (closer the better). If your buying links, don't buy off sites selling lots of other links, make sure they are inside the content and highly ontopic.

You may want to think of an angle and do some press releases anouncing something special about your site, like a new product perhaps.

Be patient with Google, but don't stop building links, ever.

Also, re:http://www.hobby-estore.com/shopping-links.html

ditch the offtopic links, prune them like a rose.

Best of luck,
Ben

I think you need to get links from better sites :)

looks like everyone thinks that I need more quality links. But a search for "rc helicopters" on Google brings up the top resultes have even less PR than I have. May I know why you guys think more links are most important for me now?

A quick look shows 46 HTML errors in your home page alone, so there are probably many, many more HTML errors in your site that are causing erratic parsing by the robots. And, that is without even looking at the W3C validator.

Fix those errors first, and then it's time to look at link strategies and all the other aspects of SEO.

Just my 2 cents...

Brian M

Actually links will help but it takes more than just links...the algorithim consists of 100 parts.

Those who can fix the most of those 100 parts make it to the top of Google...

those who can't.... yack about links.. ;)

When I research a keyword and in the top 5 and I see PageRank 5,5,2,5,4 then I want to know how that 2 got in there. (PageRank is a great predictor of general strength only when all other things are equal.)

Chances are that that PR2 is either better optimized on-site than everything below, has more relevant content pages on the domain, or that the quality of the inbound links to that PR2 are more topical and relevant. Either way I see an opportunity.

Outliers = Opportunities, but you need to understand why an unexpected result exists, whatever the reason(s), in order to capitalize.

Outliers = Opportunities, but you need to understand why an unexpected result exists, whatever the reason(s), in order to capitalize.

hmmm, if it were a test per result, however there are 10 results in question

therefore one need not understand the exception to the norm........

how to obtain the results in order to meet ones goals is of most import.

imho

I will be the first to agree that good practices are good practices, but if the top 10 results are filled with highly optimized pages that are backed by strong backlinks, domain content, PageRank, etc. . . . you may decide that your efforts and money are best invested in another keyword. This is especially true if your own domain does not have near equal strength. Better to select a different battle today, grow a little, then return when your domain is better positioned overall.

However, if there is an outlier in those same top ten results, then by investigating and uncovering the difference you may find an opportunity that you can capitalize on in order to rank in a highly competitive field of domains.

u may decide that your efforts and money are best invested in another keyword. This is especially true if your own domain does not have near equal strength. Better to select a different battle today, grow a little, then return when your domain is better positioned overall.

well we agree on the sound practices part but where I disagree is investing in another keyword and coming back to that hard to nail one.. I say you go all in...then take the low lying fruit for immediate results...and then you can focus on the terms that are hard to get..... for next years fruits...

Delay is killer..the search engines have their own delay....adding your delay to the SE delay could = death for a site's revenues

where I disagree is investing in another keyword and coming back to that hard to nail one.. I say you go all in...then take the low lying fruit for immediate results...and then you can focus on the terms that are hard to get..... for next years fruits...Nope,I disagree totally on that one. Some keywords take far more time to be able to rank for, no matter what, and pursuing that one (or ones like it) can be financial suicide because we have no control over Google's timetable.

I fully agree with leaving the hard one to nail alone for a while and going after what will drive revenue as the first milestone goal to pursue.

Delay is killer..the search engines have their own delay....adding your delay to the SE delay could = death for a site's revenuesNo, delay is not the killer, because revenue can be coming in from a multitude of other keywords, and other search engines, in the meantime.

Delay isn't a killer at all, if other avenues are being pursued in the meantime. It can mean the site is AGING and acquiring quality links gradually over time. Time can't be rushed and accomplished overnight, a year is 365 days no matter how fast anyone thinks they can run.

If you are Nike or GMC you can afford to go full guns for any keyword you desire. Unfortunately most businesses are small businesses; they have finite resources and require more immediate results. Not only don't they spend $20,000 on SEO each month, they don't spend that in a year.

One good strategy is to play the long tail with an embeded short tail. For example, it may be difficult for your site to rank for wacky widgets, but if you go for really cool wacky widgets you will also be building-up your strength for cool wacky widgets and wacky widgets.

But please, don't believe me. Chase those wacky widgets.

One good strategy is to play the long tail with an embeded short tail. That's exactly how I see it, going after long tail while the short tail has time to age and grow some sealegs.

For example, it may be difficult for your site to rank for wacky widgets, but if you go for really cool wacky widgets you will also be building-up your strength for cool wacky widgets and wacky widgets.It will be hard at first for the wacky widgets, but those longer keyphrases are tightly targeted and they convert to $. Meantime, the star phrase (which isn't always the best for conversion) builds momentum over time without loss of interim revenue.

As a side factor, for some niches there's a limited amount of revenue possible, and if it takes a ton of money being invested to push to the top for the "star keywords" it may not even pay to bother, but rather to build out more on the lower competion, less pursued phrases that in total increase traffic volume and income.

Three letters folks - ROI

Gosh Marcia, I think we drink the same coffee. :)