Create
an effective title. Many search engines weigh the data in your
title more heavily than other data in your page.
Make sure that your title has keywords that
represent your site effectively.
Don't
use frames! Most search engine simply cannot index a
frames page. They get to your site and can't
go anywhere. Consider frames like a big 'GO
AWAY' sign
Don't
try to fool the search engines! This is probably the biggest trap people
fall into. People come up with ways to 'fool'
search engines, and they work for a little while...sometimes.
But then the search engines catch on and write
routines that penalize sites that use this practice.
Examples of this include, but are not limited
to: repeating keywords over and over; using
invisible text (white text on white background);
using very small text to jam the keywords in
a small area.
Keep
the important content near the top of your pages.
Some engines will place a higher rating
of importance based on where they find the text
in your page. Closer to the top is usually better.
Don't
stuff the top of your pages with data the engines
can't read. As with the last example, something higher
up in your page can be more important that something
further down. Therefore, HTML formatting, images,
scripts, etc. toward the top of your page can
result in lower ratings
Website
Content should be your #1 priority! We can help you in many ways, but your quest
for high placement must start with a good website.
It is important to have a lot of text describing
what you do. Use your keywords in the content,
but don't repeat them over and over. Many search
engines rate sites based on 'keyword density'.
This is usually a formula that looks at META
Keywords, words in your TITLE, words in paragraph
text, words in links to other pages, and even
words in the 'ALT' text on your images. They
will even look at different forms of your keywords.
For example, if an important keyword for you
is 'FISH', the word 'FISHING' in the body of
your document will raise the confidence in the
word 'FISH' on some engines
Keep
your site updated. Make sure that your site is up to date.
No one likes to go to a page that never changes
or that is very out of date. Make sure that
the data in your page portrays the message that
you want to send.
Don't
go image crazy. We have all seen pages that are almost all
images. Usually they are the most beautiful
sites. After all, your artist can make beautiful
screens that display your content in the most
eye-pleasing way. However, the search engines
don't have eyes. They don't see the beautifully
formatted text in your image. All they see is
'yourimage.jpg', and 'yourimage.jpg' doesn't
go far in terms of content and relevancy.
Links
to Other Pages. We can't emphasize enough the importance
of links. Both from your page to other pages,
and from other pages to yours.
First consider links on your pages. When many search engines see them, they
consider your site more 'real'. It also give
the search engine spiders a place to go. Make
your links meaningful. Make sure they relate
to what you do (and keywords that are important
to you). You can't have too many links on your
pages.
Links from others websites. Some search engines place a very heavy rating
of importance on how many other sites in their
index have links to your website. Think of it
for a second. If you knew that a company was
only linked to by one website, versus a company
that was linked to by a thousand websites, which
one would you consider more important? If you
were a search engine, you would surely try to
link the more important ones first.
This
is where patience comes in again. It can take some time to get a ton of links
to your website. We help quite a bit here, however.
The fact that we submit to so many sites will
help you get a great head start in this area!
Banner
Ads Banner Ads are a very popular (expensive)
method of promoting your Web site. These are
the little rectangular graphics that you see
near the top or bottom of some popular Web pages.
If you click on them, they transport you to
another Web site. You can use some free banner
ads using free link exchange at http://www.linkexchange.com.
Dont's
Spamdexing
Generally, you should NOT submit every single
page of your website to search engines. In most
cases, you should submit only your home page
and perhaps a couple of other very important
pages at most. The rest of your website will
be indexed by the search engine's spider naturally
after the first page is submitted. Over-submitting
your website can get you blocked from being
listed!
Invisible/Tiny
Text and Keyword Stuffing Once a very popular form of inserting tons
of key words and phrases into your pages, this
is now considered a BIG no-no even though you'll
still see it from time to time! This is achieved
by placing very small text at the bottom of
a page and/or text the same color as the page's
background. This, too, can get your website
blocked from search engine listings. Let your
website's content speak for itself!
Use
of Others' Copyrights/TradeMarks Another unethical method of bringing traffic
to your website involves embedding your competition's
name, copyrights and/or trademarked words and
phrases into your meta keywords tag. The idea
behind this is that if your potential customers
do a search for a competitor's product, your
page will show up as well and you may make the
sale instead. There have been some recent lawsuits
regarding this in favor of the copyright/trademark
holder. As enticing as it sounds, you don't
want to get caught doing this!dd
