My SEO isn't working?

[HiThere]

OK, so I have been doing websites for a few years. I'm not a super experienced pro but know a lot so far.

Every single client who wants a website tells you they want their site to "come up first" or at least on the first page in a Google search (like they're the only one). For example, a store that sells furniture wants their site to come up first when someone Googles "new dining table".

I have read quite a bit online and in books about coding your site for SEO, and boy is there an overwhelming volume of opinions.... I have optimized title tags, text, interlinking, image files, meta tags, etc, - all for relevant key words. But not only do the sites I work on NOT show on the first page, but not the second, third or anywhere as far as I can tell.

I've heard the search engines supposedly take a while to "crawl" through your site for key words but jeez, how long?? The last site I did has been up for a couple months now. I really think good search rankings can't be accomplished without spending $$ on click ads or something because I'm doing pretty much everything suggested and I get nothing.

The only thing I haven't taken advantage of is registering my sites with a Google account, but really, would that make ALL the difference?

Please, what is the secret to getting ranked well on search engines so my clients stop whining about it???

[Cindy]

Have you started building backlinks?

[Joseph McMurray]

There are so many reasons why a site is ranked on the first page and those reasons change over the years depending on how Google think sites should be ranked. There are a set of rules to follow but if you are following them and the site is still not ranking high or at least moderately high then you are going to need visitors to your site.

You will want an audience that not only visits your site but you will want them to return. This all depends on how well the site is designed for them to find what they want, the content of your site and how appealing it is (this could be out of your control), and also the quality or price the site offers on products or services if it offers any. What you can do is try to do some social media marketing. You may have to read on this subject. Make sure these companies have a Google Places page setup and make sure they show up on Google maps. Always add the website to any social media service you setup under the company. If someone goes on google maps and sees a website and clicks on it then you just got a visitor. These add up.

Also you will want to setup Google analytics (or any other analytics program) on the site. This will give you more feedback of who is visiting and where they are visiting from (search engine, link from a site, etc.).

SEO is a tricky process and it takes time for a site to get noticed and rewarded on the rankings. It makes it more difficult if the company is in a very competitive market with competitive keywords. It can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months for a site to get crawled. New sites might take less time but to get indexed again really depends on the search engine. Bing and Yahoo have their own set of rules and different search results too. So don't just check Google.

Also Google webmaster tools will help out too.

There are a lot of things to cover in a simple answer site like Yahoo. You are going to have to research a bit on the topic to fully understand it. You can try reading this article on yoast.com. Its about wordpress sites but hopefully it will give you a better insight on how SEO works and some tips you can use on your current and future projects.

https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

[umesh]

For ranking on top positions a website you have to work on both sides ie. on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation. If your on-page is quite good then your work should be off-page. You will need to get more quality back links from authority and high pr website. That will help you to rank your website. Social media is playing very important role generating more and more traffic and ranking keywords on good positions.
So these are some tips which you can follow to rank website on top pages.

[Nuha]

You need to make link only on niche related site. If possible try to make link on title related link. For example if your article title is: How to get PR quickly then only make link on this article related site.

[Anil Chaudhari]

you need to start a building process but link with same niche or related label or category and also main point is try to link with high pr site. and also start guest posting and use keyword and get sidebar link from other websites to get rank your site in search engine.

[genelia]

You can do proper work on-page and off-page first you do directory for link building and get traffic and do social bookmarking, Articles blogs comment forum can do its best for seo or most important quality content.

[Autumn]

You need to create good backlinks to your website so that your website becomes popular on the web and Google will automatically fetch your website on the first page when any keyword related to your website is searched.

[Hoang]

From what I get from skimming through the text.
You're not building links to your website, that's why it can't rank. In the old day you can view a website and rank it because there's no competitors. But now thing is different even in very low search bottom keywords that are hundreds of sites that trying to write for them.
I have just wrote an article on how I outranked Tech crunch and business insider for a very competitive niche: http://alfazz.com/authority-sites-outranked/
Hope you will find something useful

[Katrina]

The most of the reason that SEO is not working because we never focus on on page SEO which is the first thing and then comes off page SEO.Most people start working on building links and other things but not on page SEO.On page SEO is very important without which you cannot think of coming to first page.Always choose for Low competition keywords and also see loopholes in competitors keywords and explore them in your benefit.