Webmaster Tips
SUBMIT YOUR WEBSITE TO THE TOP SEARCH ENGINES!TIPS
In this article I show
you how to improve your search engine rankings using 27 quick search engine
optimization tips.
1. Increase your site's link popularity by increasing
your internal and incoming links.
* Internal links - Cross link all your
sites and important pages within each site. This will maximize the PageRank of
all your pages within each web site.
* Incoming links that you control -
Create several small web sites related to your main site. Each site should only
consist of a few pages. Then cross link them all together using the most
important keywords. Don't forget to include links back to the main
site.
* Incoming links that you don't control:
o Ask sites that
link to your competitors to link to your site. To find out which sites are
linking to your competitors, visit a search engine and enter, "link:" followed
by the competitors' domain name.
For
example:
link:www.yourcompetitor.com
o Exchange links with sites
listed in the same category as yours in the major web directories, such as the
Yahoo! Directory and the Open Directory.
o Find sites that accept site
submissions. Visit your favorite search engine and search for:
"add url"
"your keywords"
Also try searching for the actual submission page using
its page name.
For example:
addurl.html, addsite.html,
addlink.html, etc.
2. Include a TITLE tag as the first META tag, directly
after the HEAD tag.
For
example:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing
Software Tools Reviews</TITLE>
...
3. Try to avoid stop words in
your TITLE tag. Stop words (a, an, and, but, he, her, his, i, in, it, of, on,
or, she, the, etc.) are common words and characters ignored by some search
engines to enhance the speed and relevancy of their search results.
4.
Include a META DESCRIPTION tag, directly after the TITLE tag. Include the most
important keyword phrase for the web page as close to the beginning of the
description as possible.
For
example:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing
Software Tools Reviews</TITLE>
<META NAME="description"
CONTENT="Mike's Marketing Tools is the leading review site for the very best
internet marketing tools for web marketers and webmasters.">
...
5.
If you use a META REFRESH tag, make sure it is set to refresh after 30
seconds.
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="30;
URL=http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com">
Some search engines
consider pages that refreshes under 30 seconds as spam. I recommend using a
JavaScript redirect tag, if you require a quicker page refresh.
For
example:
Step 1 - Paste this code into the HEAD section of your HTML
document. Change the 3000 to whatever number you like. 1000 represents 1 (one)
second.
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--
function redirect
() {setTimeout("change()",3000);}
function change ()
{window.location.href="http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com";}
//--></SCRIPT>
Step
2 - Insert the onLoad event handler into your BODY tag, so that the JavaScript
code is executed when the page loads.
<BODY
onLoad="redirect()">
6. Remove all other meta tags (author, date,
etc.), unless you're sure they are absolutely necessary. The only meta tags I
ever use are the META DESCRIPTION and occasionally the META REFRESH
tag.
7. Include a site map with links to all your pages. This will help
search engines find and index all your pages.
* Limit the number of links
on a web page to 50.
* If you have more than 50 links, limit your links to
your most important pages.
* Include text on the page as some search engines,
such as AltaVista, have been known to kick out links only pages.
8. Use
one or more header tags in your main page body and include your most important
keyword phrase/s.
* Use large header tags, such as <H1> and
<H2>.
* Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to alter the appearance of the
header tags to fit the look and feel of your site. For more information read
this CSS tutorial.
9. Check the first couple of lines of the first
paragraph to see if it's appropriate to be used as a description of your page.
Many search engines utilize the first couple of sentences of the body text as
the search results description, instead of the contents of the META DESCRIPTION
tag.
10. Try to achieve an overall keyword density of 1-2%.
11.
Try to achieve a minimum word count of 300 and a maximum of 750 words on each
page.
12. Register a domain name with the exact keyword phrase you wish
to target, using hyphens to separate the keywords.
For example, if the
keyword phrase is "search engine rankings," then
register:
search-engine-rankings.com
If the domain you want is
unavailable, either try a different extension, such as .NET, .INFO, or .US, or
add a keyword to the end (preferential) or beginning of the domain.
13.
Name directories after your keyword phrases, using hyphens or underscores to
separate the keywords.
For example, if an important keyword phrases is,
"search engine rankings," name your
directory:
www.yoursite.com/search-engine-rankings/
or...
www.yoursite.com/search_engine_rankings/
14. Name web pages
after your most important keyword phrase. Separate the keywords using hyphens or
underscores.
For example, if the keyword phrase is "search engine
rankings," then name the page:
search-engine-rankings.html
or...
search_engine_rankings.html
15. Name your graphic files after
keyword phrases. Again, separate the keywords using hyphens or
underscores.
For example:
<IMG
SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif">
16. Include an ALT (alternative
text) atrribute in image tags. Include the most important keyword
phrases.
For example:
<IMG SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif"
ALT="search engine rankings.">
17. If you use an image map, include
HTML links, as some search engines do not follow image map links. Plus image
maps do not offer search engines any link text to index. So, try to avoid the
use of image maps as they do not help with your search engine optimization
efforts.
18. Use the longer or plural version of a keyword, where
possible. Word stemming is a concept used by some search engines to return
search results that include keywords that extend beyond what you searched
for.
For example, a search with the keyword "engine" might return results
for, "engines," "engineers," and "engineering." If someone searches for the
longer version of a word and your page only uses the short version, then your
page will be excluded from the list of possible results.
19. Sprinkle a
few uncommon keywords and synonyms in your main body text. Less popular keywords
have less competition in the search engines. So your web page is has a greater
chance of being listed amongst the top results.
20. Do not repeat
keywords or keyword phrases over and over again on a web page, as this would be
considered as spam by search engines.
21. Keep your pages as close to the
root domain as possible. Do not set up more than 3 directory levels.
For
example:
www.yoursite.com/index.html (1st level -
excellent)
www.yoursite.com/html/index.html (2nd level -
Good)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/index.html (3rd level -
OK)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/search/index.html (Too many levels down -
search engines will find it difficult to find and index pages this far
down)
22. If you have a persistent (on most or all of your pages)
navigation bar at the side of each page, your table is almost certainly set up
in such a way that it pushes your page's body text down the HTML document.
Search engines give prominence to keywords nearer the beginning of a HTML
document. So, design your HTML table so that the navigation bar is placed after
your main body text.
23. Move Javascript code to a separate file, or the
end of the HTML document after your closing BODY or HTML tag. Yes, this
technique actually works!
Follow these instructions to move the
JavaScript code to a separate file and link to the file from the HTML document.
Then place the following code in between the HEAD
section:
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"
SRC="file-name.js"></SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
This procedure
also reduces your file size, and therefore your download time. In addition, it
allows you to reuse the code on other pages by simply link to the JavaScript
file. Both of these techniques will move your important body text nearer to the
top of the HTML document.
24. Although not always practical, you may like
to try naming your cascading style sheet tags after keywords.
For
example:
.search {
color: #ff0000;
}
25. Use Robots.txt
files instead of Robots meta tags, as some search engine robots do not recognize
the tag.
26. Do not use font size one (1) text as the default text size.
Many search engines consider tiny text to be spam. It's OK to use some font size
one text.
27. Do not participate in link farms or link exchange programs.
Search engines consider link farms and link exchange programs as spam, as they
have only one purpose - to artificially inflate a site's link popularity, by
exchanging links with other participants.
Do not confuse link farms and
link exchange programs with reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the
exchange of links with individual sites, and is certainly an accepted technique
for improving your site's link popularity.
There you have it. My 27 quick
search engine optimization tips to improving your search engine
rankings.
Michael Wong is a respected internet marketing expert, and the
author of a leading search engine optimization guide, numerous marketing tips,
and reviews of marketing tools and ecommerce software. Visit his web site at
http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com