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SEO on Free Hosting
These days, getting good search engine rankings for websites on free hosting is almost impossible and the poor webmasters have to contend with a system that is naturally rigged against their favor. Of course, the option is to just get paid hosting and most webmasters do just that, but what are the alternatives? Is there a way to optimize a website that’s on free hosting and get it to rank well on search engines?
First, you have to understand why free hosting sites are at a disadvantage. It has to do with credibility. A lot of people these days have a belief that webmasters who don’t invest in paid hosting are not committed to their site. Add the fact that just about anybody can build a site on a free host and you have a recipe for general distrust as far as authority is concerned.
However, it’s not all gloom and doom as sites on free hosting can and do come off as credible, even those that don’t have top level domains (Neil Gaiman used to host his blog on a free WordPress account before moving to his own domain, and one of the most successful marketers online, Seth Godin, started out his blog on a free Typepad account.)
With enough hard work and foreknowledge, you can get your site to rank well on search engines even if it’s hosted on a free provider, and yes – Search Engine Optimization is still worth it in your case.
Post Three Times a Week
One of the first things you need to do, before you get to the SEO part is to commit to a regular posting schedule, and to follow it consistently. If your website matures enough, and has a steady stream of content, search engines are going to start trusting it provided that said content isn’t poorly-written spam.
Posting daily is the ideal way but if you can’t, post three times a week.
Remember Google Penguin
The latest Google Penguin update executed some changes:
- Duplicate contents are punished, unfortunately, the system sometimes is unable to distinguish the original source. That means if your content is copied, the one who copied and you MAY be punished
- If you put hotlinks on other sites using the keywords you are optimizing, you will be punished
- If you put links to your site on other sites with no page rank, you will be punished
- If you use the author signature box to put your links and use the same phrasing over and over again, you will be punished
In other words, backlinks, although still important, isn’t the same as before.
Aim to get other people to organically paste your links to their sites. Which brings us to the next point…
Quality Content
Don’t spam content. Remember that the main purpose of a search engine is to bring relevant content to readers, and spam has never been relevant to anyone, not even to spammers. Research your niche carefully and make sure that they provide something of value to readers. There’s no sense getting top SERPs if all you can offer is poorly written dreg.
Promote on Active Forums
Next, promote your website organically. The choice to use free hosting naturally stacks the decks against you, so you have to put in the extra effort to make sure your site stands out. Don’t use automated list submission tools. Instead, submit your sites manually and write detailed descriptions or summary. Then tag it using the most relevant keywords.
You can also use your site’s URL as a signature (with proper descriptions) and participate in forum communities that are related to your site’s niche. Don’t just go in there and ask people to “please visit my site!” You have to participate properly and become a contributing member of the community, then people will willingly visit your site and promote it, if they ever consider it worthy.
Get Shared
Lastly, take advantage of social media. These days, people who know how to take advantage of social media no longer fear algorithm changes from Google, as the traffic they get from various social media far exceeds the ones they get from search engines. Open a Twitter account, a facebook page, and any other social media account that is applicable to your niche, then make sure they all drive traffic to your website.
Tags: seo and hosting, seo tips, web hosting tips
