Search Engine Marketing 101: What Search Engines See When They Visit Your Web Site
Submitted By: Robin Nobles <--More?
Category: Site-Promotion | Date Posted: 2006-07-31
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he graphic. But, it doesn't see the graphic itself. So, the engine doesn't know that the graphic says, "Search Engine Workshops."

Next, look for this tag, which directly follows the image tag:

Search Engine seminars

An tag is a heading tag, and heading tags

are very important to a Web page. Try to put a heading tag at the very top of your page, if at all possible, and use your important keyword phrase in that heading tag. When you look back at my actual Web page, do you see the words "Search Engine seminars" right under the graphic? That's the heading tag.

Now, look for this tag in the source code:

Is your Web site achieving the success that. . .

This is where the contents of the Web page begin. Look on the actual Web page and find the text: "Is your Web site achieving the success that . . ." Notice that the keyword phrase (search engine seminars) appears in the first paragraph.

In other words, with all of these tags and the placement of our keyword phrase in the page's contents, we're proving to the engines that the page is really about "search engine seminars."

So, let's visit your site on the Web. View the source code. What's in the section? Are your title and description tags using the keyword phrase that's important for that particular page? Are your title and description tags captivating and designed to pull in traffic? Each page of your site should have different title and description tags, and those tags should be based on the focus of that page - what that page is really about: in other words, its keyword phrase.

How many graphics do you have before the actual contents of your site? If you have a lot of graphics, navigation bars, or buttons before the contents of your page, the engine has to sort through all of that source code before it gets to the actual keyword- containing content.

Does your page contain lengthy JavaScript or other code that pushes the important contents toward the bottom of the page? If so, it could be hindering your chances at top rankings.

Are you using a heading tag that contains your important keyword phrase toward the very top of your page? Is your keyword phrase used in the first paragraph of the page? Is it used in several places throughout the page?

Look back at my page. Notice that the keyword phrase, search engine seminars, is used as link text to describe several links. Are you using your keyword phrase to describe links that are leaving the page? If not, try to do so.

Study your own site carefully, and apply these guidelines to your pages.

Doing whatever you can to push your important keyword phrase toward the top of the page and toward the beginning of your tags is the first step toward having a successful Web site that's ranked in the top of the search engine rankings.

If you would like to learn more about how to achieve top search engine rankings, visit: searchengineworkshops.com/articles.html

Or, sign up for online training at: onlinewebtraining.com/courses.html or 3-day search engine marketing workshops at: searchengineworkshops.com. searchengineworkshops.com.

About The Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing (academywebspecialists.com) training programs. Visit the Academy's training site to learn more (onlinewebtraining.com). She also teaches 3-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (searchengineworkshops.com).

Copyright 2002 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved.
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This article was posted on August 18, 2002"