|
|
Getting Your Site Seen By Search Engines
Is your website listed on search engines? When people search for you, does your site show up on page 1 or page 20 of the search engine results?
Optimizing your site to get it ranked highly on the search engines can be a complicated subject. To simplify things, it's helpful to first understand how search engines add sites to their database. Then we'll cover some tips that you can put on your own website that will help you to get listed on search engines and get a higher ranking.
The Major Players
Let's start off with the major search engines, the ones that most people use. Google is the most widely used search engine with Yahoo and MSN searches following close behind. While there are thousands of search engines, it's always a good idea to start with submitting your website to the three largest. Why? Because 95% of all searches go through either Google, Yahoo or MSN.
Who Is Powered by Whom?
Many search engines do not have their own database, but rely instead upon data supplied by someone else. This is important to know so that you can submit your site to the most popular search engine databases first. For example, AOL Search and Yahoo Search get data from Google, while MSN and HotBot get some data from Inktomi.
How Search Engines Read Your Site
There are two ways search engines read your site: automated (crawlers) and human-entered (directories). Crawlers follow the links found on your site and enter your site into their search database based on text they find on your pages. This text is either found on your public pages, or the text keywords found in behind-the-scenes "meta tags". The amount of your keywords found on your page, the more weight it has with the search engines and the higher your ranking. But in case you think you can load your page with keywords in order to fool the search engine, think again. Search engines are smart and you can be penalized for "spamming" keywords on your website. Major crawlers include Google, AltaVista and Inktomi.
Human Directories are few and far between. Just imagine hiring enough people to research the millions of website on the Internet! It's no wonder they're steadily being replaced by automated crawlers. Yahoo is one of the most famous human directories, where real people actually evaluate your site and categorize it in their database directory. More and more these search engines are relying on partial automation for categorizing and listing new sites in the search engine database. In addition, getting your listing in a Directory for free can take months. Some human directories are charging a fee for business sites to be included in their directory.
How Search Engines Index and Rank Your Site
Search engines use several techniques to determine which category your site belongs in and what keywords or key phrases people will use to find your site when using the search engine.
When submitting your site to search engines, they will ask you four things: the title of your site, a short description of your site, your keywords or key phrases (what words or phrases people typically use to search for sites like yours) and what category your site belongs in. Then they will often crawl your site, checking to see if the keywords/key phrases you supplied match the text on your website. And remember, you will be penalized for spamming your keywords and rank LOWER because of it. Also it's important to note that search engines can not read the text in graphics, so if you are using a graphic-based navigation or have your keywords on a graphic next to your logo, the search engine will not notice it.
Some search engines will rank your site based on your title, description and keywords that are supplied behind-the-scenes in special coding called "meta tags." While not every search engine will read meta tags, it certainly can't hurt to use them. Again, there are rules: your Title meta tag can't be more than 100 characters, your Description meta tag can't be more than 250 characters, and your Keyword meta tag can't be more than 1,000 characters. And anti-spamming of keywords applies to meta tags as well ? no more than six instances of the same word in your Keyword meta tag or you'll be penalized by the search engine. For example, if my key phrases include "business coach," "starting a business," and "small business coach," that counts as two uses of the word "coach" and three uses of the word "business".
Submitting Your Site to Search Engines
Once your site is primed and ready for the search engines, then you have to submit it to them. You have two choices: either go to each search engine and submit your site individually, or use a search engine submission tool. Remember that the majority of searchers use either Google, Yahoo or MSN, so consider submitting to those first. You'll often find a link on their main page where you can add a site to their search engine. If you want to automate the process, use an automated submission tool. Make sure the submission search tool you select will analyze your site to tell you if you're really ready to submit, then submit your site to the top search engines for you.
Preparing your site for submission to search engines can feel like a daunting task. With these tips in mind, you'll save yourself a lot of time and frustration when it comes time to submitting your site and rank higher in search results.
See you on the Internet!
About The Author
Karyn Greenstreet is a Small Business Coach and Self Employment Expert with 23 years of self-employment and computer industry experience. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to create and grow their businesses, stay focused and motivated, and perform at their peak. Visit her website at www.PassionForBusiness.com
Paris Hiltons Reputation is SHOT! Hows Yours?
With apologies for the cheap trick of mentioning Paris Hilton to get your attention, coming to grips with the idea you're about to discover is critically important to your success with search engines!
10 Minutes to Your Google Sitemap
Google's calling your name...
Easy Web Tips
How can you be found on the web?
Five Tips for Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization sounds so daunting for most young companies. Who has time for dealing with metatags and keyword density when you're trying to get a company off the ground? Below is a simple list of five things you can easily do to improve your visibility on search engines.
Search Bots, Crawlers, and Spiders
If you are a webmaster and you review your logs, often you will see a bunch of really strange hits. They aren't humans, you can't tell their operating system or their browser! Who are these pesky little creatures who rummage around the internet all the time?
Creating A Search Engine Copywriting Plan
Search engine copywriting has become an extremely important part of the overall search engine optimization process. However, in addition, search engine copywriting has developed into a misunderstood craft.
META Tags Explained and How To Use Them For Ranking
The META tags are used to provide extra information about a web page. There was once a time where a good search engine ranking could be achieved by simply changing the value of the META tags. However these days are long gone. Nowadays the META Tags are decreasing in importance in the eyes of the search engines who are using more sophisticated methods of ranking pages (namely link popularity, optimized anchor text).
Affordable Small Business SEO: 5 Common SEO Errors and How to Fix Them
Don't put the cart before the horse.
Guide to Search Engine Optimization
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Playing in Googlebots Sandbox with Slurp, Teoma, & MSNbot - Spiders Display Differing Personalities
There has been endless webmaster speculation and worry about the so-called "Google Sandbox" - the indexing time delay for new domain names - rumored to last for at least 45 days from the date of first "discovery" by Googlebot. This recognized listing delay came to be called the "Google Sandbox effect."
Do It Yourself SEO
Internet surfers use search engines more than any other tool to find things online. Search engines rank their results using a complex formula that considers web page content, link popularity and other details. This is why you should Search Engine Optimization (SEO) your web site.
Winning the Search Engine Wars!
Creating and building effective Search Engine marketing campaigns is like trying to nail jello to the wall! The challenge can be daunting to many, requiring very specialized knowledge of process that must be blended with unique and disparate technology. Here is some insight gained from years of experience providing these services to clients.
10 Basic Rules for Where to Place Your Keywords
First of all, Google and most other search engines do NOT look at the META keyword tag. Many people say not to bother with it, but I use the META keyword tag and I place my keyword phrases in it. Here's why. I use this tag to help me remember what keyword phrases I am optimizing the page for. You'll find this to be a big help later when you have a lot of pages and have forgotten what keyword phrases you were trying to optimize the page for in the first place.
PageRank for Websites: Is There More to the Web?
Google's PageRank has been around for years, and in the opinions of a lot of e-business owners, it can make or break a site. Lately, with Google's fingers in every pie, it seems important to remind everyone that there is more to a website than just PageRank. PageRank is a term that relates to the algorithm that Google uses to rank a website in its search engine. Coined by Larry Page, one of the engineers of Google, PageRank has come to mean so much to webmasters and SEO's that it dictates how we market a website. But let me coin a few terms of my own. (Or, borrow them from others, perhaps?) And while some of these concepts are included in the PageRank algorithm themselves, it's often helpful to be reminded that there are many factors that a webmaster should concentrate on, and not just one overwhelming aspect. It bothers me that Google's toolbar's PageRank indicator "measures the IMPORTANCE" of a page; important to them, perhaps, especially in light of the release of the Google Toolbar for Firefox on July 7th. But lack of PageRank doesn't mean that your site isn't important. So how do you let the search engines, Google in particular, know that? This article is a collection of the phrases that indicate the behavior of search engines today.
Are Search Engines Worth It Any More?
The "Number One" Question - the question that I (and probably every other Internet marketing expert on the planet) am most frequently asked:
Ranked #1 at Google for Invisible Entrepreneurs But No Traffic?
I am ranked #1 for that silly phrase at Google. So What?
SEO For Ecommerce
Ranking well under the free listings in the major search engines basically mean one thing ? Lots of free, recurring, and targeted traffic. Major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN can be very powerful weapons in your internet marketing, if you know how to optimize your website to rank highly for your keywords. This article will focus on how you can optimize your website to rank on the top positions in search engines.
So, Where Has Your Search Engine Been Today?
Visit Google, Yahoo, MSN or one of the lesser search engines, and you get a few million results for just about any search term. Despite this impressive depth of results, most users consider only a few of the WebPages being pointed to. A lot of research indicates that most searchers exit search engine result pages to visit one of the top three results. That raises the question: What about the remaining million plus results?
How and Why to Avoid the SEO Mania
The Why
Search Engine Optimization Tips For 2005 - Part Two
Welcome to the second part of our series of articles on search engine optimization. In the previous article we discussed keywords, domain names, content and keyword density issues. This article moves past that to the nitty gritty of improving your web pages and website for better search engine rankings.