Everyone would like to be on the first page of google search results. I have clients who want me to help them dominate the SERPs in a hurry, but it is easier said than done. So I decided to write a multi-part blog on all the various things that will help you get there. None of the items here will guarantee SERP domination, and this is by no means the complete list, but these are some of the basics that you need to cover for eventual optimization of your website.

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In this blog, I am going to list items that could be covered with relative ease and describe them in short. I will follow up with subsequent blogs that cover these items in more detail. One key principle to understand is that search engines use backlinks to your site as a measure of its importance and credibility. So most of SEO revolves around increasing your backlinks, and thus your pagerank. Here is an article Pagerank for dummies, that explains pagerank in very simple terms.

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 Directory Submissions

Directories are websites which list quality sites in various categories. So submissions to these directories can give you quality one way back links for your website as well as some related traffic. The value of those backlinks will largely depend on the pagerank  (PR) of those sites, so you should aim to get your site listed in high PR directories, even if it means paying. And don’t forget DMOZ.

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Social Bookmarking

Submitting your site manually with social bookmarking sites like Digg, blogthis!, orkut, and twitter etc will give you backlinks from high PR sites, eventually help elevate your pagerank.

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Search Engine Submission

If your site has not been listed on the major search engines, then have them submitted. You can do it manually, or use a service to get your site submitted. It is fairly cheap.

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 Article Submission

Google and other major search engines have decided to go content-centric; the more places you have your content, you get more PR juice from being backlinked from those sites, and you can also generate more traffic. So write articles that are relevant to your website, and submit them to article directories.

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Squidoo Lens

You can create a lens on Squidoo and link it back to your site. Automatic links get generated for your lens based on your tags. Since Squidoo is a high PR site, search engines like google like Squidoo lenses, and it will help your site get indexed faster.

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Press Release

It is not uncommon that you end up on a press release when you search for obscure companies. That is because, though the search engines do not deem the company and its website important enough, they latched onto a press release because it was carried by a major newswire. So therein lies your opportunity.

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Alexa Toolbar

A number of search engines like to use Alexa ranking to determine your site popularity. So you may have some tuning opportunities using Alexa.

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In my subsequent articles, I will go over each of these topics in more detail.

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