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How to Achieve High Rankings in the Search Engines
~ by Sue Doughty
studio1webdesign.com
A frequent question asked is "Why do some
people achieve a high search engine positioning and get plenty of traffic
while others do not? Simple. The people who have high search engine
positions in the major search engines selected keywords that many people are
searching with and placed those keywords in the body of their content
correctly. This is what is known as search engine optimization or keyword
optimization.
Search engine optimization will be one of the most important investments you
will make. Whether you decide to take on the project yourself or hire a
professional service, we highly recommend search engine optimization before
you submit to the search engines.
Keywords: Do's and Don'ts
Here are some tips on how to optimize your web pages and achieve high search
engine rankings for your web pages using keywords, meta tags2 and effective
copy writing. This article is best suited for the webmaster or the author of
the web site content. It is usually the webmaster who is responsible
for making sure that pages are search engine ready. This article contains
web page code snippets (SHOWN IN THIS TYPEFACE) given as examples to follow.
Although this article is technical in nature, it is vital to anyone who
wants to achieve a high search engine ranking.
Use of Keywords
Keywords and keyword phrases must occur often and near the beginning of the
TITLE tag, the DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS meta tags and the BODY of your web
pages. The more frequent the keywords appear and the nearer they appear to
the beginning of the tags and pages, the greater the chance of achieving
high search engine positioning.
The tags that are most important for page optimization are (in the
following order):
1. The TITLE tag
Example: <TITLE>Plumbing Supplies Company</TITLE>
This is the most important tag on your web page. It should begin with the
most important search phrase users will enter to find your site. It is more
important than the content and it is more important than the description or
keywords meta tags. Users searching for "plumbing supplies" will stand a
greater chance of finding your site using the above title than if it were:
<TITLE>Plumbing Supply Company</TITLE>
2. The DESCRIPTION meta tag
Example: <META NAME="description" CONTENT="Plumbing supplies for
home and industry.">
Use a plain English sentence of no more than 40 words for your description.
Again, the description should begin with the most important keywords. Search
engines will often use the contents of this tag to display results of a
search. If there is no description meta tag then the search engine will
attempt to build one from the content at the top of the body of the page.
Words like "Back Next Products Support" won't mean anything to users reading
search results. Also do not use a list of keywords as a description. Search
engines will see this as an attempt to achieve a high ranking and will
probably penalize you and your site may appear much lower on the list as a
result.
3. The KEYWORDS meta tag
Example: <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="plumbing supplies,
plumbers supplies, plumbers pipes, valves, pipe wrenches">
Although the keywords meta tag is important, most search engines will derive
keywords from the actual content of web pages. Nevertheless, you
should include the keywords meta tag in all pages you want indexed. Do not
"spam" the search engines by repeating keywords. If you do you will most
likely be penalized with a lower ranking or even banned altogether.
Additionally, only use keywords that appear in the actual content of
the page. If the search engines detect that you are trying to score a
high ranking by using keywords that have nothing to do with the content of
the page then you risk being penalized or banned.
4. ALT tags for images
Example: <IMG SRC="logo.gif" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="50"
ALT="Plumbing Supplies Logo">
Although having a lesser importance than the above tags, the <ALT> tag
should also be used to achieve sufficient keyword density.
Keyword Density and Copy Writing
Keywords and keyword phrases must occur often and near the top the body of
your web pages to be indexed. The more frequent the keywords appear and the
nearer they appear to the beginning of the page, the greater the chance of
high search engine placement. Effective use of keywords in the body of the
page is the second most important factor for high search engine placement.
As discussed above the <TITLE> tag is the most important.
The Home Page is The Most Important Page
The home page should contain the greatest concentration of keywords. If a
user searches for "plumbing supplies" make sure that the phrase "plumbing
supplies" appears on the home page. Search engines will list in order
of importance all the sites having content related to the search phrase
entered by the user. If the phrase "plumbing supplies" appears in one
of the pages of your site, then the search engines will place a greater
importance on your site and it will stand a much greater chance of getting a
higher ranking if the phrase also appears on the home page.
The goal of the webmaster is to discover the best keywords to use in your
content and meta tags. Try to figure out the search words and phrases users
would enter to find your site.
Don't Use an Image for the Body of Your Page
Since search engines use the actual content (words) of your page as a basis
for indexing, never use an image as the main content of your page. Doing so
will reduce your chances of high search engine positioning.
Use Search Phrases
Using the above tags as a guide, a user may type "plumbing supplies" in a
search engine. This is a search phrase because it is more than one word.
Most users use search phrases or keyword combinations, not single words.
Do Not Use Hidden Text
Never attempt to hide text to achieve greater keyword density by making it
the same color as the background or use any similar "trick" to fool the
search engines. Doing so only risks your site being banned from the search
engines. Always be up front and straightforward in your web page design.
Never attempt to hide anything from the search engines. These tricks usually
backfire.
1 keywords The words users enter into search engines to find web
pages with content they are looking for.
2 meta tags Content in a web page that the search engines can see
but are not usually seen by the user when the page is viewed on the
Internet. It is common to include a meta tag with a list of KEYWORDS to help
the search engines properly categorize it. Two other important meta
tags are the TITLE and DESCRIPTION tags described in this article.
3 tags Web pages are written in a format in which the text is
"tagged" with codes that the browser can read. These tags tell the
browser how to display the page.
4 spam The derogatory term for excessive and unwanted communication
on Internet lines derived from the canned meat product with the same name.
In this context it refers to the repeated use of the same keywords in the
meta tags to try to gain an unfair advantage or to fool the search engines
into giving you a higher ranking. "Spamming" the search engines can
get you banned, so it is an unsafe practice.
5 alt tag This is a tag used on images. Although most Internet
users have systems that can display images, some cannot. The purpose of the
<ALT> tag is to provide some text which these users see in place of the
image.Sue Doughty is the
Marketing Director of Studio1 Design and Hosting and has over 15 years
experience in her field. Her advice has helped many businesses achieve
success on the Internet. Visit Studio1 Design and Hosting on the Web at
http://www.studio1webdesign.com
email
info@studio1webdesign.com
or phone toll-free (888) 414-2390.
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