Search Engine Tips
Search engines, in most cases, should not be considered the
"end all" for advertising and promoting your website. When done
properly it can generate a significant amount of traffic for
almost no cost. It will take a little time and effort though. But,
the pay off can be multiplied times over. There are millions of
websites, with more being added daily. Guess what! A great many
of them fail to use proper meta tags. These are used by search
bots to index your site. Some things to keep in mind:
1. Use your most common keywords in the title. Most search
engines will weigh these heavier in their ranking system.
2. Use the plural form of your keyword. (example: "books",
instead of only "book". When a person looks for either "book" or
"books" your web page will be pulled up.
3. Use both upper and lower case spellings of your keywords.
(example: books, Books, BOOKS). More than 3 common forms of the
same word will not help much. Although, common misspellings can
help.
4. Use combinations of your targeted keywords. People
generally search using phrases containing two or more keywords.
(example: "storage facilities", "STORAGE FACILITIES") To really
target your market, add the words "self, "SELF" and "your
city/state". Lots of visitors that can't buy your product/service
aren't of much value.
5. You must use meta tags. Many search engines index your site
by the meta tags. These go between the tags in your html and will
not show on your web page. View the source on one of the top
ranking web pages for specific examples. Here's an example from
one of our web pages.
6. Use a good combination of your 10 to 20 best keywords.
Keyword rich text is often the deciding factor in your ranking.
HINT: Try to use your strongest keyword at the start of each
paragraph and/or search phrases early in the text if possible .
7. Fill the ALT tag in your image links with keywords.
8. Every page of your site should be registered with the
search engines, not just the title page. HINT: Many of the search
engines will re-index your site periodically and if there has been
no change you could lose positioning, so keep your content fresh.
9. Warning! Keyword spamming is a technique that some people
have used in the past to gain good ranking. It's done by repeating
your keywords over and over. Then, changing the color of the text
to match the background of the page. Many search engines will
penalize you if you are caught doing this.
10. Create & customize a unique web page for each major
keyword. Design it specifically for each major search engine. This
will take some time but, once completed can dramatically improve
your rankings. HINT: Make sure it contains a link to your index
page and a few others as well. |
