Search
Engine Optimization
When
a user types in a search phrase into a search engine the search
engine is designed to produce relevant results to that phrase. Modern
search engines use complex algorithms that determine a pages relevance
to input from their users. To do this requires retrieving data from
the internet pages available across the entire internet. Search
engines number one tool for retrieving this data is by ranking pages
on the internet by importance. Then the most important pages are
used to find other pages that might be important. This is called
spidering the web. Secondly they accept submissions from web masters
to index pages that might not yet be linked to pages they have determined
are important.
Search
engine optimization starts with content. The content of
the page should include words and phrases that people would use
if they want to find your site. You must have a site that provides
service, product or information. This will be what the customers
see.
Search
Engine Facts:
- Pay per
click engines will increase your traffic which will build clients
if the quality is good.
- Keywords
not related to your site can get you deleted from most search
engines.
- Links with
the wrong sites can hurt your web site.
- Links with
known quality sites of related content will help your site.
- Automated
"ranking checking" programs can hurt your listing with some
search engines.
- Most search
engines can index almost any type of file with modern techniques,
file types include: pdf, asp, jsp, hdml, shtml, xml, cfm, doc,
xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri.
- Major search
engines do not rely 100% on Meta Tags as search engines once
did.
- Words repeated
too often in Meta Tags are page content can be seen as spamming.
- The Google
Search Engine puts A LOT of weight on the text that is found
in the TITLE tag.
- Google
likes keywords to be in the Headings Tag.
- Doorway
pages are considered SPAM
The Google Search Engine looks at over 100 items,
but here are some of the major items that Google analyses on web
pages:
- Words in
Title Tag
- Words in
links
- Words in
Headings
- Words in
Bold
- More weight
is given to first 25 words of text on a page
- Words in
URL
- Having
more than 250 words on a page helps.
- Phrases
used to describe pictures.
Each
page must have title that is descriptive of the content.
Title tag: Requirements varies from one search
engine to the next. Some will allow more or less, we recommend less
than 100 characters. What we have found that works best is if you
make this title match the actual title that your visitor sees in
the text.
Each
page must have a description of the content which should be short
paragraph of not more than 200 characters.
Description Tag: The next important Meta tag on
the site would be the page description. Many search
engines use this as comparative to your actual site contents.
A great book written by Jill Whalen, the most famous
writer for search engines can help you if you are developing your
own web site. The Nitty-gritty of Writing for
the Search Engines
Learn how to write for the search engines and your users.
Hire a
Professional Web Designer
A
common mistake of many web sites is that they have the same title
tag on every page of their web site. Each page should have
different title tags, depending on what that specific page has information
on.
Good
Search Engine Optimization should have at least 250 words in the
pages content.
Google
also likes keywords to be in the Headings Tag. Heading Tags range
in size from 1-6. The HTML for a heading tag is <h4>Search
Engine Optimization</h4>, see the example below
Search
Engine Optimization
You'll
want to have some heading tags on the page, with your keywords located
in them.
You
should have text links on the page that include your keyword phrases.
If you have a navigation bar that is pictures (and not text) then
you will want to also add some text links on the pages that link
to your important pages, and it's better optimization if you have
those links be the keywords that describe that page.
A
very small factor, that can help is the use of "ALT" tags.
These are the tags that a designer will put around a picture.
You can view these tags by hovering your mouse over a picture, and
then keeping your mouse still, and you will see the text for the
ALT tag. For example:
The
ALT tags hear read "American TradUR Company Quality Web Designs
at Affordable Prices"
Errors in your HTML code can create problems with Search Engines.
Use
a text browser like lynx to explore your site and make sure you
can get
to all your pages.
Hire a
Professional Web Designer
Search
Engine Optimization Company's
There
are probably millions of them floating around that guarantee that
they will give you first position in all of the major search engines.
NO ONE CAN DO THIS! There are probably just as
many willing to send you millions of visitors a day. The best way
to deal with SEO if you want to pay for it is to hire a professional
web design company from the start. A reliable company will not charge
you for search engine optimization. It should be part of their basic
design strategy when structuring the site for their clients. But
if you already have a site seek free advice from a professional
web design company. The information that they all use is not
a secret so do not pay for it. If you don't have the time to do
the work then hire a firm that follows the guidelines we have shown
you.
I
thought this was rather humorous that I would like to quote from
Googles web site referring to an optimizers spam:
"Dear
google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in
most of the major search engines and directories."
I
hope they located the sender of this email.
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