Understanding Search Engines
Part Two: Five tips to improve your chances with Google et al.
By David Leonhardt
"Dear David: I just created a website on baby toy safety. What
should I do to make sure gazillions of people find me through the
search engines?"
I can't promise you gazillions, but there
are a few things you
should do to make it easy for search engines to find you. I
assume you have already decided to submit your site to the major
search engines and directories. I assume that you will develop
some sort of linking strategy (hopefully a better strategy than
most websites use today). I also assume you will have picked key
search terms for all the pages on your website.
Beyond that, here are my top five tips for making your website
easy for those "gazillions" to find it.
1. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but search engines
don't read pictures. Make sure your key search terms are written
out in text, not part of a graphic title you hire somebody to
prepare for you. That also means you should not just show
pictures of toys, but also write out the names, and possibly a
keyword description with the title.
2. Have several pages of articles related to your website's
topic. Use a different keyword search term for each article.
For instance, one article might use frequently the term "safe
toys for babies", while another might use the term "baby safety".
3. What's the URL of your website? Your name won't help you
there. Your key search term will. In this instance, I might
pick
baby-toy-safety.com, for example (if that is one of your
top keyword phrases). Hire somebody who knows what he is doing
to develop the right keyword strategy for you BEFORE you choose
your domain name.
4. What's the title of your page? I don't know how many times I
see titles such as "Article" or "Contact us". Don't expect the
search engine robots to get all excited about that term. And
don't expect anybody to search for that term, either. Much
better to title your page "Free article on safe toys for babies"
or "Contact the =Baby Toy Expert= today". By the way, this is
the single most important place to include your keyword phrases.
5. What about that navigation menu that appears on every single
page of your website? Does it say "Contact the baby toy expert?"
Or "about the baby toy expert". Or links about baby toys?"
Need I say more?
If your website is about life insurance, you have little hope of
hitting the front pages of any search engine. "Life insurance" is
such .competitive search engine marketplace. Unless, of course,
people are searching for a very specific and rare niche. Even
then, I suspect you will need much more than these five tips.
In fact, there are dozens, if not hundreds of things you can do
to win the search engine race. These top five search engine
optimization tips are a great start, whatever your website is
about.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR IN PLAIN TEXT:
Discover how to climb the rankings the RIGHT way: Pick up a copy
of Don't Get Banned By The Search Engines at
thehappyguy.com/SEO.html . Or promote your website with a
media relations plan at
thehappyguy.com/publicity-self-
thehappyguy.com/publicity-self-
promotion-report.html or profit from more free publicity ideas
at
thehappyguy.com/publicity-self-promotion-
thehappyguy.com/publicity-self-promotion-
products.html . To optimize your site: /group/article_announce/post?postID=49gsIQri86VS2CHf1FIoIsavVgawrmq9Q2qg6ZX6LPo5U4-wKvP6jCP0V6uEEjoPhSGzFGLDqrae9UmG2tw info@...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR IN HTML
Discover how to climb the rankings the RIGHT way: Pick up
