How
to gain a good page ranking on the major
search engines
byPat
Quinn
What
is the secret for gaining a high page
ranking in the major search engines?
In essence, it's nothing more complicated
than doing what the search engines want
you to do. In other words, it's making
things easy for the robots when they
come crawling around your site.
Let's
talk first principles.
One.
The search engines don't operate for
the benefit of webmasters. Their main
function is to provide good information
to the public at large. This means that
any website you submit to them must
reach their 'good content' criteria.
Therefore, to achieve a high ranking,
it is imperative that your website has
better, more illuminating content than
your competitors.
Two.
Search engine robots are pretty rigid
in their approach to sites. The robot
crawls your HTML from top to bottom.
Given this, it is important that the
first stick of body copy it comes across
(the stuff your readers also see) contains
copy which is relevant to, and reflects:
(a) the Title of your web page and,
(b) the meta keywords and meta description
phrases contained in the <Head>
of your HTML.
To
put it simply, the first few lines of
copy will often be grabbed by the bots
and used as a description of your site
in their listing. So, if this copy says
nothing in particular about your products
or services, then you'll be banished
to page 97.
Three.
Some webmasters are obsessed by keywords.
They drive themselves nuts attempting
to coin exactly the right set of words
with which to describe their site. This
approach is essentially flawed. It's
not keywords you want, but key phrases.
Allow
me to explain. Let's say that you are
in the market for a good book on copywriting.
You open Google search and you type
in….what? Copywriting? Not really,
because that will result in approximately
one-and-a-half million entries from
copywriters looking for work. Thus,
the obvious thing is to type the phrase
Books on Copywriting, which will cut
the list to about half. But this list
will largely be relevant to what you
are looking for.
Research
shows that people generally use phrases
in their search requests - they rarely
employ a single word. It makes sense,
then, to populate your meta keywords
with phrases you feel people will employ
in their search for products or services.
And
the easiest way to figure out what key
phrases are optimal for your products,
is to ask yourself what phrases people
would use to find you, then try them
out on the search engines.
One
other point worth mentioning about keywords
and phrases is that some search engines
- Google, for instance - no longer take
them into account at all! On the other
hand, many others do. So it is generally
better to incorporate them.
Four. The title tag <Title> in
your website HTML is the phrase you
choose to name your site. The general
rule in framing your title is: 'what's
right for people is generally wrong
for search engines'. Essentially, you
should try to incorporate your major
key phrases into the title tag. Just
make a list of them and try to incorporate
them in the title.
The
fact is it really doesn't matter whether
your site title is a million miles away
from your own name, or the actual name
of your business. It's simply a device
for gaining the attention of the bots.
A
title tag can contain up to twenty words;
but more doesn't mean better. Eight
to twelve well chosen words is more
than sufficient. For best results, the
first (short) phrase of the title tag
should be geared towards the human reader,
while the remainder can be key words
aimed at the bot. Bear in mind that
the search engine will display only
the first few words of the title tag
anyway (whatever suits their house-style).
Five.
It's a terrible old cliché, but
with robots, you never get a second
chance to make a first impression. As
mentioned above, the crawler will grab
the first thing it comes across and
then use it to describe your site. Good
enough reason to make the very first
paragraph on your site as key-phrase
rich as you can. Indeed, the first para
should recap and enlarge upon all the
material in your title and meta tags.
All
right, this first paragraph also has
to be read by your visitors, so it has
to make sense. Writing this para so
that it is acceptable to both robot
and human is an art in itself. But perseverance
can pay large dividends insofar as search
engine placement is concerned.
In
addition, your opening para should be
designated by an <H1> paragraph
tag so that its importance is obvious
to the bot. If you hand-flog your HTML,
just drop in <H1> and </H1>
at front and back of the paragraph.
Six.
Now a word or two about how often you
should post your site to search engines.
Some authorities believe that if you
post too often, your efforts may be
seen as spam by the engines and you'll
be banned. On the other hand, it seems
to be the consensus that you should
post every time you make changes to
pages or add pages.
Generally
speaking, whenever you tweak your site
- particularly the index page, you should
post straight away. The search engines
seem to like changes and they react
accordingly by shoving you farther to
the front of the listings. The more
you do, the better they like it.
If
all of this leaves you somewhat cold,
not to mention baffled, you may be wiser
to employ a professional Search Engine
Optimizer. Somebody who knows what they
are doing. The modest cost could save
you a lot of heartache.
And
that's that. If this has been useful,
maybe you'll let me know. But if it
seems that I've been teaching you to
suck eggs, perhaps you'll let me know
that also.
Written
by Pat Quinn: http://www.search-engine-mechanics.co.uk
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