Search engines are always a big topic, since they can send a site a lot of what is essentially free traffic. They also lend an air off authority to a site, if it ranks high, because surfers seem to think that rank equates with knowledge. But we all know that that is not exactly true, there are many sites that rank high on the search engines without being very knowledgeable about the particular term searched.

So, how do you get that high ranking? Well, there are a lot of ways, too many for me to go into much detail about here, but there are some simple methods you can use to help your site rise in the ranks. I hope this helps those out there who have never gone after the search engines before, or even those who have tried and are not getting the results they want. While I don't profess to be the expert, I do have a bit of experience and think that there are some important points to consider.

Most businesses have only one main site that they promote, giving them but a single storefront for customers to find. With more entries, more customers can come to your site, thus increasing your chances of making sales. But the question is, how to make the new extra storefronts?

There are ways to create more sites without having to do a ton of work. The trick is to take what you already have and use it to your advantage. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, just work with the site you have and grow it to make it seem larger than it really is. The bigger you look, the better you look and the easier it is for people to find you and hopefully give you their money.

What you should think about doing is creating an entire network out of your single site, turning it into many sites. This is actually not that hard, it just takes a bit of time and effort and some serious thought. What I want to show you are mirror sites, doorway pages and gateway pages.

Mirror sites are part of any good search engine plan. The idea behind mirrors is to clone your existing site over other domains. If you are running an amateur site, with a domain like www.amateurs-r-us.com, look for more domains that relate to the amateur niche. Almost any domains will do, as long as "amateur" is in the URL. Now clone your site into these other domains. But don't just cut-and-paste the exact same thing in, though, change the colours a bit, change the logo, some different pix on the front page - that sort of thing, so that the new sites are not completely identical.

"You can never make a single page work for all of the engines all of the time."

You just made your own little network of amateur sites, just like that. But why did you want to do this? Think of a building as an analogy - the more doors leading into your building (site), the easier it is for people to get in and pay you, simple as that.

These new mirror sites have the benefit of having more domains that search engines can key in on. URLs are always important for being found by search engines. The more URLs you have, the more keywords surfers can use to find you. You can never know how people search and what they search for, so extra domains help cover all your bases, so that anyone searching in any way should be able to find at least one of your sites.

Mirrors also have another very useful purpose, which is to create a network of links. Many of the big search engines love to see lots of links pointing to your site(s), which ranks you higher, since Google considers you to be more important if there are a lot of sites pointing at yours.

Beyond just a bunch of links, the search engines prefer to see relevant links. So, if you mirror your site and then link it to the original site, what link could be more relevant? You want most of your links to come from sites with similar content, this is why these links are relevant - your site and your mirrors will have 99% similar content, which becomes very high relevancy in the eyes of the search engines.

You have now created your own network of relevant links, all with similar content, which the spiders can follow and index, thus rating your site higher. It also helps since spiders need to find only one of your sites and then follow the links to all of your other sites. This can also rank you higher. Rather than submitting all the mirror sites, just submit one and let the spider do the work and follow the links to all the others. Since the spider "found" those sites all by itself, and found them by following links from relevant sites, it will think that you are even more relevant. Confusing? Yes, but it does work.

The same idea is behind doorway and gateway pages. While different people have different definitions, these are the ones I am used to:

Doorway pages are small and basic entry pages that have been optimized for certain keyword sets and for each of the engines. If you know that SE1 likes to see keywords in the title but does not care about ALT tags, then you make a page that is heavy on title keywords. If SE2 likes the ALT tags, then you make another page with the same keywords favored in those areas. With doorway pages, you do not have to mangle your original site trying to make every engine happy. You can never make a single page work for all of the engines all of the time. It is better to make 10 pages for 10 engines and come up top 10 for each, than to try to make one that works for all 10 and rank only #32. If you really work at it, you should be able to get more than one of your targeted pages on the first page of a search engine's listings, increasing your chances of click-through yet again.

You have made these "doorways" for searches to find and to get them into your site. As an added bonus, you have also now created even more links to your site, links that are again highly relevant. So, you have increased your chances of a high ranking two-fold - first with the optimized pages and second with the links.

Gateway pages (also sometimes called hallway pages) are basically portals, single pages with links to your mirror sites, or even just to your doorway pages. Again, you will be targeting these gateway pages to the different search engines with specific keyword sets, the same as you did with the doorways above. This should give surfers the impression that your gateway page is a portal to a bunch of related sites - even though the links are all to your sites or mirrors. This is why you wanted to keep your mirrors different. If they are all identical cut-and-paste jobs, surfers will notice pretty quickly - especially when they click more than one link and get the exact same site each time - and they will get pissed off and leave.

As before, you have now created even more links to your site(s), good relevant links, making it easier to get spidered and ranked higher. See how this all comes together?

So, should you mirror your site - yes! But do it by making each one different and use different keyword sets for each. Keep the pages generic, don't target specific engines - use the doorways and gateways for the specifics. Create a bunch of doorway pages and use the mirror's keyword sets to target each search engine. Now the links are there and they are perfectly relevant, as the doorways and the mirror are all using the same set of terms. Once you have finished all the mirrors and doorways, start with the gateways. When you are done, you will have gateways that lead to doorways which lead to mirrors.

You have now created a ton of doors into your building, each with a different flashing neon sign designed to attract a different group of searchers.

While it does sounds like a lot of work, it is not THAT bad. Your biggest challenge will be to plan it all out, figure out what terms to use and what pages to link to what. Then start building and when your pages and mirrors are completed, start submitting. Be warned, though, results can take up to 6 months to see, so be patient.

Once you see your site(s) listed, keep checking to see where you rank, make some changes, tweak your pages and your terms and keep doing that until you are top 10 or higher. Just keep doing what has been working and you will stay at the top. While it isn't easy, the principles are. Just give it some time and a decent effort and you are well on your way to ruling the search engines.