Getting top organic search rankings doesn't mean you need am extensive website that has been stocked with powerful content and heavy optimization. In fact, the reality of internet marketing is that you don't need a website at all to get top placement in organic SERPs. The following are 5 ways that you can rank certain types of content just as well as and in many cases better than a stand-alone website.
Web 2.0 Properties
Web 2.0 properties are sites like Squidoo, HubPages, LiveJournal and InfoBarrel that allow users to post unique, high-value content. Each web 2.0 page is essentially a stand-alone mini website dedicated to one tightly focused subject. Most web 2.0 properties provide a wealth of tools in order to bolster the value of content and get users to interact with it. This includes the ability to post text, videos, related products or services, polls and other types of voting, comment sections and much more.
The distinct advantage that ranking a web 2.0 property is that in most cases it's far easier to rank a single web 2.0 page than it is to rank a website that you inherit or build from scratch. This is because in most cases, web 2.0 sites have already established a high level of trust with search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. They generally have a high PR and new pages get indexed almost immediately upon publishing. Additionally, most good web 2.0 sites have protocols in place that ensure published content is unique, non-infringing, not spammy and offers something distinct when compared to other pages on similar or identical topics.
Blog Commenting
If the site you post comments on is high authority, has few outgoing links (read; not spammed) and is relevant to the comment and resulting link you post, it's possible to rank a single comment highly in organic search results. In order to do this you'll need to thoroughly consume the content that you're creating a comment about. Your post must be extremely thorough, structured well and highly optimized.
Most comments that gain top search rankings are around 250-300 words long - essentially the same length as an article. These types of comments are comprehensive in the way they address the site owner/manager and the other people interacting in the comments section. This means that the comment you leave must add something substantial to the discussion, and then provide a compelling reason for the reader to click through to your link.
If your comment is replied to often and compels other people to visit your link and interact with the referenced site in a way that indicates high value (i.e., they stay on the resulting page for a long time, dig deeper into your site's pages and/or convert to a sale) then it's likely that your comment will actually gain its own search rankings for the target keywords.
Video Publishing
Nearly all video sites are free to create accounts and post videos. And because videos and video links are given increasingly more weight in search engine ranking algorithms, it's generally a lot easier to rank a video than it is to rank your own website.
The principles at play here are similar to that of web 2.0 properties. Video sites like YouTube - the number 2 most highly trafficked site in the world - have potent levels of authority and are visited by millions of users every day. By creating excellent video content, optimizing it and posting it in relevant video sites and categories, you could gain more traffic and search rankings than you could ever hope to get with a stand-alone website.
Videos can't "really" be "understood" by search engines, but the descriptive areas, comments section and other factors are used as signals by search engines for ranking factors. The more popular your video becomes, the higher it will climb in the SERPs.
Video content is the most prolific type of content found on the web today and is growing at an astounding rate. Including videos as part of search engine results page provides real value for the SEs, for searchers and ultimately, for you and your published videos.
In the second part of this article series we'll detail two more ways that you can quickly get to the top of the SERPs without having a website: Facebook and other social media, and press releases. But if you need to take action right now in order to capitalize on traffic trends or get conversions from your products or services, call the number at the top of your screen for an immediate, free consultation from a leading Pittsburgh web design and SEO firm. The call is free and the information extremely valuable, so there's no reason not to call right now.
