Beginner's
guide for getting high search engine ranking
By Susan Miller, 550Access (www.550Access.com)
Search
engines have increasingly gained prominence in influencing
user behavior. Both generic and specialized search engines
enable users to get directed to relevant websites in the
most efficient, fast and integrated manner. The immediate
consequence for webmasters is a strong proportion between
the search engine placements and user traffic.
Improving
rankings in search engines requires considerable understanding
of how search engines work, how they order results and how
you can use this information to optimize your website to
improve your ranking. What follows is a preliminary guideline
to get you started.
Understanding
Search Engines
First
of all you need to know how search engines work. A search
engine builds its database either by getting list submissions
from webmasters or by using software robots. In the case
of former, the database is often built manually. On the
other hand, “Robot” or “Spiders”
are programs that browse through the web and store links
and information about the pages that they visit.
The
manually indexed search engines are obviously harder to
manipulate, however they are also very few in number compared
to their Spider-indexed counterparts such as “Google”,
“Yahoo”, “Alta Vista”, etc. The
way a spider indexes and ranks a website is very much dependent
on what information it receives from your website and how
you have designed the site. Therefore it is essential to
develop your website keeping in mind the search engine placements
instead of doing a corrective job afterwards.
Keywords
Your
website is indexed by search engines on the basis of your
key words. When a search engine sends a spider to your web
site, it determines that pages' keywords by counting the
words on the web page it is visiting. The words that appear
most frequently or considered most significant (Words that
are mentioned towards the top of a document and words that
are repeated several times throughout the document are more
likely to be considered important.) become your keywords.
When a user searches for a particular term, the ranking
of your site in the results would depend on the weight of
that search term on your site.
Therefore
it is very important to judge the keywords on your site
by understanding what phrases or words users would most
use to perform the search. To help you get this information,
there are keyword research tools available on the web which
enable you to find out how often any phrase is searched
for on a search engine.
Creating
copy for the website
Once
you have listed the keywords you would use, you need to
create the copy for your website. As much as it is important
to use your keyword as many times as possible on a page,
you should also pay attention to how the text sounds when
read by user. Overstuffing the text with keywords will not
only confuse or put-off a visitor but you might also get
identified as a “spammer” by search engines
and your website removed from the database.
A
thumb rule is to have a keyword every 12 words of text and
minimum of 100 words of text on the page. You can have more
than one keyword for a page but that also reduces the individual
importance of each keyword. It is advisable to use your
keyword as the first word on your page.
Many
search engines index websites by the meta tags in the documents'
HTML. The "title" and the "description"
meta tags are often used by search engines in indexing.
It is essential to use your keyword in the title tag. Use
relevant words in keyword meta tags such as synonyms of
your keyword, or words directly relevant to your page.
Optimizing
Page Content
Tables:
Spiders do not have a problem reading the content of tables,
however if you use nested tables, it makes it difficult
for spiders to navigate through your website.
Frames:
Frames always pose difficulty for spiders. Some spiders
are absolutely unable to read frames pages, while others
see only the master page and therefore will not be able
to read complete webpage because of which your website will
not be indexed properly.
Graphics:
Do not clutter your webpage with graphics. Not only these
are not read by spiders and reduce space for text but also
affect the speed of loading of the page which often turns
off the visitors.
Flash:
Most spiders are unable to index Flash content or follow
their navigation links. Flash should be an optional link
with a duplicate spider-friendly HTML page.
Password-protected
page: Spiders cannot enter password-protected pages.
JavaScript:
Search engines are unable to read java script and JavaScript
should be placed as an option for visitors, similar to use
of Flash.
Site
Submission
You
can go for either free or paid submissions. Obviously, a
paid submission will get your site indexed faster than the
free submission which might take anywhere upto 4 months.
In case of paid submissions, you have to pay for each page
that you wish to get listed. A better way is to pay for
basic presence, i.e. get your main page listed till the
time that other pages are indexed by regular “free”
spiders.
Outside
Links
Number
and relevancy of outside links significantly affects the
ranking of your website by search engines, and even helps
you get your website indexed faster. If a site that has
a link to yours is already indexed, the spiders visiting
that site will follow the link to your website. You can
build links to your website in several ways such as Link
exchange or reciprocal linking, requesting addition of your
url to informational sites or directories relevant to the
subject of your site, and Affiliate programs.
About
the Author
Susan
Miller is a Marketing Manager at 550 Access (www.550Access.com),
a nationwide Internet Service Provider that is leading the
market in the “budget ISP” category via competitive
pricing, extensive network and value added services.
Susan
is actively involved in defining and executing online marketing
programs for 550 Access and can be contacted at susan@550Access.com.
|
