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TIPS
In this article
I show you how to improve your search engine rankings using 27
quick search engine optimization tips.
- Increase
your site's link popularity by increasing your internal and
incoming links.
-
Internal links - Cross link all your sites and important pages
within each site. This will maximize the PageRank of all your
pages within each web site.
-
Incoming links that you control - Create several small web
sites related to your main site. Each site should only consist
of a few pages. Then cross link them all together using the
most important keywords. Don't forget to include links back to
the main site.
-
Incoming links that you don't control:
- Include a
TITLE tag as the first META tag, directly after the HEAD tag.
For example:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing Software Tools Reviews</TITLE>
...
- Try to
avoid stop words in your TITLE tag. Stop words (a, an,
and, but, he, her, his, i, in, it, of, on, or, she, the, etc.)
are common words and characters ignored by some search engines
to enhance the speed and relevancy of their search results.
- Include a
META DESCRIPTION tag, directly after the TITLE tag. Include the
most important keyword phrase for the web page as close to the
beginning of the description as possible.
For example:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing Software Tools Reviews</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Mike's Marketing Tools is
the leading review site for the very best internet marketing
tools for web marketers and webmasters.">
...
- If you
use a META REFRESH tag, make sure it is set to refresh after 30
seconds.
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="30; URL=http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com">
Some
search engines consider pages that refreshes under 30 seconds as
spam. I recommend using a JavaScript redirect tag, if you
require a quicker page refresh.
For example:
Step 1 - Paste this code into the HEAD section of your HTML
document. Change the 3000 to whatever number you like. 1000
represents 1 (one) second.
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--
function redirect () {setTimeout("change()",3000);}
function change () {window.location.href="http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com";}
//--></SCRIPT>
Step 2 -
Insert the onLoad event handler into your BODY tag, so that the
JavaScript code is executed when the page loads.
<BODY onLoad="redirect()">
- Remove
all other meta tags (author, date, etc.), unless you're sure
they are absolutely necessary. The only meta tags I ever use are
the META DESCRIPTION and occasionally the META REFRESH tag.
- Include a
site map with links to all your pages. This will help search
engines find and index all your pages.
- Limit
the number of links on a web page to 50.
- If you
have more than 50 links, limit your links to your most
important pages.
- Include
text on the page as some search engines, such as AltaVista,
have been known to kick out links only pages.
- Use one
or more header tags in your main page body and include your most
important keyword phrase/s.
- Use
large header tags, such as <H1> and <H2>.
- Use
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to alter the appearance of the
header tags to fit the look and feel of your site. For more
information read this
CSS
tutorial.
- Check the
first couple of lines of the first paragraph to see if it's
appropriate to be used as a description of your page. Many
search engines utilize the first couple of sentences of the body
text as the search results description, instead of the contents
of the META DESCRIPTION tag.
- Try to
achieve an overall keyword density of 1-2%.
- Try to
achieve a minimum word count of 300 and a maximum of 750 words
on each page.
- Register
a domain name with the exact keyword phrase you wish to target,
using hyphens to separate the keywords.
For example, if the keyword phrase is "search engine rankings,"
then register:
search-engine-rankings.com
If the
domain you want is unavailable, either try a different
extension, such as .NET, .INFO, or .CO.UK,
or add a keyword to the end (preferential) or beginning of the
domain.
- Name
directories after your keyword phrases, using hyphens or
underscores to separate the keywords.
For example, if an important keyword phrases is, "search engine
rankings," name your directory:
www.yoursite.com/search-engine-rankings/ or...
www.yoursite.com/search_engine_rankings/
- Name web
pages after your most important keyword phrase. Separate the
keywords using hyphens or underscores.
For example, if the keyword phrase is "search engine rankings,"
then name the page:
search-engine-rankings.html or...
search_engine_rankings.html
- Name your
graphic files after keyword phrases. Again, separate the
keywords using hyphens or underscores.
For example:
<IMG
SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif">
- Include
an ALT (alternative text) atrribute in image tags. Include the
most important keyword phrases.
For example:
<IMG
SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif" ALT="search engine
rankings.">
- If you
use an image map, include HTML links, as some search engines do
not follow image map links. Plus image maps do not offer search
engines any link text to index. So, try to avoid the use of
image maps as they do not help with your search engine
optimization efforts.
- Use the
longer or plural version of a keyword, where possible. Word
stemming is a concept used by some search engines to return
search results that include keywords that extend beyond what you
searched for.
For example, a search with the keyword "engine" might return
results for, "engines," "engineers," and "engineering." If
someone searches for the longer version of a word and your page
only uses the short version, then your page will be excluded
from the list of possible results.
- Sprinkle
a few uncommon keywords and synonyms in your main body text.
Less popular keywords have less competition in the search
engines. So your web page is has a greater chance of being
listed amongst the top results.
- Do not
repeat keywords or keyword phrases over and over again on a web
page, as this would be considered as spam by search engines.
- Keep your
pages as close to the root domain as possible. Do not set up
more than 3 directory levels.
For example:
www.yoursite.com/index.html (1st level - excellent)
www.yoursite.com/html/index.html (2nd level - Good)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/index.html (3rd level - OK)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/search/index.html (Too many
levels down - search engines will find it difficult to find
and index pages this far down)
- If you
have a persistent (on most or all of your pages) navigation bar
at the side of each page, your table is almost certainly set up
in such a way that it pushes your page's body text down the HTML
document. Search engines give prominence to keywords nearer the
beginning of a HTML document. So, design your HTML table so that
the navigation bar is placed after your main body text.
- Move
Javascript code to a separate file, or the end of the HTML
document after your closing BODY or HTML tag. Yes, this
technique actually works!
Follow these instructions to move the JavaScript code to a
separate file and link to the file from the HTML document. Then
place the following code in between the HEAD section:
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="file-name.js"></SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
This
procedure also reduces your file size, and therefore your
download time. In addition, it allows you to reuse the code on
other pages by simply link to the JavaScript file. Both of these
techniques will move your important body text nearer to the top
of the HTML document.
- Although
not always practical, you may like to try naming your cascading
style sheet tags after keywords.
For example:
.search {
color: #ff0000;
}
- Use
Robots.txt files instead of Robots meta tags, as some search
engine robots do not recognize the tag.
- Do not
use font size one (1) text as the default text size. Many search
engines consider tiny text to be spam. It's OK to use some font
size one text.
- Do not
participate in link farms or link exchange programs. Search
engines consider link farms and link exchange programs as spam,
as they have only one purpose - to artificially inflate a site's
link popularity, by exchanging links with other participants.
Do not confuse link farms and link exchange programs with
reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the exchange of links
with individual sites, and is certainly an accepted technique
for improving your site's link popularity.
There you
have it. My 27 quick search engine optimization tips to improving
your search engine rankings. |
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