|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Because search engine optimization is a very broad subject,
it is impossible to cover all of it in just one page. While this solution has many
benefits, it also causes problems. It makes it easy to get lost in the details and fail to
see the big picture. In short, there's the danger of not being able to see the forest from
the trees.
The purpose of this article is to collect all the theoretical information on this
site and turn it into practical suggestions. I'll attempt to list most of the various
factors that determine the ranking of a page in search engines and estimate their
importance or weight.
Rather than giving engine-specific advice, this article will outline a strategy that should work fairly well with all of them. Optimizing your site with this kind of "middle ground" approach is a good choice, especially if you aren't an experienced SEO.
First, let's look at how the content of your page affects its ranking. Since you control the appearance of your pages, influencing the factors listed below is relatively easy. Due to that fact, page content only has a limited role in most algorithms. Yes, it is important, but reaching the top without paying attention to off-page criteria as well is extremely hard.
Currently, the title is probably the most significant part of your page as far as search engines are concerned. No search engine optimization process is complete until you've added your keyword to the <TITLE> tag.
Usually it is best to place the keyword phrase to the beginning of the title. Short titles containing around 3-6 words seem to be generally preferred by search engines. In longer titles, the keyword easily gets lost in the "noise", which causes the ranking of the page to drop.
If you're going for a two or three-word phrase, try to keep it together for maximum effectiveness. "Search engine optimization by Rajiv" beats "Rajiv is a search engine expert and optimization guru", if your keyword phrase is "search engine optimization".
The most challenging part is creating a title that is visitor-friendly and keyword rich at the same time. Not only is the title seen by those who visit the page, but it is also clearly displayed when the page appears in the search results.
Titles that are simply collections of keywords in bizarre order can get you to the top of the search results. However, they also tend to keep people from clicking your listing. It's hard, but try to strike a balance between search engines and humans to get the best results.
<H1> and <H2> headings also carry a lot of weight. While often ignored, they're a very effective search engine optimization tool. Their largest drawback is their large size, which makes it difficult to use a <H1> heading on some pages.
CSS can be used to reduce the size of headings, but only with great care. Extreme measures, such as the use of { display: none }, may get you banned.
Generally, I attempt to create headings that contain only the most vital keyword(s) and nothing else. This isn't always easy, as the heading must also make sense to those who read the page. Simply stuffing keywords inside the tag in random order is not going to cut it.
A well-optimized title and a good heading won't do much, unless the page also contains some keyword-rich body text. Preferably, your document should contain several occurrences of the keyword.
As many search engines place more weight to words found at the top of the page, so it's also very important that your keyword appears there. Again, you'll also need to make your writing seem natural. Nobody wants to read a page that is just one big list of keywords.
Using the keyword in bold, italics, underlined or in outgoing link text can also provide a minor boost. However, because it influences the readability of the document, be careful with this one as well.
Just like with the title and heading, keeping long keyword phrases together in your body text is a must. However, if you can't do so, splitting the phrase up is better than not using it at all.
What about the number of keywords in body text? How often should you repeat it? If you're aiming at a 2-word keyphrase, start at somewhere around 1-3 instances per 100 words of text. Note that the 100-word figure includes all very commonly used words (I, he, what and so on).
The importance of meta tags has dwindled so much that many search engine optimization experts have completely stopped using them. Google completely ignores meta tags and other search engines don't place much weight on them either.
While the keyword tag is beginning to become fairly useless, the description tag isn't entirely dead yet. It still enables you to control the descriptions of your pages in FAST, Teoma and some other engines. Use it and strive to write an inspiring description that draws people to your pages.
Today, a large part of search engine optimization work involves manipulating off-page criteria. It is perhaps somewhat harder than influencing on-page criteria, but still far from impossible.
The number one rule of improving your off-page criteria is to have a great site. Good sites attract more links, which boosts their link popularity. They also have an advantage in search engines that use click popularity, because users are likely to spend more time on a site that isn't half-bad.
Here's some straight talk for you: Without good link popularity, your pages will never be able to compete under popular keywords. Having plenty of sites to point to your pages is extremely important for your ranking, especially in Google.
Yes, it's possible to compensate for a lack of links to a degree. Use all of the search engine optimization tricks listed above and you'll probably be able to beat pages that have more link popularity but are badly optimized. However, when your competitor has 6,000 on-topic links and you have six, no amount of optimization is going to make you pass him in the search results.
Thus, you'll need to build links in every way you can think of. Exchange reciprocal links, encourage your visitors to link to you, write newsletter articles and so on. Just try to make sure that when someone links to a page on your site, the link text includes your most important keyword. One more reason to include keywords in the headings and titles of your pages.
Keyword optimization, the art of choosing the correct keywords, is one of the most important things related to search engine optimization. Sadly, it's also one of the things people tend to spend too little time on. They think up a few keywords quickly, optimize their pages a bit and then submit them to the engines. This usually results in not-so-good rankings under keywords that are poorly related to the site in question.
Before you start optimizing your site for the search engines, you should spend some time in figuring out exactly what keywords, or what keyphrases, you are going to target. Search engines are an excellent source of traffic, but in order to utilize them to their full potential, some effort is required.
What you should do is not to rush things. Sit down, open up your favorite text editor in one window and your site in another. Read through the first page of your site. When you have read it, stop to think. What is this page about? Which of the words that appear in the document describe the contents of the page accurately? What kind of words or phrases would someone use if he was using a search engine and trying to find documents like this?
When you have found the answers to these questions, write down the words and the phrases you have come up with. It doesn't matter if the list becomes too long, as you can always remove some of the excess words later.
When I do keyword optimization, I usually select one or two medium-popular keywords or phrases per page. These are my main targets, and I optimize heavily for them. Then I squeeze a few less common phrases and words into the body text, hoping that they will help the page to come up on some obscure multi-word searches.
Repeat this process for every page on your site. You should be able to create an individual, distinct list of keywords for each page. The different lists should not "compete" with each other, instead each should cover different areas. This does not however mean that there shouldn't be any similarities between your lists - it's perfectly OK to have some, but the lists shouldn't be 100% identical. It is better to have 20 good listings on different search terms than 20 good listings on the same one.
So, now you have your lists ready. The next thing would be to go to Overture's (GoTo) keyword suggestion tool and type in the different keywords and phrases you've come up with. The tool will tell you how many times each keyword and each phrase was searched at Overture during the last month. It won't tell you exactly how popular different words are, since the statistics contain only the searches executed at Overture, but it will give you a general idea.
Because Overture's data is not always 100% accurate, you may also want to visit WordTracker. The service is not free, but the trial option offers a chance to search for good keywords without having to pay a dime. By using both Overture and WordTracker and comparing what they think about the popularity of different keywords, you should be able to separate the words people search for from those that are rarely used.
If some of the words you were planning to select aren't commonly used in searches, you might want to consider dropping them from your list. If other words look like they are used quite a lot, then it might be a good idea to consider adding them. But remember to...
By now, your list is probably pretty full of very competitive, single-word terms such as "MP3" or "books" or "computers" or whatever. Scratch them. This might sound harsh, but if you're a novice, you have no chance of achieving a top listing under such terms. Even many (dare I say most) professionals tend to avoid them, as they are extremely competitive. There are hundreds of thousands of sites targeting them and even with excellent search engine optimization skills, they are very tough to conquer. What you should do is to narrow it down a little.
Think about different variations of these popular keywords. If you were originally thinking about the keyword "books", how about "buy used books online" or "antique bookstore"? These terms would be, not easy, but easier to rank well under. It is far better to be in the top 10 for a search term with medium usage than to rank 500th for a heavily used term. Select keyphrases that do get searched, but that aren't too competitive.
You might also want to target common misspellings, if some of the keywords related to your site are often spelled wrong . Unfortunately, it is hard to efficiently target misspellings without damaging the authority of your site. Would you buy anything from a person that can't even spell the name of his merchandise? Didn't think so.. So, be careful with those misspellings.
At this point, you should have completed your keyword optimization process and now possess a pretty good list of medium-popularity keyword phrases for each of your pages.
Steps which will be taken by us to optimize your website to make it search engine friendly. |
|
|
|
|
| Home | Analysis | Submission | Reporting | Prices | List of Search Engines | Demo of Analysis | |
| Acceptable Policy | Terms of Service | Submit your website | | About us | Our office | Contact Us | |
