Search Engines
With the multitude of new Web sites being created every day, there is increasing competition to appear on the first couple of pages of a search engine’s query list. According to studies by a leading multimedia marketing group:
"…if your Web site is not listed within the first three pages of choices on a search engine’s selectable database, there is only a 28% chance that your site will be selected. And if your site is not listed within the first seven pages of the search engine’s selectable database, you only have a 12% chance of being selected."
Although each
search engine uses a different ranking algorithm, there are general tactics that can be
used that will help your Web site improve its ranking. ImagiNET incorporates all of these
tactics when designing a Web site. Once your site is finished ImagiNET submits your site
using the Extensive Submit option to a possible 400 search engines and directories using
the world renowned Submit-It.com service. Important Note: ImagiNET has no control
of how your site will rank with a search engine or directory.
Designing an Effective Web site
One of the biggest problems with designing an effective site is that each search engine
has its own ranking algorithm. Therefore, although you site may rank well on one search
engine, it may not rank very highly on another. However, there are several areas that
should improve your ranking for search engines in general, and at worst should not harm
your search engine ranking.
1. Choose your TITLE carefully
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The title tag is probably the most important part of each Web page. |
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The majority of the search engines give keywords in the title the highest weight in their ranking algorithms. |
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All search engines show the title of the Web site when displaying the list of sites during a search. |
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Most search engines display equally ranked sites in alphabetical order. |
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If a user has a choice of two sites, one whose title relates to their keywords and one that does not, they will likely go to the one whose title relates to their keywords, even if your page is listed higher in the search engine ranking. |
2. Position your keywords properly
Make sure to include keywords at crucial locations on your Web pages. The most crucial is the TITLE (see above). Other crucial locations are the first 100-200 words on your main page and in the META tag area (see next item).
3. Use META tags
Although not all search engines use META tags for ranking, using these cannot hurt your Web site ranking. These META tags are placed in the header area of the Web page source code (inside the <HEAD>…</HEAD> tags at the top). There are many META tags, but the most important for search engine ranking are the "keywords" and "description" tags. The "keyword" tag lets you associate search terms with your site. The "description" tag lets you control the description that appears with your listing in a search engine (on most of the major search engines). Note: These META tags are invisible components that a user will not see when viewing a Web site.
4. Take advantage of keyword frequency
Frequency is another major factor in the search engine ranking algorithms. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a Web site. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other Web sites.
Note: Spamming includes such things as duplicating words hundreds of times in comments or in META tags, or including large numbers of words in a tiny font or in the same color as the background.All search engines penalize for spamming by lowering the site’s ranking or in extreme cases removing the Web site from their database.
Make your Web site Search Engine Friendly
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Search engines read the text on your Web site. If you have pages with lots of graphics and little text, chances are that they may not do well. Ensure the search terms important to you appear in the text of your Web site. |
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Make sure there is non-frame, non-image map way for search engines to enter your Web site. |
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How does your Web site compare to other similarly related sites? The easiest way to determine this is to put yourself in the shoes of someone trying to find a Web site similar to yours. Go to your favorite search engine(s) and enter three to five keywords that you think a person would use to access your site. Is your site in the top 10? Top 20? Top 100? |
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Is there an easier way to tell how your site is doing? There are several Web sites that perform a free service to determine how your site ranks, usually several search engines (i.e. RankThis! – www.rankthis.com; Scorecard – www.scorecard.com). You enter a certain number of keywords and your URL, and the service will determine where your URL ranks among major search engines using the input keywords. The two services mentioned above will also return the top 10 site using your entered keywords for each of the major search engines your check. |
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How many search engines/directories is your Web site submitted to? Who is responsible for submitting your Web site? Is this person competent and knows the ways of the Internet? Chances are no and your site is hurting because of it. |
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What are your competitors doing to get their pages so highly ranked? Analyze the source code of your competitors Web sites ranked higher than yours to determine what, if any META tags they are using and to see what other methods they are employing to improve their rankings. (To look at another pages source code, use your browser. Just click on View, then Source or Page Source.) |
Conclusions
Some of the best ways to improve your
ranking among the major search engines are:
| 1. | Use ImagiNET’s Extensive Submit option to submit your site to a possible 400 search engines and directories |
| 2. | Change the TITLE to incorporate keywords applicable to your site |
| 3. | Add a description and keywords that relate to the Web site in the META tag area of the page header |
| 4. | Re-submit updated information concerning your Web site on a regular basis |
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