Is Your Website Optimized for Search Engines?
By Scott Buresh ~ Medium Blue
Internet Marketing
For the technically inclined, there are
numerous places on the web to get detailed, in-depth information on how to
properly optimize a web site for the best possible search engine rankings.
However, many people don't care about the technical aspects of search engine
optimization- they just want to know what is wrong with their site (and how
to fix it). What follows is a practical guide that covers some of the most
basic search engine issues. It is in no way intended to be comprehensive,
but it should help the average site owner determine whether their site is
optimized, and if not, how to make some simple changes to improve their
search engine rankings.
Issue #1- The Title Bar
On your homepage, what does the title bar say? If you use Internet Explorer,
this is the blue bar at the extreme top of the window that displays your
page (it may include the words "Microsoft Internet Explorer" at the end).
Does your company name appear here by itself, when you have more important
keywords to emphasize? Worse yet, does it say "untitled"? This area should
contain the most important keywords you see on your homepage (Don't have any
text on your homepage? See issue #2). To check the rest of your site, click
on any link from your homepage and see if the words in this title bar change
for each page in your site. They should- and each title bar should contain
the most important keywords from their corresponding page. Note: Very long
keyword strings in the title bar should be avoided- six words or less is
optimal. Also, words in the title bar should not repeat more than once, and
identical words should not appear next to one another.
Issue #2- Content
Search engines all try to list sites that contain good content. Translation-
you need words on your pages, not flashy
graphics. This text should contain the most important keywords that your
potential customers would use to find you on a search engine. If you have
very few or no words on your pages, it is a good idea to add some, ideally
around 250 per page. For aesthetic reasons, this is not always
practical, but even 100 well-written words can have an impact on rank. It is
also important that you make certain that the words are written in a
language the search engines can read. Using your mouse, bring your cursor
down to the text on one of your web pages. Clicking and holding down the
left mouse button (make sure you aren't near a link) see if you can
highlight just one or two
words of the text. If you can, everything is most likely fine. If
nothing happens, or you can only highlight a large block, it is most likely
in graphic form. Graphic text needs to be replaced by standard html text to
allow the search engines to read it. Your web expert should have no problem
understanding what you require, and the transition should be fairly simple
and affordable.
Issue #3- Meta Tags
Some people believe that meta tags are the Holy Grail of search engine
optimization. Unfortunately, their effectiveness is limited (many engines
ignore them completely), but they can play a limited role in determining
rank on some engines. To see if your site has meta tags, go to your home
page. Click the "view" command at the top of the browser window. From the
pull-down menu, select "source". This should open up another window that
shows your code. Much of this may seem indecipherable, but there should be
two commands there (usually near the top of the code). One of these says
meta name="description" content= and will go on to describe your company and
products, and one says meta name="keywords" content= and goes on to list
applicable keywords for your site. If these tags are missing, have your web
expert insert them.
Issue #4- Links
Link popularity has become increasingly important to search engine rankings,
with 19 of the top 20 engines using it in their ranking algorithm. Simply
put, search engines give a ranking boost to sites that have incoming links
from quality, related sites. There are numerous free tools on the web that
will allow you to see what sites link to yours (just type "free link
popularity check" in your favorite search engine). If you don't have
many sites linking to yours, it may be time to start a link building
campaign. This is where you find quality, non-competing sites in your
industry and ask them if they would like to exchange links. An additional
benefit of link exchanges is that these links can bring you additional,
highly targeted traffic.
Conclusion
Although following the above guidelines will by no means guarantee you top
page rankings for your keywords, fixing one or more of the problems should
have a very positive impact on your search engine rankings. For the volumes
of potential customers that a search engine can send to your site, it's
certainly worth the effort.Scott Buresh is
co-founder and principal of Medium Blue Internet Marketing. For more helpful
tips, visit
http://www.mediumblue.com.
For a free search engine analysis, please visit
http://www.mediumblue.com/analysis.html.
<<<back to contents |
,
