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Discover the Top
5 "Dos" and "Don'ts" of Web Site By Corey Rudl If 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! Read on to learn more
about the latest developments in the search engine industry and what key
tricks you should (and shouldn't!) use to optimize your site to make sure it
gets a high ranking with all the major search engines, plus the tools and
resources you can use to keep it there. 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. 1. 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 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 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. 2. 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! 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: 1. 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. 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. 2. 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:
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. 3. 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. 4. 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. 5. 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. 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! 1. 1. 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. 2. 2. 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. 3. 3. 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. 4. 4. 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. 5. 5. 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. Essential tools and resources to optimize
your site and stay n 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. Here are a few of our favorites. Tools:
Resources:
Final thoughts Recent research by search engine optimization experts
suggests that there is a surprising lack of overlap between the results
produced by the major search engines. All too often, sites that are ranked
high on Google get a much poorer listing with Yahoo! and vice versa. This could mean that webmasters are focusing their
optimization efforts solely on one search engine while neglecting to improve
their ranking with the other. They might be using optimization tactics that
work for Google on Yahoo!, without being aware that Yahoo! uses different
criteria to index a site. Either way, sites that aren't optimized for both Google
and Yahoo! are missing out on a lot of potential visitors. And don't forget, MSN will soon be throwing its hat into
the ring and switching from Yahoo! to its own search engine technology. When
that happens, you should be sure to submit your site to MSN as well. No one really knows what the future holds for the search
engine industry, but one thing's for sure: Businesses that don't stay on top
of the changes are going to find themselves slipping behind. Don't let that
happen to your business! ============================================= *****************************************************
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