 SEO Insider Secrets
Make Your Site a Magnet for Well-Targeted Web Traffic
Use Search Engine Optimization
Bust through the Search Engine Rankings
The objective of Search Engine Optimization, SEO, is to maximize the traffic that comes to your web page. For every search request, the search engine, be it Google or Yahoo or MSN, returns a search report, which is a list of web sites. If your web page shows up in the first few positions of the report, instead of the 24 gazillionth position, people are much more likely to click and visit your page. There is no charge for these visitors, you need not buy AdWords or other advertising, but you must get their attention. Piggyback on Google. Use search engines for the heavy lifting of screening and delivering the right users.
 SEO Is Critical to Success
The goal in SEO is to rank high on the search engine report for the keywords that matter to you. Because high ranking is very valuable in building traffic, SEO is a competitive activity.
Optimizing a page for keywords means that the search engines will read the page and “decide” that the page is highly relevant to the keywords. We’re dealing with computer robots that “spider” around the Internet “reading” and evaluating all the pages they find. The algorithms that each search engine relies on are highly classified secrets, and thus SEO is a skill developed by intuition and lots of experience. If Google were to publish its search engine strategies in a book, it would hit the bestseller list straight away and outsell all seven of the Harry Potter books combined. That’s how critical SEO is to the success of a website.
SEO is in the Details
Here are our best insider tips to create web pages that are “search engine friendly” with a high ranking on the search report.
- Select one or two keywords for each page. Think like the visitor and choose words or a phrase that the visitor will intuitively use to search for your site. The right keywords will bring highly targeted visitors to your site -- visitors who are actively seeking to buy exactly what you sell.
The obvious keywords have been used exhaustively, and you are not likely to break into the top ranking if you rely on them. Instead, choose a keyword phrase that gives you a chance at a front-page ranking. For example, the keyword “mortgage” returns more than 2 million sites in the search report. However, the keyword “bad credit mortgage” returns only 50,000 sites in the search report and will give you a better chance at a front-page ranking.
- Here are free keyword tools at Yahoo! and Google which will give you many ideas for keywords and information about their popularity.
http://www.resultsgenerator.com/overture/
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?defaultView=2
You’ll also find a very popular, low-cost keyword tool at http://www.wordtracker.com
- Search engines cannot read content that is embedded in a Flash file. They cannot read content that is contained in an image. If your pages are built with Flash and images, but contain no text, the search engine has nothing to work with.
- Search engines also generally cannot find pages that are created from a database, particularly if the URL is extended with numerous parameters. They cannot find pages that are password-protected or that use a session ID.
- Most important, search engines do not read JavaScript and DHTML, even though many drop-down navigation menus are designed as JavaScript programs. Thus, search engines cannot follow these links to your other pages. These menus can often be converted to CSS styles. At least the front-page set of navigation links should be plain text for the benefit of search engines.
- The use of frames, i.e., sub-windows, should also be avoided in the page design. The search engine will treat each sub-window as a separate page, and will link to it in the search report, even if the navigation is in the other sub-window. There are programming strategies to circumvent this, but be aware of the drawbacks with frames.
- Now for some positive SEO guidelines. It is valuable to choose a domain name that uses your keywords. For example, if you’re selling pet products, the domain name petproducts.com will give you an edge with the search engines.
- Use your keywords in each file name and folder name, and use the dash in place of a blank space. For example, the file name “funny-redneck-jokes.htm” gives the search engine information for page ranking.
- Use the keyword throughout the page, in the content and in the <meta> tags. The title tag, the description tag and the keywords tag should all contain your keyword. It is especially important to use the keyword in headings <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, and so on throughout the page.
- The page description you write for the meta tag is often displayed on the search report with the search results. Make those twenty-five words spellbinding ad copy for your page.
- Whenever the mouse hovers over an image, a box of text may appear. Include your keywords in the image text whenever possible. This is accomplished by using the “alt” parameter in the image tag.
- Place your keywords into a bullet list, italic text or bold text to give them emphasis on the page.
- Include the keyword as part of the links that refer to your optimized page. Instead of saying “Click here”, describe the link with your keywords, “More Funny Redneck Jokes.”
- Register your new site with several search engines, so they can easily find it. Here are links to the registration pages of the three major search engines.
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
http://submit.search.yahoo.com
There are additional ways to bring traffic to your site, such as building inbound links, link exchanges, registering with directories, sitemaps, advertising, email programs, press releases, blogs, forums and so on, but these Search Engine Optimization tactics lay the groundwork for a winning strategy.
I hope life brings you much success. I wish you a very happy day.
----- Surfer Sam
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