SEO Tips

TIPS

In this article I show you how to improve your search engine rankings using 27 quick search engine optimization tips.

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:

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

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.

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.

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>

...

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.

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>

...

If you use a META REFRESH tag, make sure it is set to refresh after 30 seconds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Try to achieve an overall keyword density of 1-2%.

Try to achieve a minimum word count of 300 and a maximum of 750 words on each page.

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.

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/

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

Name your graphic files after keyword phrases. Again, separate the keywords using hyphens or underscores.

For example:

Include an ALT (alternative text) atrribute in image tags. Include the most important keyword phrases.

For example:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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>

</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.

Although not always practical, you may like to try naming your cascading style sheet tags after keywords.

For example:

.search {

color: #ff0000;

}

Use Robots.txt files instead of Robots meta tags, as some search engine robots do not recognize the tag.

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.

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.

7 Search Engine Tips for Non Webmasters

by: Jinger Jarrett

With all of the changes to the search engines these days, you can drive yourself crazy trying to get

your site submitted. Unless you are willing to commit yourself to doing it full time, or you are a search

engine expert, you won't rank at the top of the engines. However, this doesn't mean that you should

neglect this important means of getting traffic to your site.

Unlike most of the methods for promoting your business, which came from the offline world, this

method is different. It's unique, and it is changing and growing at a rapid pace. By at least informing

yourself of the basics, you can make this a more effective method for driving traffic to your site.

Below are seven tips you can implement to get started:

1. Understand the Relationships of the Various Search Engines. Before you can know where to submit,

you need to understand how all of the various search engines are related so that you don't duplicate

your work, or worse, get banned from submission.

Now, mind you, I am no search engine expert. However, I have been watching closely what is

happening, and here is what I have seen so far:

Recently, Yahoo, a directory, acquired All the Web, Altavista, Inktomi and Overture. Yahoo is no longer

going to be using search results from Google as its backend.

Although it remains to be seen what role All The Web and Altavista will play, Inktomi will only provide

limited offerings in Yahoo because Yahoo announced that Inktomi's paid inclusions would not be

included in its results.

Overture, the number one pay per click search engine, provides paid results to 80 per cent of the major

search engines and will continue to do so. It will also be providing backend results to Yahoo. Overture

provides results to major sites like HotBot and MSN.

Yahoo is adding its own search engine and will continue to offer its paid directory at $299 a year.

Currently, MSN and Yahoo, the number two and number one sites respectively on Alexa, are battling

for supremacy. Bill Gates is also working on a new model for his search engine, but it remains to be

seen what that will be.

Eventhough Google will no longer be providing backend results to Yahoo, Google is still a major

player. It is also the number one search engine in the world. Google gets some of its results from the

Open Directory Project, a volunteer effort to create a directory of the best sites on the Internet.

Looksmart is still out there, but it appears to have changed its model to a pay per click. You can get

started for free, but you'll have to pay for each click. (NOTE: I found this site hard to navigate to answer

the most simple questions. Maybe that's why it's the least relevant of the options available.)

Finally, you have Alexa, which is in a class all its own. You definitely want to get your site submitted

here because it's a great way to find out who is linking to you, where you rank, and other statistics

about your site. Back end results for Alexa are provided by Google.

The easiest way to track your site using Alexa, is to download a copy of the toolbar. You can get it

here:

http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/htmlfiles/alexa.html

2. Prepare Your Site for Submission. Now that you know where to submit your site, you want to

prepare your site so that it gets accepted.

The best tool to help you is Good Keywords:

http://www.goodkeywords.com

This free utility will let you

search for the best keywords to use on your site.

Key words, however, are only part of the equation.

You will also want to create a good title and description. Take your time when you create these. You

want each to be key word rich, and the right length.

Once you've written your title, keywords, and description, then all you need to do is to create the

metatags for your web site. You'll find all the tools you need at Evrsoft -

http://www.evrsoft.com/

including a link popularity checker, submission to over 100 search engines, search engine analyzer,

and a metatag generator.

Once you have used the metatag generator to create your metatags, then all you have to do is paste it

into the header of your web page.

You will want to check your metatags first to make sure they aren't too long and are search engine

friendly. You'll find a metatag analyzer here:

http://www.scrubtheweb.com/abs/meta-check.html

This one is stricter than the one I use, but it works very well.

Let me emphasize here that this step is absolutely crucial to getting your site accepted. You would be

amazed at how many professionally done web sites skip this step.

3. Submit Your Site. Now that you have your site ready, you want to start submitting. You will use your

title, keywords, and description again here.

Here is your submission list:

Free

Alexa -

http://pages.alexa.com/help/webmasters/index.html#crawl_site

Google -

http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Open Directory

Project -

http://dmoz.org/add.html

Fast Submit -

http://www.evrsoft.com/fastsubmit/

- Submission to 100 of the top search engines.

(Caution here: some of these sites may ignore or ban you if you are a business site).

Paid

Google Ad Words -

http://services.google.com/marketing/links/ads_us/adwords/

- Pay

Per Click Inktomi -

http://www.inktomi.com

- Yearly Fee Per Url

LookSmart -

http://www.looksmart.com

Pay Per Click Overture -

http://www.overture.com

- Pay Per Click

4. Check to make sure you are listed. After about a month, you want to go back and make sure that

your site is listed in the appropriate search engine. The way to do this is to go to the search engine and

type in your domain name. You don't have to include the

http://www

to do this.

If you are not listed, then go to the next step.

5. Resubmit if Necessary. If your site is not in the search engine you have selected to search, then

resubmit your information for inclusion. It's important to remember that unless you are using paid

inclusions, it is up to the discretion of the search engine whether or not your site is listed.

Your chances of success will increase if you include some quality content on your site that is dense in

your key words. You also want to have as many quality links as possible. You can build your links by

contacting other webmasters who have sites that complement yours.

6. Reevaluate. If your search engine strategy isn't working, it's time for a change. However, you need

to consider that submitting to the search engines is a very long term strategy, and it isn't something

that will occur over night. Only if you are using pay per clicks can you see an increase in traffic almost

immediately.

For your free inclusions, you just want to make sure that you are included. Quality content and quality

links can help here in raising your rankings.

For paid inclusions, you want to make sure that you are getting the click thrus you need. Unlike free

inclusions, you should see results immediately. If you aren't getting enough traffic, consider changing

your key words. Good Keywords will help you here.

7. Stay Informed.

If you want to continue to use this strategy in your business, then you need to stay abreast of industry

happenings because things change so quickly.

The best place to get information on this constantly changing industry is here:

http://searchenginewatch.com/