Search Engine Tips and Tricks
Creating a website that is optimized properly for the maximum
benefit from search engines is difficult and confusing. Everything, from design
to copywriting to proper meta tags, can determine your success in a search
engine. We are well-versed in search engine optimization and offer you the
most comprehensive plan to make the most of search engines.
While planning your website, here are some tips and tricks
so you can provide us with the content that will help us help you! Click
on a topic below to read more about what is necessary to improve your ranking
on the major search engines.
Title Tags
The most crucial tag on EACH web page is the title tag. It
not only is used by most search engines to categorize your site, but is also
used as the title of the listing the search engine displays, in most cases.
The title tag, optimally, consists of between 50 and 80 characters and should
be structured much like a sentence, but should contain some of your most important
keyword phrases. It should draw the search engine users to your site and make
them want to visit your site. Each page should have its own unique title that
describes the contents on that page.
For example, Cedar Point's homepage carries the title:
"Cedar Point Amusement Park, The Roller Coaster Capital of the World!"
A subsequent page that deals with benefits for Cedar Point resorts guests
is entitled:
"Benefits for Cedar Point Resorts Guests, Resorts, Trips, Cedar Point"
The second title lists the contents of the page, the subject, the section
and the name of the amusement park and all within the 50 to 80 character/space
limitation.
Copywriting
The copy that is contained on your site is actually read by search
engines and used to categorize it. Having at least 200 words of
copy on each listed page makes your website more search-engine friendly.
Any page that is submitted must have content, the more, the better.
Keywords and keyword phrases should be interspersed throughout the copy to
make it more searchable. Also, a well-built site should always take advantage
of alternate text tags on graphics.
Do not compromise on this element of your site's structure. This step is second
only to the title tag in importance.
Meta Tags
Although important to the structure of a well-designed site, the
meta tags are not THE most important element of search engine optimization.
Most search engines rely on a combination of elements to determine how they
rank their listings. There are lots of meta tags. Some are unnecessary
code thrown in by software to identify the product used to create the site.
Others can reload the page a specific amount of times. However, there are two
meta tags that can assist with your ranking in the search engine.
Keywords and description meta tags appear
in the header of the page. These important tags need your attention if you
are going to rank well in the search engines.
The keywords tag should not exceed 1025 characters and spaces, and the description
meta should be within a 250-character/space limitation.
Choosing the right keywords is a fundamental part of website construction.
This step should never be compromised! The keywords you choose will be used
constantly throughout the search optimization. If your site cannot be found
by search engines, do you think your potential customers will find you?
Don't just sit down and make a list of words! Put some real thought into the
development of your keywords. Use short, descriptive phrases that target your
products, services, etc. There is a tremendous amount of competition for search
engine placement, so if you are too general with your keywords your site will
most likely be lost in the sea of other generalizations.
Remember, you are intimately involved in your business, and perhaps too close
to put yourself in the place of a potential customer who is searching for your
goods or services. What may be obvious to you may never enter the mind of your
potential site visitor. With that in mind, perhaps it would be helpful to ask
friends who are not involved in the business to help you with ideas of words
and phrases THEY would use to search for your type of business.
Once you have your keywords in mind, go to the major search engines and use
them to search for your competition. View the sources on the pages of your
competition to see what keywords they are using. This is NOT a step to gloss
over. The finest design in the world is useless if no one sees it.
Each page that you want to be listed on a search engine should have its own
set of keywords/keyword phrases.
The description meta tag should accurately describe the
focus of your web page and draw visitors into the site. Some search listings
truncate the description, so the most important words should be at the beginning
of your description.
Think of your business. How would you best describe what you do, sell, offer?
Be concise, but know that your ultimate goal is to make your website
Site Structure
Frames
Sites that are built with frames usually get poor listings in search engines
because of the inability of the search engines to index them properly. A framed
site only has the index page, in most cases, that can be submitted, and because
it "frames" all other pages there is no real content for the search engine
to categorize. The search engine sees a page of HTML coding in the frameset
page instead of the information it normally uses to categorize a site.
The best solution to this dilemma is to redesign the site without frames.
There are other work-arounds, but a frameless site is your best bet to a search-engine-friendly
website
Image Maps
An image map is a graphic with hot spot links mapped by code onto the image.
The code to create an image map often makes it difficult or impossible for
the the search engines to spider the site. Adding an alternative set of HTML
links on the same page often improves your listing on search engines.
Javascript
Search engines cannot follow links within a Javascript. Again, an alternative
set of HTML links can make the difference between getting spidered by the search
engines or not.
If and or all of these elements appear throughout your website, another good
assistance is to provide an HTML link from EACH page to a site map that consists
of simply text/HTML links.
Flash Sites
Macromedia Flash can add movement, sound and loads of interest to your website,
but when used improperly, it can also cause a problem with search engines.
Sites that use a "splash" home page made entirely from Flash are not indexed
by search engines. These pages have no searchable copy available to search
engine spiders, therefore they don't get indexed. Adding text copy and creating
good meta tags and a descriptive title tag can help.
Another barrier provided by Flash is that any links provided within the Flash
animation that are not also duplicated in HTML on the page are not followed
by spiders to your site. No sub-pages will be spidered if the search engine
cannot find them. A solution to this is to also add the links in HTML format
somewhere on the page.
Major NO-NOs
There are some things that should never be done when structuring a site for
maximum exposure through search engines. In the past most of these things have
been used to attempt to gain higher listings, but the site engine developers
got wise to the tricks and quickly put a stop to what they consider spam, or
trickery. We list them here to let you know that we are aware of how the search
engines react when they see such things and to show you that we will never
use any of these techniques in the structure of your website.
Do not try to hide text by making it the same color as the background. Search
engines usually view this as spam and blackball the site.
Do not try to trick the search engines. Search engine technology has gotten
very sophisticated, and if you can think of a way to trick the search engine,
it can find a way to detect your trickery and blackball your site.
Do not use keywords that don't relate to the content of your site. For example,
do not add "Britney Spears" to a website on plumbing supplies. (Don't laugh,
people do this! Search engines are wise to this.)
Duplicate pages with different filenames are viewed as spam. Don't do it!
Don't submit your homepage named "index.htm" and "mycompany.htm" with the identical
content. This will not work.
Don't use the critical search tags more than once on a page. Do not use the
title tag more than once...nor the description, keywords, etc. This is considered
spamming.
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