 |
9 Steps to Getting Better Search Engine Rankings
You finally have a website and you are ready to sit back and let the visitors start rolling in. How does that saying go? "If you build it they will come." This may be true in Hollywood but certainly not true in the case of your website. You need to constantly work at improving your site to ensure that your website achieves a decent search engine ranking. This is a process that doesn't happen over night but with some concentrated effort you can get better search engine rankings. Here are some tips on getting to the top of the search engines.
Keep your design simple! Avoid gratuitous uses of flash, images/graphics, and special effects. As cool as these effects are, they hinder or sometimes block the search engine from seeing your sites content. Whenever possible use external elements (stylesheets and javascript). Less code cluttering up your page means search engines can find and index your content easier, leading to better search engine rankings. Research your competition and choose your keywords carefully. Keyword phrases tend to be more effective. For example: use "Toronto real estate web design" instead of web design. This could mean the difference between competing with 6 million websites or 100 thousand. Make sure your web pages include good meaty content of at least 250-300 words per page. Search Engines analyze the relevancy of your page/site based on the content. Your keywords should be represented in your content ? if your keywords are not represented, either you have chosen the wrong keywords or you haven't thought out your content properly. Search engines like sites that change their content regularly so find ways to keep your content fresh but the message clear.Use Meta tags (title tag, description tag and keywords tag) properly and use different Meta tags on each page of your site! Make sure your title is relevant and between 50 and 60 characters. Your description should not exceed 150 characters and should summarize the content of your page. Most importantly make sure the words/phrases in your keywords tag are represented in your content. Use alternate image tags. Besides being a good design practice, alternate image tags help the search engines verify the importance of the images on your page. When appropriate use your keyword choices in your alt image tags. Avoid using only image based navigation on your site. If you are using images as links to your other pages, make sure you absolutely use alternate image tags. Ideally you should also include text based links somewhere on your web page as well. You see this quite often in the footer of some web pages although you can always include test links in the content of your pages as well. Text based links help the search engines find ALL your pages not to mention they make your site more assessable. If your site is complex you should include a site map to help your visitors and the search engines find their way around your site. If you are using a sitemap put the link near the top of your page so that the search engine finds it quickly. Use heading tags and bold to emphasize your keywords. Don't over do this! If you have chosen your keywords properly, your keywords should already be in weighted areas of your carefully written content. Do NOT use auto submit services to submit your site to the major search engines. As long as you have incoming links to your site from a site that has been indexed your web site should automatically be indexed. If you need to submit your website to a search engine do it manually and only once. Research and gather external links from sites that are relevant to your own. If your site is promoting health food a link from a human resources site will not help your website rankings and may actually penalize your site.
To get better search engine rankings you need to keep it simple, natural and use your common sense. Don't try to trick the search engines as this can often result in getting your site banned or dropped from the index. Remember, it can takes month for your optimization efforts to pay off, but when they do you will enjoy better search engine rankings! © 2005 Tanya Beaudoin o/a Office on Demand, All rights reserved. You are free to use this article in its entirety, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify Mrs. Beaudoin as to where the material will appear. The attribution should read:
"Tanya Beaudoin, B.A. owns and operates a Web Design Company ? OOD Web & Graphic Design Studio - that specializes in e-solutions and graphic design (including web design, search engine optimization and internet marketing products like e-stationary and newsletters). To learn more about getting better search engine rankings, please visit Tanya's web site at http://www.officeondemand.ca
More Articles from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Information:
|
|
|
|
Top SEO-ARTICLES
Top 15 SEO-ARTICLES
Google WebSearch? & Google Adsense - Yahoo!
The makers of the world renowned search engine, Google, have taken things a step further to increase their user loyalty, grow their user base and at the same time reward webs....
The Real Search Engine Optimization Guide
Nowadays, there is so much talk about SEO (search engine optimization) that it has become an industry of its own. Still, 90% of webmasters don`t know how to achieve high sear....
All about SEO or SFO?
First let's start with definitions:SEO: Search Engine Optimization, SFO: Search Friendly Optimization.These two things are what most webmasters have trouble balancing.....
Beating the New Google AdWord Rules with Blogs and RSS
When Google Adwords first came on scene, it was not immediately apparent to most people how to utilize the system to create wealth, until John Carpenter popularised it with h....
Every Search Engine Robot Needs Validation
Your website is ready. Your content is in place, you have optimized your pages. What is the last thing you should do before uploading your hard work? Validate. It is surprisi....
Sales And Crawlers, Update! Update! Update!
The importance to the algorithmic web crawlers that speed throughout the web is crucial to the successful marketing campaign of your site. Your site would simply be a pretty....
Why Optimize Your Site For Search Engines?
Sometimes a search engine optimization company will miss that glaring question
posed by potential clients and assume the benefits of search engine optimization
are obviou....
Google has an Achilles Heal - Will Their Competitors Notice?
Even though Google Revenues continue to soar, the hidden problem that may stifle growth and may even allow Yahoo or MSN to overtake the paid search market in the future lies....
Google, Adsense, SEO, and How It All Works
Google uses an algorithm to determine the search engine results (SERPS). The algorithm is based upon certain factors that include keyword density, Meta Tags, anchor tags, im....
Your Website Title Could Be Costing You Money
Nothing could be simpler than the title you give to your web pages right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of the websites I visit these days have absolutely terrible titles....
How To Avoid These Ten Costly Search Engine Mistakes
If you have a website then you already know the importance of traffic.
Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It's the only
thing that reall....
SEO Expert Explains on how to Restore a Website and Remove Sandbox Effect from Your Website
The sandbox effect or (site getting banned on google) has been prevalent in google for quite a long time, and many websites are falling victim to it.Whether deliberately or a....
Internet 2005: The Ten Billions Pages Search Engines
To see each and every page during 10 seconds would take 694 days 24/24.
The leading search engines fight to be the first that oversteps this level.
In the meantime the key....
Reality Check: A Straightforward Guide to Keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Web site owners need to have realistic expectations when it comes to the world of keyword selection.It's essential to understand your audience, as well as to aim appropr....
RSS Feeds - a Website Owners Friend in Disguise
We've all heard about it-it seems like all the buzz right now in the search engine marketing industry is RSS. If you're a website owner, than there are two ways you....
|
