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Choose
a right Title
Firstly, make sure each page of your site has a descriptive
title. Because search engines usually give the most weight
to the page's title, you should place a descriptive phrase
between the <TITLE> tags.
For best results, it is advised that you keep it within 200
characters and to-the-point. Also, since search engines return
the title as the search results, your HTML title should be
both descriptive and attractive.
For example, the following title describes well the site,
and therefore is a good choice:
<TITLE>Dynamic
Web promotion software - submit your web sites to 1000+ major
search engines.</TITLE>
<META>
tags
You can control how search engines catalog your site
with <META> tags. Not all
search engines make use of these tags, but using them will
definitely improve your position in those that do. All <META>
tags should be placed within the <HEAD>...</HEAD>
portion of the document.
The <META> description
tag lets you specify a short summary about your web site.
This tag should clearly describe what one can find at your
Web site. Here's an example:
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="#1 best
selling 5 star award winning web promotion and site submission
software. Increase your web site traffic by submitting your
sites to 1000+ search engines.">
Some search engines limit the description to 200 characters.
To be on the safe side, make sure your description does not
exceed 200 bytes (characters). If you do not use <META>
tags to describe your site, the Web page description will
be derived from the first 200 characters in the HTML <BODY>...</BODY>
portion. Also note that there should be only one <META>
description tag per page.
The <META> keywords
tag lets you specify a set of keywords that a search robot
should give precedence to when cataloging the page or how
people can find your web site. Here's an example:
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="web promotion,
site submission,
web advertising, increase traffic, promotion software, web
site promotion">
The keywords can include up to 1000 characters of text. Be
sure that the
keywords you choose are relevant to the contents of your page.
Note that the keywords are used in the indexing process but
will not display on your Web page or on a search response
page. Try to incorporate singular and plural cases of words,
as well as active and passive verbs. Also make sure your keyword
list includes both general and specific words related to your
site. You rarely want to target a single keyword, because,
with the billions of words indexed on the Web now, one word
simply won't cut it. Always use phrases, not plain words,
in your list.
Frame
Sites using frames should definitely make use of <META>
tags. The main HTML file contains the <FRAMESET>
tags, but fails to provide robots with any real useful information
about the Web site. Therefore, you should utilize the <META>
description tag to provide a description, summarizing the
site's contents. If JavaScript (or any other scripting language)
makes up the first several hundred characters on your page,
you should use the <META> description tag so your site
comes up with a meaningful description in search results.
Web
Site Contents
Search engines rely mostly on word density (frequency relative
to the total size of the page) or distribution (how well the
word is spread throughout the page). Some search engines even
give precedence to text near the top of a Web page, so make
sure you place the most important stuff at the top. Furthermore,
search engines that do not support <META> tags use the
first 200 (or 250) characters for the site's description,
so the first paragraph should describe/sell your service.
Use <Hn>...</Hn> for headers, rather than the
<FONT>...</FONT> tag definition. Some search engines
consider header text particularly important.
Image
Description
If your site mainly consists of images, you should
use the ALT attribute to
describe each image. Most search engines index the ALT attribute
in the <IMG> tag. The following HTML definition shows
how to use this attribute:
<IMG SRC="image.gif" HEIGHT="486" WIDTH="60"
ALT="Web
Site Promotion">
SPAM
The overuse and repetition of keywords may result in
a lower relevancy score and possible omission from some search
engines. Most search engines count only the first few occurrences
of a keyword or phrase, and some even penalize you for repeating
words to improve your site's ranking. Infoseek and Lycos are
two search engines that penalize sites that are suspected
of repeating keywords, and Altavista will disallow URL submissions
from those who spam the index. Some search engines penalize
your site if a keyword is repeated more than three times.
Don't try to fool a search engine by using the phrase "web
promote" three times, and the phrase "web promotion"
another three times. Search engines are smarter than that,
but they still aren't smart enough to associate "promote"
with "promotion."
General
Rules....
- Most
of the engines have chosen not to keep up and can not spider
frames sites. Make NOFRAME sections in web pages.
- Always
make sure your web site is completely finished, spell checked,
online and working properly before attempting to get indexed.
One of the most common problems people encounter in getting
their web site indexed is due to a spider not being
able to reach the URL for indexing. Make sure your web site
is up and responding.
- Alta
Vista and some other search engines, will index all
words in your document (except for comments), and will use
the first few words (e.g. 250 characters) as a short abstract
to serve back. It is possible for you to control how your
page is indexed by using the META tag to specify additional
keywords to index, and a short abstract.
- First
paragraphs of the text are the most important for search
engines. Brainstorm with friends and colleagues, etc. and
put the most important keywords into a carefully crafted
paragraph at the start of your HTML document.
- Make
sure that the HTML code is using the proper tags in the
proper places (called validating your HTML). Most search
engines do not tolerate invalid HTML code, that is, if your
code contains invalid HTML tags most search engines will
not index your web page or worse yet, not index you correctly.
- Most
search engines can take up to 3 to 4 weeks before getting
around to indexing your web site. Be patient. Keep track
of when you asked to have your web site indexed and check
often. Requesting to be indexed over and over again will
not help speed up the process.
- Excite
does not take advantage of Meta tags, they do however look
at the words in the Title of your document. Excite may take
as long as 4 weeks to index your web site, so be patient
and check often.
- Because
70-80% of information searchers find what they are looking
for in the Internet through the main search engines, the
best way to attract visitors to web sites is to be ranked
high in the main search engines. Before submitting your
site to the search engines and directories, spend some time
reading about how to write your title, metatags and the
first few paragraphs of each page to obtain better ranking.
After submitting your web site, you should periodically
review your ranking in the search engine listings by the
key phrases.
- To
improve or maintain position of your web site in the main
search engines, you may need to rewrite pages, add new content
and additional web pages, change your description and keywords,
etc. If you need to learn HTML to do this, do it because
the reward is worth the effort.
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