Search Engine Optimization - How to Improve Your Ranking
Rankings, Rankings, Rankings!
How do you get your website ranked well by the search engines?
Well, it isn't as hard as you think, but it may not be as simple
either. It takes patience and an ongoing commitment to making
search-engine ranking a long-term investment in your website.
You will need to give it time and energy - it isn't a quick fix.
One caveat before I dive into this: If you are a company that is
working on attracting local customers, there are many other
incredibly effective offline marketing tools to DRIVE people to
your website. But, if you really want to work on search-engine
ranking for your site then keep reading to learn more!
Keep these points in mind:
1. Search engines often change their ranking formula.
2. Each search engine has its own algorithm (formula) to
determine site ranking.
3. META tag keywords are not a magic bullet to improve your
ranking.
4. Search engines can take many months to index new information,
so patience...patience.
5. Be cautious with graphics-rich websites if search-engine
ranking is important.
How Do Search Engines Work?
Let's start at the beginning. When you type a query into a
search engine, what happens? Some people think that each time a
search is entered into a search engine like Google, that the
program hunts through the entire Internet to produce the answer.
This is NOT what occurs.
Let's say I type in the words "dog obedience" into Yahoo. Yahoo
then takes these keywords and searches through its own unique
database of indexed websites to find matches. To add to and
update their databases, search engines have programs called
"spiders" that crawl through pages on the Internet looking for
pages and sites to index. However, they do NOT locate sites on
their own. They find sites if someone has purposely entered a
website into a search engine's "Add URL" form. They are also
able to find a website if another site in its database has links
to it.
When a search engine finds a site, it considers the text on the
website to be the number one thing to extract. It places data
its database categorized by information it perceives as being
important. So, if you have a company that has free articles
teaching people how to train their dogs, but you don't have the
word "obedience" listed anywhere, your site may not be listed in
the above sample search.
So then, after all of this - how do you get a high-ranking
search engine?
Your Keys to Search Engine Ranking
You must think of search engine optimization as a long-term
investment in your website. It is an ongoing marketing effort
that takes persistence. As you begin to implement optimization
techniques, remember it can take several months before you see
the results, so be patient. Here are some tips to help you
improve your website rankings in the future.
1. Plan Your Content: Before you develop your site, make a list
of all the possible search words and phrases you think a
potential customer would use to locate your website. A research
tool such as WordTracker can help you in this process. Write
compelling, professional marketing content for your site that is
rich with these search words and phrases, especially on your
home page. Make pages about 250 words. Tip: Hire a professional
web copywriter to write your site content.
2. Meta Keyword Tags Are Overrated: Contrary to what many people
believe, your META keyword tags in your HTML code have very
little bearing on the words a search engine uses to reference
your site. What does this mean for your site? Make sure your web
pages have easy-to-understand paragraphs that describe your site
and contain many of your important search words. These search
words should match your META keyword tags, otherwise, the
spiders tend to disregard the keyword tags.
3. Title Tags Are Vital: Most search engines give a lot of
weight to your title tags. These are also the phrases that
appear at the top of each web page. So, take the time to create
juicy and precise title tags. Use words and phrases that people
would be likely to use in their search for your business.
Reflect what is actually on the specific web page.
4. Meta Description Tags: This is the area where you write HTML
content to describe each of your web pages. Although it is not a
major factor in search engine ranking, it IS what is displayed
in the search results. People searching will use this
description to make a decision to visit your site or not. Use
this area for marketing purposes to entice people to click on
your link.
5. Design a Site That Search Engines Like: Websites that have
graphic Splash pages or are designed in Flash are not as
friendly to SE indexing. For the most part, search engines do
not index graphics. They read text (but not graphic text). Use
small amounts of Flash animation and graphics in appropriate
places, along with great HTML content. Along with these
graphics, use text for your image ALT tags. If you have a
graphic-based navigation system, make sure you have a site map
that the spider can use to find all of your site page links.
6. Create a Compelling Site: If you haven't created a website
with gripping content that speaks to your visitors in plain,
easy-to-understand language, you won't get good long-term
search-engine visibility. Nor, will visitors ever want to come
back. Make your site so good that people will want to link to
it. They will want to provide their viewers with your copious
amounts of useful information. You can also go to sites that
offer complimentary services or products and e-mail their
webmaster to ask them to add a link to your site. This will
enhance your link popularity, something search engines tend to
consider important.
7. Submit your URL to the Directories: Read each search engine's
FAQs and follow it exactly. Mistakes in the submission process
can make things extremely difficult to change down the road.
Keep your website description short and sweet. Be sure to
include keywords, but don't use a lot of sales jargon.
8. Balance Your Online Marketing Approach: You will get the best
results if you create a website that is content rich, popular
with viewers, has a credible reputation, and is programmed using
a smart approach to Meta tags.
Search engine spiders can be extremely slow to index new
information, so be patient! It may take months to see your
changes affect your search engine ranking. Remember, a website
is a dynamic marketing tool that you are building over time.
Treat it well, give it a little love and attention, and your
long-term rewards will be well worth your efforts!
About the author:
Wendy Maynard, your friendly Marketing Maven, publishes
REMARKABLE MARKETING, a free weekly ezine for entrepreneurs,
business owners, and freelancers. If you're ready to skyrocket
your sales, easily attract customers, and make more money, sign
up for her FREE ezine and marketing report now at
http://www.gomarketingmaven.com