search engine submission & optimization services
content The most important element in optimizing your website for the search engines and building traffic to your site is a well-designed site with good content. keywords Once you have well-written content that also meets the criteria for good sales copy, review your content for important keywords. Your keywords also need to reflect words or phrases people will actually use on the search engines to find your site and others like it. The more specific and targeted your keywords are, the more the search engine optimization elements will work together to provide better rankings. page titles After identifying the best keywords for each page within your site, each page needs to have a separate and distinctive title incorporating those keywords. meta tags Each page should be given a meta tag containing the description and keywords of the page. Meta tags are hidden fields that identify such things as description fields, keywords, author, copyright data and so on. Not every search engine makes use of the meta tags, but those engines will not penalize your use of the tags. Many search engines index your description and keyword meta tags and use them as part of the overall page ranking strategy. pulling it all together Your web pages need to have tightly focussed content and keywords: content that is relevant to the page title, description and keywords you have defined. Search engines check your content, especially the first 50 words of each page, to ensure that your title, description and keywords are present. The search engines, generally, then check your content for keyword density, that is, dividing the frequency of a specific keyword by the total words on a page. Keyword density is one of the major factors search engines use to determine relevancy; a higher keyword density is often deemed to be more relevant than pages with a lower keyword density. A word of caution, however, too high of a keyword density will be considered spamming by some search engines. A general rule of thumb is 1-5%. link popularity A final element that some search engines use for ranking your site is link popularity. This refers to other sites that have links back to your website. For example, if you write an article for a popular online newsletter with a link back to your site, that link from a popular site will, over time, increase your rankings and increase traffic to your site. Be forewarned: signing up for link programs can be beneficial, but be cautious in your use of such programs. You will only want to link to other websites that are relevant and reputable; every outside link to and from your website is a reflection on your company, its reputation and good name. More than all else, remember that a customer will not buy from you if there is a question of your trustworthiness. time, patience and tweaking Together with your web designer, or on your own if you are prepared to take on the challenges and effort, you should monitor your progress on the search engines. Periodically, your site should be monitored for its appearance on a search engine, your position based on selected keywords that visitors will most likely use to find you, and adjustments made. Seek out reputable sites to link to, and reciprocate when appropriate, and don't be afraid to change your content and copy to make the most of your website. And take note that this is by no means an exhaustive list of the elements involved in search engine optimization; it is an introduction to the most common elements used by search engine technology as it exists today. On the right-hand side are links to pages with more detailed information about each of these steps. Please read on for more information, or contact us any time by phone, fax or email for more information.
|
