With the ever rising popularity and product deployment of Google, it seems like a good time to talk about ways to increase Google rankings.  Now keep in mind that are thousands upon thousands of ways to increase Google rankings on any site, the bad news is that we SEO’s only know a small portion of the big picture when it comes to increasing rankings on the search engines.  Imagine a large island covered in sand, now image one speck of sand; realize that the island is Google, the speck is what we know about Google and rest of the sand is unknown.. get the idea?

Moving on…  Increasing your rankings on Google is sometimes as easy as basic content changes to your site or setting up an XML sitemap.  It can sometimes be as difficult as creating a strategic linking plan or viral marketing campaign.  Either easy or difficult there is always another step, another test, and strategy, another step etc. that you can take into action to help your rankings within the search engines.

How can you increase your Google rankings?
One of the most important steps you can take to help increase your search engine performance on Google it by ensuring that your site is optimized properly by performing a quick keyword density count on your content.  If you optimize your content, it’s more than likely acceptable but it can always be tweaked for the better. 

One my favorite tools to check the density of my word count is www.seocentro.com  I like their script so much, you will find a link to it on the top of the navigation of this site under ‘meta tag analyzer’.  Running your page through a site like seocentro will provide you with keywords in your content however you want to focus on the number of times your particular ‘targeted’ keywords repeat.  This is really a ‘must’ when performing density checks on your site post launch as having your keywords repeat prominently without appearing as stuffing as having the proper density counts do in fact can increase Google rankings and placement with time.  Keep in mind that this particular script can only check sites content when it is live.

After running a quick density check, you are able see if the keywords you are targeting in hopes of increasing your Google rankings or any search engine rankings for that matter have repeated themselves prominently in the content.  There is a huge underground battle on what density count percentages should be and how many repeats not to exceed and so on before it is deemed as keyword stuffing.  Well, I have heard everything from 2% to 15% and beyond. 

The truth is that there really is no set in stone percentage, or exact number of repeats a keyword should have to help increase Google rankings or any search engines rankings.  As long as you use common sense, the content is readable without making your reader question why a particular phrase keeps appearing for no apparent reason and the placement of the keyword(s) is acceptable to your personal taste; you will be fine.  Maybe this alone is all you need to help the increase Google rankings for your site, a simply density check.

Anyway, even when I think I may have keyword stuffed, I roll the dice and let it ride (unless it’s shamefully stuffed).  If your content is weak and short, keyword stuffing is obvious and may result in a loss of rankings in the search engines or even get your page removed from the search engine index.  If you have strong content that’s unique, meaty and lengthy I say go ahead and test the waters by increasing your density a little higher than normal with the precursor of the above moderation and taste.

If you want to check your density count of content that is not live on the net or your site, I use www.textalyser.net where I can copy and paste right out of my word processor program and run a similar density report.  This is really helpful tool if you want to deliver highly optimized content right out of the gates to give your page and site a little extra boost to help increase your Google rankings.

So where should you place your keywords and how often?  That’s a great question, as I’m sure you will get tons of answers from different people all day long.  Regardless, we (meaning SEO’s) know that placing your keyword within the first sentence of the opening paragraph, in the last sentence of the closing paragraph as well as disbursed throughout the body of the page does in fact help increase Google rankings.

Google focuses a lot on content and content counts.  By placing your keyword(s) into your content in the above fashion will help increase your Google rankings with time and moderation if you already are not doing so.  Personally, I like to make sure that my target keyword in place at least one time in each paragraph of the content.  This way I know my keyword(s) can be found throughout my content and I have not over saturated the content or come across as keyword stuffing.

Simply remember that content is king on Google.  Just because you followed my recommendations does not mean you will automatically increase your Google rankings, nor Yahoo rankings or even MSN rankings.  Every search engine wants something different, that’s the joy of being an SEO; discovering what works on what search engine and taking advantage of it…lol

For those who did not catch it, the three ways to increase your Google rankings are: seocentro.com, textalyser.net and proper keyword density throughout your content.  Now go out there and increase your Google rankings.

How do you plan on increasing your Google ranking?