Ok, I am #1! Now what?

Call it beginners luck, but I have achieved a number one spot on Yahoo! for a very competitive keyword phrase. If you go to Yahoo! and search the web for - smog testing station - you will see a site I have developed. It should be number one or two. I am very grateful as this is not geograhpically specific, though I get #1 for that phrase and - santa rosa. Now that I am there, what should I be doing to stay up there? Thanks so much.

To be honest 'smog testing station' is not a very competitive phrase.

Anyway to keep your site at the top you will need to keep developing links with other sites and keeping your content fresh. You could also target secondary keywords with your new content pages.

How are you doing on Google and Ask Jeeves?

Congrats on the top listing. Even though it's not that competive a phrase, it still feels great to be on top. I remember back when I used to do SEO of a living, before I got into affiliate management. I think my 1st number 1 was cosmetic dentist, Irvine but I was thrilled.

Many years ago, back when it was easier, I got #1 for a client for "new cars" out of 10 million or so pages. I was walkin on air for about a week.

Best of Luck and Keep It Up!
Linda

As long as you don't drop much... In case you should lose your number 1 spot, you can at least look at the ones that took it and see what they did. In the mean time: enjoy. If you keep busy adding content and links now and again, you could keep your #1 for some time.

If you're ranked atop the engines and starting to see some traffic, the next thing I'd do is look for an affiliate program that can get you some additional revenue from all those eyeballs.

building more links, making your site content increased, and last but not least keep eye on your competetors work !

Congrats. I just went to number one on google for Las Vegas Real Estate, so I know how you feel. Since you are now at the top, its time to maximize that exposure. Some good ideas were already posted, like affiliate program, but you can also go after advertising dollars for complimentary businesses. Like auto parts, insurance, etc. Small advertisers will help defray your own operating costs. Of course, get new links, update your content and check out other engines and work towards building ranking there. Its almost worse when you do reach the top, the only place to go is down....

Visit the most comprehensive Las Vegas Real Estate and Henderson Real Estate website online. Or look at pictures of my Parrot

Hey congrats on the number one for las vegas real estate, I bet you are very proud of that. Speaking of real estate, check out this real estate site I have been working on. This guy started this site himself some 10 years ago and it did very well for awhile, then tanked. If you dig a little bit, you will come to his pages as opposed to the new ones I have been working on. While you are there, visit the link exchange and put your site there. The address is www globere dot com Let me know what you think. BTW, I notice you have links in your signature for the forum? Does that help, as I know these pages get indexed.

What determines a phrase competitiveness? I lived in California and know smog testing for autos is very, very competitive. So, I would think that having a number one spot for smog testing station, or variations of the same would be very good.

Smog testing station only shows 24,100 results in Google. Most matching sites are probably not optimised well.

Many people here are competing against millions of webpages with many more being optimised by SEO professionals and in-house SEO experts.

I am not trying to knock your success and I hope that your site receives a lot of visitors and enquiries.

dazzlindonna uses a tool in this thread (post#1) to determine how competitive your phrase is. Not everyone agrees on the accuracy, but there should be some method behind the madness.

BTW, tool is at:
www*searchguild.com/cgi-bin/difficulty.pl

Thanks so much, I appreciate the support. What has been your best seo success story?