Search Engine Optimization Tips

Search Engine Optimization Tips and FAQ's

'Go it alone' Tutorial

Beginners Tips:

Q. What is 'search engine optimization' or 'ranking' or 'positioning', and how is it important?

Effective search engine optimization and ranking can result in a significant amount of visitors and prospects who find your web site following searches performed on one of the Internet search engines. Internet Search engines are the most common tool for finding products, services or information on the Web. High ranking on the top engines is critical for your web business. Optimization of your pages against your important keywords is the essential first step toward search engine ranking. Most people or businesses that have an Internet presence do so because they want to be visible, search engines provide this visibility by delivering your site to targeted prospects who are searching the Internet for products/services that match yours. Statistically, when someone finds your site through a search engine, they are three times more likely to purchase goods/services than had they found you from any other advertising means. Therefore to be successful you must invest time into search engine optimization, and developing high ranking pages for your web site.

Q. How do I get my site ranking high on the search engines?

A. In order for a web page or site to be found from a search, it must first be indexed, that is a record of it's existence made by the search engine in it's extensive library or data base of pages. To have a site indexed by the search engines, the site URL or address must be individually submitted to each search engine. They are then programmed to examine the pages of a site (sometimes called spidering) and record specific information about the site, in a manner that permits them to rank your pages and perform easy retrieval of the relevant pages when called to do so during a user search. Each search engine has a unique way of ranking your pages. You must understand how each engine works, then structure your pages in a specific way, optimized for the keywords you are targeting.

Search engine terminology:

Some popular search terms and their meanings:

Search engine 'Ranking': - having your web site optimally prepared for high search positions with the leading search engines

Search engine 'Positioning' - same as the above.

Search engine 'Listing' - same as the above.

Search engine 'optimization' : - same as the above.

Search engine 'submissions': - The process of submitting your site to the search engines, and having it indexed

Keywords - words and phrases that people are likely to use to find your products/services -details on keyword selection

Q. What are the so called 'leading engines'?

A

LookSmart (directory) - Yahoo (directory) - Open (directory) -

AOL - Alta-Vista - Web Crawler - Overture PPC

MSN - HotBot - Google

Netscape - Lycos -Excite

Canada.com - IWon.com

Fast/AllTheWeb PPC

95% of all searches are performed on one of the above.

Q. why so much fuss about how my site looks?

A. Your web site should portray a professional image of your organization. It should be easy to navigate, accurate, informative and interesting. It should provide information quickly, without having to wait for slow loading images and without having to spend too much time searching for information.

Q. Shouldn't my web designer know how to make the site rank well?

A. In most cases not. This isn't to sound disparaging against web masters and designers. Search ranking is a 'specialized' subject and not within the portfolio of services offered by most web designers.

Q. How do I know if my site will rank high without having to wait for the search engines to index it?

A. Many sites have design techniques that will severely impede your progress in the search engine rankings. They employ certain techniques designed to enhance the viewers experience but in doing so can place a barrier to the search engine spiders trying to access information from within your site. Some 'tell-tale' signs to look for:

1 - Does your web site use 'Navigation Frames? (these are areas of a page that remain static when you use scroll-bars to move up/down the page)

2 - Does your web site use Macromedia Flash Software extensively? (animated graphics software)

3 - Does your site make extensive use of Java, particularly for loading navigation buttons, or are your hyperlinks embedded in JavaScript? (do your navigation buttons change color or blink when you move the mouse over them, if so they possibly use Java to control this feature)

4 - Do any of your pages automatically redirect viewers to another page or another web site?

If you answered yes to any one of the above questions, or if someone with knowledge of HTML has NOT checked that the opening code on your pages is correctly formatted, for example, HTML and <HEAD> tags correct, Meta Tags listed in the correct order, closing </HEAD> tag used, and correctly formatted comment tags , then you may have some search engine problems with your site.

Another issue that can effect your rankings is with 'free hosted' web sites.

Free host sites like Geocities can play havoc with search engines. Most of these Free-host sites place advertising banners at the top of your pages, and use a script that rotates the banners in a continuous 'scrolling' sequence. These scripts can prevent successful indexing of your site content by the search engines and can significantly impact on your search rankings. Perform some searches on sites like Google and AltaVista to see if other sites that use the same free host server as yours are listed well. If they are not, you should move to a conventionally hosted server immediately (paid hosting).

Following on from the list of things to look for in the design of your web site:

1 - Your web site uses navigation Frames.

Navigation frames present a 'closed door' to search engines unless they are properly prepared. You must provide a navigation path from your home page (preferably) into all of your main framed pages that contain your text content. Some search engines will then index the main content page without the navigation frames, so you must have a link from each content page that restores the framed section of the page. This gets rather complicated at this point, so if you require the full text on this explanation, contact us.

Do not skip over the frames issue because it is 'too hard'. You must prepare your frames properly or be prepared to sit at the bottom of the search engine heap forever!

As a minimum you must always include a 'noframes' page with descriptive text and links into your main site. Some search engines will crawl the 'noframes' page and use the information in ranking your site.

3 - Your web site uses Macromedia Flash Software.

Macromedia Flash is a great 'visual impact' tool that allows you to create stunning animated graphics and text displays without creating excessively large file sizes. You must however remember that search engines cannot read the text within a Flash 'Movie' or within any other image files like GIF's or JPEG's. So if your designer has chosen to create animated sequences that also contain text, then that text is invisible to the search engines. Also, Flash can be used to create navigation links between pages. When this is the case you should create duplicate 'hidden' navigation links in regular HTML, as search engine spiders will not be able to follow links in Flash Movies.

4 - Your site has hyperlinks or navigation buttons that use Java.

Many search engines will not be able to follow the navigation link if it is embedded in a script. This can shut-off whole sections of your site from the search engines, rendering your important descriptive pages un-indexable. We have seen some sites containing 100 or more pages where only the index page could be crawled by the search engines.

The simple solution is to create duplicate links from your home page to all key content pages of your site, using hidden navigation if you prefer. Also. cross-link your content pages one to another, this will give you a better chance of having more pages indexed.

5 - Your pages redirect viewers to another page on your site or another web site.

Some sites use the Meta 'Refresh' Tag for legitimate reasons to redirect viewers as required. Search engines in some cases will penalize you for using refresh tags, and you may appear lower in their ranking. If you must use them, set the refresh time to 16 seconds or more. If this is not practical then add a 'robot exclusion' tag to the origin page, and create a hidden navigation link from the origin page to the destination page. The robot exclusion tag looks like this <meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW"> and the meta refresh tag looks like this <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0;URL=http://www.another-domain.com/path/filename.html">

Other points to check:

The correct sequence of opening HTML for all your pages is as follows:

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>Up to 64 characters, use keywords, don't repeat them</TITLE>

<META HTTP-EQUIV="description" CONTENT="Up to 200 characters, use keywords, don't repeat them, try and be grammatically correct">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="keywords" CONTENT="Up to 1000 characters, use plurals/upper/lower case, do not repeat words more than twice, present synonyms, try to use words that appear on the page with the exception of synonyms">

<META content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv=Content-Type>

<META HTTP-EQUIV="rating" CONTENT="General">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="revisit-after" CONTENT="31 days">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">

</head>



These are some of the key issues that could be impeding your progress with the search engines, and may be resulting in poor rankings for your site.

Remember that search engine ranking or 'positioning' is a science not a lottery, though it may feel like a lottery at times. Search engines use complex algorithms to rank pages. By examining a cross-section of top ranking pages, and knowing exactly what to look for, it is possible to 'reverse engineer' the code on these pages and construct a new 'high-ranking' page for any client, against any search term on any search engine. All it takes is knowledge, experience, time and the right tools.

If you need help with your site then TopWebPromotion are the right choice.

We have a range of services that can be ordered directly through our web site following the links below.

Premium Ranking Service (inquire) For those sites in extremely competitive categories that require optimal search engine exposure. Inquire about options/pricing. Premium

If you have any questions or comments about the above, we would like to hear from you - Contact