how do you get top placement on search engines without paying for cost per click?

Answer 1

You're talking SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and there's way too much info to answer the question here so I'll hit the important parts.

1. You have to have a lot of good quality links pointing to your site. Search engines perceive these links as endorsements for your site.

2. Anything other than point #1 is pure speculation. Most search engine companies like Google are careful to keep a tight lid on what goes into their ranking algorithm's.

There is plenty of info online about pagerank and/or SEO, some good, some not so much.

Additionally, a good way to generate these links without having to beg for them is to routinely post on forums (or comment on blogs) of similar themes with links back to your site in the signature fields. Obviously you'll want to keep your post on topic and not spam the forums just to plug your site.

Answer 2

Search Engine Optimization includes a mix of on-page and off-page optimization techniques. You will need to do some keyword research and then use your chosen words to optimize each webpages. Wordtracker is a great tool for that. Using your keywords in the right placeso is important (i.e. in the title, meta, h1 tags, etc.). A content rich site is very important as well, so be sure you sprinkle your keywords throughout. Your offpage optimization includes getting backlinks to your site, and this takes time to build. Doing things like writing articles, posting in forums, and blogging can help a lot to increase your link popularity. Consider submitting your site to online directories with a page rank of 4 or more as well. Just keep in mind, SEO usually takes time, but it can be done. :)

To Your Prosperity,
Epiphany

Answer 3

Small Business Marketing Strategy: Target the up-and-coming search engines

While Google still rules the roost when it comes to Internet search engines, and Yahoo is firmly entrenched in second spot, a number of new start-ups are hoping to give them a run for their money. And a good small business marketing strategy would be to check them out and see how you can make them work for your site!

Some of the new up-and-comers include:

Powerset (www.powerset.com): A "natural language" search engine

Hakia (www.hakia.com): A "meaning-based" search engine

Wikia(www.wikia.com): A "community-based" search engine

ChaCha(www.chacha.com): A "social networking-based" search engine

Snap (www.snap.com): A search engine that offers visual previews

It's a smart small business marketing strategy to continue optimizing for the Google, Yahoo, and MSN search engines as they are by far and away the most popular -- but niche search engines could provide new opportunities to reach your market. Be sure to check them out!

Answer 4

Like Tom D said use your meta tags to your advantage by making them incredibly detailed and also the more pages that are linking to your site increases your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are countless forums out there that will help you do this. Search "Earners Forum" and use that resource. Those guys are very knowledgeable and depend on great SEO and search engine positioning for success in their jobs online. Best of luck.

Answer 5

Here’s the proof and how I do it. I’m #1 on Google, MSN, etc
http://webmasterautomation.com/blog/2007/02/21/heres-the-proof-im-1-on-google/

Answer 6

Build inbound links to your website.
Most of the directories online charge a one time fee to review your site and add it to their index. Here are three of my favorites:
http://www.avivadirectory.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=kahmer
http://www.kahmer.com
http://www.joeant.com
The more inbound links to your site, the better you will rank
with Yahoo / Google / MSN.
Also work on your meta tags. Here is an
article on how they work: http://www.richkahmer.com/meta-tags.html