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Search Engine Optimisation Tips
Search engine optimization can be difficult and confusing. We have put together some tips to help you with the process.
They cover everything you need to know about optimizing your web pages for the search engines quickly and easily.
Some general guidelines for listing your web site with search engines:
- Choosing the right keywords - Targeting keywords that no other web sites are competing for may bring you to the top of the search engine position for that keyword, but if at the same time there are no consumers entering those keywords in search engines, your site will not be seen.
- When submitting your web site, keep in mind that there are essentially two types of search engines.... "robot" engines that send a "robot" to your site to capture and catalogue all the info on your site. These include Google, MSN, WebCrawler, Excite, Lycos, Alta Vista, Infoseek, Hotbot, and Inktomi. The second type only uses the info that you give it. These include Yahoo!, www Yellow Pages, EINet Galaxy, Open Text, WWW Worm, and World Wide Yellow Pages.
- For best results, always submit your website manually to each search engine individually rather than using a "submission service". It's important to be able to tailor your info for each specific search engine. It takes more time but is well worth it!
- The title of your site is CRITICAL! Your title is NOT the first headline on your page, but rather what appears on the title bar of your browser. Most search engines treat the words in your title as MAJOR keywords..... Carefully choose two or three keywords to put in your title, but keep in mind that it should not just be a list of keywords....it should make sense. Also, if you make it too long, it will be cut-off. The search engines weigh the importance of a word in your title based on density. For example, if you have five words in your title and one of them is horse, then it will comprise 20% of your title. But, if you only have two words in your title and one of them is horse, then it comprises 50% of your title and is "weighed" much more heavily as a keyword!
- The description tag is recommended. This is not nearly as important as the title. However, it does have some value. Write it as a summary and keep it under thirty words. It should be written in a compelling, clear manner.
- Use your keywords FREQUENTLY in your text at the VERY BEGINNING of your web site. Try not to put tables, graphics or anything else at the top of your site. It should just be text that is rich with your major keywords. Here again, just as in the title, the search engines look at the DENSITY of your keywords rather just the number of keywords. Also, keep in mind that you're NOT just listing keywords here. This is actually the text of your web site.
- "Meta tags" are NOT a magic formula for getting listed at the top of search engines, but they may help on AltaVista, Hotbot, and Infoseek. A meta tag, for our purposes, is a way of providing a description and keywords that are only visible to the robots from the search engines. However, there is debate over how much weight these are given. The meta tags must go *inside* the header tags, so it looks like this...
<HEAD>
<TITLE>your title here</TITLE>
<META name="description" content="your site description goes
here">
<META name="keywords" content="your keywords go here">
</HEAD> - DON'T "keyword spam"! This has been a practice that many have used for good search engine placement... but it's considered bad netiquette and the search engines are all starting to penalise you when they catch it! It's done by repeating keywords *numerous* times either in the meta tag or within the text of the page, sometimes where it can't be seen unless you go to the HTML. This is a waste of time now... and will eventually backfire on you. Just try to legitimately use your keywords as much as you can in the initial paragraphs of text on your web site.
- Use the plural when possible. If you list your keyword as "horse stable", but someone searches for "horse stables", it will not find your site. However, if you list your keyword as "horse stables" and someone searches for "horse stable", it will pull up your site!
- Be sure that your site is COMPLETELY ready and online before you list your site with any search engines!
- Have a sitemap/index - people like site maps/indexes, and so do search engines. Make sure that the site map is available from the homepage, and that it is presented in a text-based format, and that it is kept up to date.
- Avoid Flash & frames - Search engines find Flash or sites with Frames very hard to index.
- If you're marketing online, many people believe that OVER 80% of your hits will come from Google! It's probably worth spending a considerable amount of your time trying to get good placement on this search engine!
Most importantly, be patient... many search engines take weeks to get you in the system.
