Discover the Top 5 Dos and Don'ts of Web Site Optimization That Will Make or
Break Your Ranking! by John Navata
Copyright 2006 John Navata
IIf you want your online business to be successful, it's a good idea to
optimize your site on a regular basis to make sure it's got a good position in
the Web's top search engines.
However, in order to maintain your ranking, you have to keep on top of what's
happening in the rapidly changing search engine industry. The rules that
affected your ranking yesterday may be meaningless tomorrow!
1. The "Dos" and "Don'ts" are constantly changing!
The search engine industry is continually evolving. You need to know which of
the major "players" is powering the smaller search engines if you want to know
where you should focus your optimization efforts.
a. The battle of the titans For the past couple of years, the major search
engines have been preparing to square off against each other and battle it out
for the industry's top spot. Google has been #1 for a while now, but Yahoo! and
MSN have been making moves to steal the crown.
Google is still extremely powerful, with about a 55% market share. Yahoo! is
the closest runner-up, with about 20% of users choosing it as their main search
engine. And MSN is still a distant but threatening third, with about 10% of the
global usage share.
Keep in mind, however, that Google and Yahoo! power many of the smaller search
engines. For example, Google powers the free listings featured on AOL and
Netscape, plus the paid listings featured on AOL, Netscape, Ask Jeeves, HotBot,
Teoma, and Lycos.
Yahoo! powers free listings featured on MSN, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, and HotBot,
plus the paid listings on MSN, AltaVista, and AllTheWeb.
However, MSN won't be powered by Yahoo! for much longer! MSN came out with a
preview of their own long-anticipated search engine technology earlier this
month. They're still working out the bugs, and the official MSN Search engine
is still being powered by Yahoo!. But you can expect MSN to go solo sometime
over the next few months.
You need to be aware of these changes if you want to gear your optimization
efforts toward the engines that will send you as much traffic as possible.
b. The changing rules of search Of course, you also need to keep tabs on
changes to the search engines themselves!
Search engines frequently change the algorithms they use to rank sites. They
don't want unscrupulous site owners manipulating their indexing methods in
order to get high rankings. By doing so, they damage the integrity of free
search!
As soon as the search engines become aware of a trick being used by "search
engine spammers" to boost their site ranking, they figure out a way to catch
them.
So be careful! You don't want to catch yourself employing a "great strategy"
promoted by a marketing "expert," only to find out it's a tactic the search
engines hate! That could get you booted off their listings in no time flat.
In fact, that's exactly what happened at the end of last year, during what has
come to be called the "Florida Google Dance."
Google made some major changes to their algorithms in November 2003 and started
imposing an "over-optimization penalty" on any sites that appeared to be
artificially boosting their site's relevancy for targeted keywords.
Many members of the business community were surprised to find their sites
dropped from their high ranking in Google's listings. These people had to put a
lot of work into revamping and resubmitting their sites in order to get listed
again.
And many of the people who were penalized weren't "unscrupulous" site owners!
They weren't trying to pull a "fast one" on search engines using frowned-upon
techniques such as "keyword stuffing." They were simply trying to be smart
marketers -- and some feel they were unfairly punished for it.
You don't want the same thing to happen to you!
So let's have a look at a list of what exactly the search engines are currently
looking for when indexing sites -- and what they'll punish you for!
2. The "Dos": Legitimate tricks the SEO masters use to optimize their sites and
maintain their high ranking
The search engines don't want to be manipulated by marketers. They want to
provide the best unbiased results possible for any given search -- or they'll
lose users!
That's why they need to change their algorithms so frequently -- to stay ahead
of the tricks people use to get top rankings.
That being said, there are still a lot of legitimate ways you can optimize your
site without angering the search engines and causing them to drop you from
their list.
Here are some of the best things you can to do ensure your site has a high
ranking:
a. Ask relevant sites to link to your site In the past, scoring a high ranking
with a search engine was all about positioning your keywords in "prime real
estate" positions in your text and site coding. All that has changed, however.
These days, links are king!
Search engines place a huge amount of importance on the number of sites that
link to yours. But it's not just the quantity of links that matter, it's also
the quality. Search engines look at how relevant the links are -- i.e., how
much the content of the linking site has in common with the content on your
site. The more relevant, the better!
Search engines also look at how "important" the linking site is. What kind of
"online presence" does it have? How much traffic does it get?
For example, your site will get a higher ranking if it's linked to by sites
such as BBC.com or nationalgeographic.com instead of, say, the personal
homepage of your friend's neighbour's kid.
b. Pay attention to keyword inclusion and placement Keywords may no longer be
the sole determining factor of a site's ranking, but they're still pretty
important. The most useful places to include them are:
In your domain name -- only make sure your keywords are in the root of your
URL, not the stem! For example, if your main keyword phrase is "cell phones,"
try to get a domain name such as "www.cell-phones.com" instead of
"www.mobileusa.com/cell-phones.com." Some search engines will actually penalize
sites for including key words in the stem of a URL.
In the title tags in your source code
In the meta description of your site -- this is much less important than it
used to be, but it can't hurt.
In your meta keyword tags HOWEVER: Be sure you only include relevant keywords!
Search engines will penalize you if you try to sneak in keywords that have
nothing to do with the content of your site.
c. Create content-rich "information pages" to direct traffic to your site An
easy way to boost the number of pages that link to your site is to create some
pages yourself!
However, you have to make sure these pages contain valuable contents that
provide people with useful information. Search engines hate "pointer pages"
that have no content and exist only to add to the number of links pointing to a
site.
Be sure the information relates to the content on your site and has your
keywords placed in advantageous positions. This will boost the ranking of your
pages with the search engines and ensure they get lots of traffic -- which they
can then redirect to your site.
d. Submit your site to online directories Be sure to submit your site to
important directories such as Yahoo!, the Open Directory Project, and
About.com, as well as smaller directories. Your listing on these directories
will help your ranking with the major search engines.
e. Multiply and conquer! Create a "community" of related sites that link to
each other. Why stop at only one information page? The more content-rich sites
that point to your site, the better!
You can also boost the number of links that point to your site by dividing it
into several separate sites that all link to each other.This works especially
well if you sell a number of different products or services.
If you build a different site to focus on each of your products and services,
then you can also concentrate the use of specific keyword phrases on each site.
That's another great way to boost your search engine ranking.
3. The "Don'ts": Tricks the search engines hate and why you should never use
them, even if your competition does
Now that we've covered the "dos," here come the "don'ts." Although these
questionable tactics have worked well in the past, the search engines
absolutely hate them. If they catch you using any of these tricks, they may go
so far as to drop you from their listings like a hot potato!
a. Beware irrelevant links! Yes, it's a good idea to get a lot of different
links pointing to your site, but the search engines only like RELEVANT links.
If they find sites that have nothing in common with the content on your site
linked to your web site, they'll lower your relevancy rating.
b. Beware irrelevant keywords! Search engines hate finding irrelevant keywords
on your site -- especially in your meta tags. If they catch you using keywords
that have nothing to do with the actual content of your site, they'll penalize
you for it.
c. Don't "keyword stuff" your meta tags! In the past, people used to repeat
their keywords in their meta tags over and over again. This used to get them a
high ranking with the search engines -- but not any more! Search engines are on
to this trick and will punish you for it by dropping your ranking.
d. Don't create "link farms"! "Link farms" are the evil cousins of the
"information pages" we discussed above.
In the past, some spammers used to build multiple "doorway" sites that existed
only to multiply the number of links pointing to their sites.
Unlike content-rich information pages,these doorway pages would usually only
include a string of keyword terms that would earn them a high ranking with the
search engines.
The search engines have caught on to this tactic, however, and will drop you
from their listings if they find you using it.
e. Avoid "free for all" link pages! Don't bother placing links to your site on
pages where everyone and their dog is invited to put up a link. Such sites have
extremely low relevancy ratings and will cost you points with the search
engines.
4. Essential tools and Subscriptions to optimize your site and stay in top of the
search engine game
There are a lot of great tools out there that can help you optimize your web
site while ensuring that you stay on the good side of all the search engines.
About the Author
John Navata is an internet marketer that has been showing marketers some
advanced ways to promote their produc or service offline and online.
http://www.mega-dollarsonline.com
|
