If you're just getting started and want to know how to get your website on top of Google you might just be in luck. There are thousands of different factors that affect how Google decides to display a search result page. Fortunately, we are going to narrow them down to two critical areas of importance that any small business owner can do themselves.

Content

No matter what industry you are in, you want to be perceived as the foremost authority in your niche. Google loves content and by giving Google what they want, you will be increasing your authoritative value to both the search engines and your customers. The key here is to add content that is extremely well written and will be received by your customers as something of value.

The question is, what is considered content? Content can be broken down into three mediums: articles, podcasts and videos. Articles, being the most obvious, can be added to your site in the form of additional pages to your existing web site or by adding/creating a post on your blog. Don't have a blog? Now is the time to get one.

The second form of content can be created through video. Trying to create a video does not need to be that complicated. It can simply be a video recording of a power point presentation with audio added to it. There are some great free video tools on the web that you can use like Microsoft Movie Maker or Apple iMovie.

The third content creation method is called podcasting. A podcast is an audio recording of an interview, conference call or any other type of audio that can be recorded. Recording a podcast can be done using Audacity.

The key to all three types of content is that you can syndicate it or submit it to other blogs and websites in order to generate links back to your site which brings up the second factor in determining how your site will get to the top, Links.

Links

Simply put, links are what you see on a website when a word is underlined and when clicked will take you to a different web page. Links are considered to be votes of confidence in your website. The more links you have, the more authoritative value Google places on your site.

The key to getting links on other people's web sites relies heavily on your ability to create great content through your articles, videos and podcasts. If your content is worthy of distribution, you will be able to generate an incredible amount of links back to your site.

If you've created content with an article, you will want to submit that article to press release sites or article submission sites like EzineArticles and (if you have a blog) RSS feed sites. If you have created a podcast, try iTunes and Youtube if you've created a video.

The one key factor that must be used in this entire process is deciding what keyword you want to link back to your site. For example, if you sell printer cartridge refills you might want to use that keyword phrase as your link text.