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>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Mike's Marketing
Tools is the leading review site for the very best internet
marketing tools for web marketers and webmasters.">
...
- If
you use a META REFRESH tag, make sure it is set to refresh
after 30 seconds.
<META
HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="30; URL=http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com">
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.
<BODY
onLoad="redirect()">
- 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.
- Register
a domain name with the exact keyword phrase you wish to
target, using hyphens to separate the keywords.
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:
<IMG
SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif">
- Include
an ALT (alternative text) atrribute in image tags. Include
the most important keyword phrases.
For example:
<IMG
SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif" ALT="search engine rankings.">
- 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>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="file-name.js"></SCRIPT>
</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.
Michael
Wong is a respected internet marketing expert, and the author
of a leading search engine optimization guide, numerous marketing
tips, and reviews of marketing tools and ecommerce software.
Visit his web site at http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com
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