Search engines are Internet sites that help you locate Web pages on a particular topic. You type in keywords at the search engine site to retrieve a list of Web pages on which your words appear.
Each search engine uses a "spider" or "robot" or "crawler" software program to scan the Web by following links from Web page to Web page. The program then catalogs the words it finds on each page. The programs look at words on a page that are in:
The page title (the title of a page is displayed in the very top blue line of your browser)
Hyperlinks
Meta tags, which are keywords the author of the page typed in to describe what the page is about (the meta tags are contained in the HTML coding for the page but are not visible when the page is displayed on your browser)
The text that appears on a page.
Words that appear in and around hyperlinks on other Web sites that link to the page (this is called "link analysis").
A search engines also takes note of how prominently the words appear on a page and how many times a particular word is repeated on a page.
The search engine then puts all that information into a database and indexes it, essentially creating a list of all the individual words and noting which Web pages they appear on. When you then do a search by typing in keywords, those words are applied to the index, and a list of Web pages that have your words is returned. The pages are ranked according to a formula - called an algorithm - that takes into account where the words appeared on a page (in the title, in a hyperlink, in a meta tag or just in the text), whether the words are prominent on a page and how often they appear on a page.
In the list of retrieved pages, a search engine usually includes a paragraph-long excerpt from the beginning of each Web page (or sometimes from the hidden meta tags describing the page), to give you some idea of what the page is about. Each listed Web page also will have a highlighted hyperlink that you click on to connect to that page. Usually the search engine displays the sites 10 to a screen, with the option at the bottom of each results screen of clicking on a link to go on to the next 10 sites.
Some search engines also will add additional sites in the listings, either from a topical directory of Web pages or as part of an advertising program in which Web sites pay for placements in search results. The directory listings come from Web services that catalog Web pages according to the topics and subtopics they cover. These listings usually are grouped separately in your search results and are identified as coming from directory or category listings. Web sites also can pay to have their pages listed when people search for particular words, such as a computer store paying to be listed when someone does a search for "computers." These paid listings usually are identified as "sponsored" or "featured" links or "partner" sites. But in other cases the paid listings are just made part of the regular search result listings, without any notation that they were paid for.
In theory, a list of retrieved sites has the Web pages most germane to your search words at the top of the list. But for a variety of reasons those top listings often are not the kinds of pages you are seeking. You may be looking for an authoritative or very popular site, and instead get someone's personal home page, simply because that page displayed your search words more prominently and frequently. You may have typed in a word that has a double meaning; retrieving Web pages that are not on the topic you're interested in at all. In some cases the author of a Web page may repeat the same word numerous times in the meta tags, or include in the meta tags words that have little to do with the content of the page, just to trick search engines into giving the page a higher ranking in search results. And the paid placements can skew results toward commercial sites.
Google The Search Engine of Choice
Google, a search engine launched in 1999, addressed this problem of poor search results by using a different method for ranking Web pages in a search.
Google crawls and indexes Web pages in much the same way that the traditional search engines do. But when it puts together a list of Web pages that contain your search words, it ranks them according to their popularity or importance. Google determines the popularity of a site by how many others "important" Web pages link to it. Important Web pages are, in turn, sites that many other Web pages link to. The theory is that the pages with the best information are those that other important or popular sites on the Internet know about and have linked to. Google then further refines the rankings using a variety of different schemes aimed at making the listings more relevant.
Google's approach is so much better than the traditional search engines that it is now the search engine of choice for the vast majority of professional researchers. Google should usually be your first stop when doing a search on the Web.
Google Search Features
To see how Google works, go to its Web site at:
http://www.google.com
Search Engine Optimization
What is search engine optimization?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves making Web pages more search engine friendly to promote them as the most relevant solutions for the search engines' users. The improvements can mean the difference between achieving top rankings, which can result in thousands of monthly visitors, and being lost in oblivion.
Definition:
"A form of online marketing, search engine optimization (or search engine marketing) is the process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases."
Why is search engine optimization important?
Search engine optimization is basically about following search engine rules. If your Web page fits the criteria that a search engine considers the most important factors in terms of relevance, then it will reward you with a top ranking.
Search engine optimizers simply modify Web pages to fit these criterias. This gives the Web pages a better chance of being selected by the search engines as the most relevant page for the search query.
The importance of keyword research
The Internet is basically a massive disorganized library. Search engines are like librarians. They both try to organize the content, so that people can find what they're looking for without too much effort.
With books, librarians have the benefit of bibliographic databases and the information on the book covers to help them organize their library.
Search engines don't have such a luxury. There aren't databases of every single Web page ever created. The Internet is just too big. There's too much information to index.
The only way a search engine can try to organize the mass of information available on the Internet is by the use of keywords and links.
It makes sense to think that if a Web page contains enough keywords related to a certain topic, it should be relevant to a search for information on that particular topic.
So part of the search engine optimization specialist's job is to make sure the Web pages target the keywords that people search for when looking for products, services or information related to what the Web page offers.
The variety of keywords used to search for the same product, service or information is quite staggering.
For example, here are the most popular keyword phrases used by people searching for information on search engine optimization:
Search engine optimization
Search engine ranking
Search engine optimization (notice the English - as opposed to American - spelling of optimization?)
Search engine placement
Website optimization
Search engine positioning
Web site optimization (notice a space between "web site?")
High search engine ranking
Web page optimization
Search engine promotion
Top search engine ranking
High search engine rankings
Search engine rankings
Better search engine placement
Web site optimization
High search engine placement
Search engines optimization
Website optimization
Search engine optimizations (notice the "s" at the end of optimization?)
High search engine positioning
Engine optimization resources
You notice how many different variations people use to search for information on the same topic?
The fact is, unless a page contains all of the keywords in a search query, then it will have very little of appearing at the top of the rankings.
Before Web pages can be optimized, you must conduct research to determine which keywords to target. This involves finding targeted keywords, determining their popularity, assessing the amount of competition, and then deciding which keywords to use in your Web pages.
Fortunately, there are tools to help you find out what people are really searching for.
Meta Tags
What are Meta tags?
Meta tags are hidden HTML tags used to describe various aspects about a Web page. The two most important Meta tags are the Meta description and Meta keywords tags. Let's take a closer look at each Meta tag.
Sample Meta tags:
Meta description tags
Some search engines index the contents of Meta description tags as the page description in its search engine results.
However, Meta description tags are often misused, with misleading or even false descriptions about a page. As a result, the relevancy of search results are often compromised, so search engines have begun to de-emphasize the importance and even totally ignore the contents of the tag.
Some search engines, such as AltaVista and Inktomi, do still index the contents of a Meta description tag for its search results. But if the meta description tag is missing, the search engine will usually extract a description from the body text.
In general, search engines will index the first 135-249 characters of the meta description tag contents. Write a description that sells the page.
Include the most important keywords at the beginning of the tag. But, don't just fill the description tag with keywords.
Meta keywords tags
The contents of a Meta keyword tag are used to help define the important keywords of a page. It sounds good in theory. However, in practice, the Meta keywords tag is often misused, including the addition of excessive or irrelevant keywords. So much so, that most, but not all, search engines totally ignore the contents of the Meta keywords tag.
Inktomi is the only search engine that I know of that indexes the Meta keywords tag. Since Inktomi provides search results for top search engines such as MSN, HotBot, and Overture, I would say it's probably worth the effort to include the Meta keywords tag in your Web pages.
If you do decide to use the Meta keywords tag, I suggest that you only include the most important keyword phrase in the content of the tag. The Meta keywords tag should be placed just after the Meta description tag.
Should you separate keywords with commas?
This is a question that has come up a lot and one that I have wondered about myself.
Some search engine optimizers recommend leaving out the commas, so that it creates more keyword combinations for the search engines to index.
I'm actually testing both techniques at the moment to see which, if any, helps improve rankings in search engines that still indexes the tag.
I have yet to see conclusive proof that one technique is better than the other. So I can't recommend one or the other. I suggest you try both techniques to see if which, if any, produces better results.
HTML Tags
The 3 most important HTML tags in search engine optimization are title tags, header tags, and ALT text. Let's take a closer look at each HTML tag.
Title tags
Most of the major search engines give the most relevance to keywords in the title tags within the Web page. As such, every page should have a title tag. In general, I have found that short keyword rich descriptions in title tags work best.
Good title tag:
Not so good title tag:
Header tags
Many of the major search engines place a lot of relevance on keywords in header tags (H1, H2 and H3). As such I recommend that you sprinkle keyword rich header tags on your Web pages. Sample header tags:
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Positioning
ALT text
Always include ALT text to describe the contents of an image. Use keyword rich descriptions in the ALT text, as some search engines index the keywords.
You will also provide a text description to visitors with slow download connections or have their images turned off. But to ensure that the text is visible, you must set the image's width and height dimensions.
The use of ALT text also enables visually disabled visitors using screen readers, or reviewers, to interpret the image on the screen. Images can be translated, only if there is alternative text describing the image.
Also consider adding a period "." at the end of the ALT text, so that someone hearing the page can tell where one image stops and another starts.
Sample ALT text within an image tag:
Keywords
Keywords contained within a Web page are the most important element to achieving high search engine rankings.
Keywords are by no means the only relevant factor in how search engines rank a Web page. Other factors also count. But the majority of search engine optimization strategies involve a Web page's keywords in one form or another.
Therefore, it's fair to say that keywords are the most important element to achieving top search engine rankings. After all, if a page had no text at all, there is nothing for a search engine to index!
Perfect Keywords
You should create each Web page by concentrating on the following (in order of importance):
1. One keyword or keyword phrase matching the page content
2. And most frequently used by the target audience
3. And has the least number of competing pages in the search engines.
Admittedly this is not easy and is not always possible. And how do you go about finding the one perfect keyword phrase that matches the page content, which is most frequently used by the target audience, and has the least number of competing pages in the search engines?
OK, you may take a breath now. ;o)
Top keywords
Fortunately, there are tools to help you find out what those all important keywords are.
You can find keyword-marketing tools in the Marketing Tools Directory of my Mike's Marketing Tools web site.
There is also a free list of the top 500 frequently searched Internet keywords extracted from various popular Meta search engines.
Keyword frequency
Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword phrase appears within a page. The theory is that the more times a keyword/s appears within a WebPages, the more relevant the page is likely to be for someone searching those keywords. But do not abuse the system by repeating the same keywords over and over again.
Keyword density
Keyword density is the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total number of index-able words within a Web page. In general, I suggest using a keyword density ratio in the range of 2-8%.
Keyword prominence
Keyword prominence is about improving the prominence of keywords by placing important keywords at the top of a Web page. Basically, the closer your important keywords are to the start of a page, a sentence, title or meta tag, the better.
Keyword proximity
Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are, the better.
For example:
Internet keyword marketing and analysis tools
Internet keyword analysis and marketing tools
If someone searched for "keyword marketing," a Web page containing the first sentence is likely to rank higher than the second, because the two keywords are closer together.
Word stemming
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 "optimize" might return results for, "optimizes," "optimizer," and "optimizers." In general, always try to use the longer version of a keyword, especially plurals.
Stop words
Stop words are common words and characters ignored by most search engines.
For example:
A and are as at be for from he his I in is it of on that the they this to was
Ignoring stop words helps to reduce the amount of storage needed to index the billions of pages of data, and enhance the speed and relevancy of the search results. Only full-text search engines, such as AltaVista, index every single word on a Web page.
As such, always try to use keywords instead of stop words as much as possible. Admittedly, it maybe a bit more difficult to read, but I think it is worth the sacrifice, in the cause of trying to achieve higher search engine rankings.
Keyword research
Lifeblood of SEO
Keyword research truly is the lifeblood of Internet marketing. If you know who is searching and what they are searching for, your choices as to "what and where" to offer your products are much more obvious. For the purposes of this tutorial, however, we will strictly concentrate on evaluating the best keywords to use in order to increase conversions from visitors that come by way of the major search engines.
What keywords are people searching with?
This is the basic question that needs answering before you can start constructing your site. The first and most natural thing that comes to mind is asking yourself, "what would I type in if I was looking for my product?" Type in the terms you use and see what comes up. If the sites you see at the top of the search results are offering similar products and services, then you are right on the money. Sadly, this is where most people stop.
Try to reverse engineer those at the top (if they have done the research, then you won't have to). Pay particular attention to what they place in their
In order to accurately gauge who is searching for your products and services you must use statistical data, which will provide the historical search volume as well as suggest permutations on your keyword phrases that perhaps you have not yet conceived of. A few such tools can be found at:
Google AdWords suggestion tool
Word tracker
I have no affiliations with any of the aforementioned sites, but all of these pages contain great places to do keyword research based on popular opinion as well as my own personal experience.
As a secondary research project, try putting together a quick questionnaire of 5-10 answers based on 2 questions:
Describe the top 5 products/services on my site?
1. _______________________________
2. _______________________________
3. _______________________________
4. _______________________________
5. _______________________________
What would you type in a search engine to find these products/services?
1. _______________________________
2. _______________________________
3. _______________________________
4. _______________________________
5. _______________________________
Finally, to test emphasis (where you should concentrate the most) you must determine keyword conversion value. To me this is easy; once I have created my keyword list (at least 50 keywords should be present) I go to all of the major PPC engines that offer "bid for placement" and I check the cost per click of each term. Those with the highest costs usually have the highest conversion, assuming that those paying for those terms are also in your market. My logic for this is as follows: (cost per click * conversion rate) must equal at least a break-even point to justify paying said amount for each unique visitor. The math for any ROI (return on investment) calculation is very simple and only requires any 2 of the 3 variables considered.
Link Popularity
Link popularity refers to the number of links pointing to and from related sites and is an extremely important method of improving your site's relevancy in search engines.
Use this free link popularity checker to check your web site's link popularity rating. You'll find out just how many web sites links to yours.
There are three types of links that will increase the link popularity of your site; internal, incoming and, to a lesser extent, outgoing links.
Let's take a look at each one in more detail.
Internal links
Internal link popularity refers to the number of links to and from pages within a site. I recommend cross-linking your important related pages. This helps search engine spiders find and index your most important pages quicker, especially if some pages are buried deep within your site.
Site maps
Site maps are visual models of a site's content that allows users to find specific content or page.
Site maps are like interactive table of contents, with links leading to most, if not all, pages of a web site. Site maps are organized hierarchically, breaking down the site's information into increasingly specific subject areas.
If you have more than a dozen pages, I recommend you include a site map in your site.
The add a link to the site map page from the home page, and on other pages. This way search engine spiders will find the site map, crawl the links and index your entire web site.
Incoming links
Incoming link popularity refers to links pointing to a site from other related sites. In addition, there are two types of incoming links:
1. Links from sites you control
I recommend cross-linking all of your web sites. Select keywords that describe the site you're linking to. The reason for doing this is because some of the major search engines, such as Google, place a great importance on the text used within, and close to, links.
2. Links from sites you don't control
There are two ways of finding sites to link to yours. The best way to get other sites to link to yours is to ask them politely. And the best way to find likely candidates is to ask web sites that link to your competition.
To find out which sites are linking to your particular competitor, visit a search engine such as Google and enter, "link:" followed by the competitor's domain name (with and without "www").
For example:
link:google.com
link:www.yahoo.com
To check the link popularity of your own sites, simply use your own domain name.
Do not forget that all the sites listed in the same category, as yours in the major web directories, such as Yahoo and Open Directory Project, are ideal link candidates too.
Once you have compiled a list of related sites, add a link to them in your site. Then send an email to web site owners informing him or her that you have linked to their site and politely ask them for a link back to your site.
Another way of finding sites to link to yours is to find sites that accept site submissions. To find such sites, visit a search engine, such as Google, and search for:
"add url" "your keywords"
Include the quotation marks to ensure the search engine only return pages with the exact search phrases you enter. Also try replacing, "add url" with one of the following sets of search phrases:
add site, add link, submit url, submit site, submit link
In addition, you can also find site submission pages by searching for the actual page. So, try replacing the "add url" search phrase with one of the following page names:
addurl.html, addsite.html, addlink.html, submiturl.html, submitsite.html, submitlink.html, add-url.html, add-site.html, add-link.html, submit-url.html, submit-site.html, submit-link.html, add_url.html, add_site.html, add_link.html, submit_url.html, submit_site.html, submit_link.html
Outgoing links
Outgoing links refers to links pointing to other related sites from your site. Search engine spiders will crawl your site's outgoing links and determine that the content of the sites you link to be related to the content of your own site.
How much importance-outgoing links add to a site's search engine optimization specialists are still debating link popularity rating.
Link keywords
It is important to name your internal and outgoing links carefully. Since keywords play a major part in determining the relevancy of a Web page, it is essential that they are also included in link text.
Link quality
The quality of the links is just as important, if not more, than the number of links to your site.
The types of sites you should concentrate on getting links from include major search engines (Google.com), popular search portals (MSN.com), web directories (Yahoo.com and Open Directory Project - dmoz.org), high trafficked sites (eBay.com and Amazon.com), news sites (CNN.com), and sites related to your site's theme.
Link exchanges and farms
Do not get links from link exchange sites and link farms. Link farms are networks of heavily cross-linked pages on one or more sites, with the sole intention of improving the link popularity of those pages and sites. All of the major search engines consider such links as Spam, so stay clear of these types of links.
SEO Website Structure
Search engine optimization for today's search engine robots requires that sites be well designed and easy-to-navigate. To a great degree, organic search engine optimization is simply an extension of best practices in web page design. SEO(s) relationship with web design is a natural one. By making sites simple and easily accessible, you are providing the easiest path for the search engine robots to index your site, at the same time that you are creating the optimum experience for your human visitors.
This approach ties well into the notion of long-term search engine marketing success. Rather than trying to "psych out" the ever-changing search engine algorithms, build pages that have good text and good links. No matter what the search engines are looking for this month or next, they will always reward good content and simple navigation.
Search engine robots
Search engine robots are automated programs that go out on the World Wide Web and visit web pages. They read the text on a page and click through links in order to travel from page to page. What this really means is that they "read" or collect information from the source code of each page. Depending on the search engine, the robots typically pick up the title and Meta description. The robots then go on to the body text of the page in the source code. They also pay attention to certain tags such as headings and alt text. Search engine robots have capabilities like first-generation browsers at best: no scripting, no frames, no Flash. When designing, think simple.
Search engine friendly design
Creating search engine friendly design is relatively easy. Cut out all the bells and whistles and stick to simple architecture. Search engine robots "understand" text on the page and hyperlinks, especially text links. The relationship of SEO and web design makes sense when you start with good design techniques for your visitor. The easier the navigation and the more text on the page, the better it is not only for the visitor but also for the search engine robots.
Obstacles for indexing web pages
Search engine robots cannot "choose" from drop down lists, click a submit button, or follow JavaScript links like a human visitor. In addition, the extra code necessary to script your pages or create those lists can trip-up the search engine robots while they index your web page. The long JavaScript in your source code means the search engine robots must go through all this code to finally reach the text that will appear on your page. Offload your JavaScript and CSS code for quicker access to your source code by the search engine robots, and faster loading time for your online visitors. Some search engine robots have difficulty with dynamically generated pages, especially those with URLs that contain long query strings. Some search engines, such as Google, index a portion of dynamically generated pages, but not all search engines do. Frames cause problems with indexing and are generally best left out of design for optimum indexing. Web pages built entirely in Flash can present another set of problems for indexing.
Depth of directories
Search engine robots may have difficulty reaching deeper pages in a website. Aim to keep your most important pages no more than one or two "clicks" away from your home page. Keep your pages closer to the root instead of in deeply nested subdirectories. In this way you will be assured the optimum indexing of your web pages. Just as your website visitor may become lost and frustrated in too many clicks away from your homepage, the robots may also give up after multiple clicks away from the root of your site.
Solutions and helpful techniques
If there are so many problems with indexing, how will you ever make it work?
The use of static pages is the easiest way to ensure the search engine robots will index you. If you must use dynamically generated pages, there are techniques you can use to improve the chances of their being indexed. Use your web server's rewrite capabilities to create simple URLs from complex ones. Use fixed landing pages including real content, which in turn will list the links to your dynamic pages. If you must use query strings in your page addresses, make them as short as possible, and avoid the use of "session id" values.
When using Flash to dress up your pages, use a portion of Flash for an important message, but avoid building entire pages using that technology. Make sure that the search engine robots can look at all of the important text content on your pages. You want your message to get across to your human visitor as well. Give them enough information about your product to interest them in going the next step and purchasing your product.
If you must use frames, be sure to optimize the "no frames" section of your pages. Robots can't index framed pages, so they rely on the no frames text to understand what your site is about. Include JavaScript code to reload the pages as needed in the search engine results page.
Got image maps and mouse over links? Make sure your pages include text links that duplicate those images, and always include a link back to your homepage.
Use a sitemap to present all your web pages to the search engine robots, especially your deeper pages. Make sure you have hyperlink text links on your page, and a sentence or two describing each page listed, using a few of your keyword phrases in the text.
Remember that the search engine robots "read" the text on your web page. The more that your content is on-topic and includes a reasonable amount of keyword-rich text, the more the search engine robot will "understand" what the page is about. This information is then taken back to the search engine database to eventually become part of the data you see in the search engine results.
Last of all, it is very important to test your pages for validation. Errors from programming code and malformed HTML can keep the search engine robots from indexing your web pages. Keep your coding clean.
Checklist for success
Include plenty of good content in text on your web pages
Incorporate easy to follow text navigation
Serve up dynamically generated pages as simply as possible
Offload JavaScript and other non-text code (style sheets, etc.) to external files
Add a sitemap for optimum indexing of pages
Validate your pages using the World Wide Web Consortium's validation tool, or other HTML valuator
On way to indexed pages
The best way to assure that your pages will be indexed is to keep them simple. This type of architecture not only helps the search engine robots, but makes it easier for your website visitors to move throughout your site. Don't forget to provide plenty of good content on your pages. The search engine robots and your visitors will reward you with return visits.
SEO - Content Management
Just how important is content to the search engines?
We all know that well written content is paramount to maintaining repeat traffic to a web site but just what qualities pique the 'interest' of the major search engines? This can be a convoluted topic where the unique characteristics of each search engine are considered to create highly appealing content. In most cases, however, the general concepts are all that you will need to know to attain a positive search engine placement, especially when you are focusing on less competitive goals. After all, accuracy is not always required when your target is as big as a barn and you are only a few feet away.
For maximum effectiveness, content should be,
Unique
Content should be written uniquely for each page of your web site. Why? Well, when a search engine spider indexes each page, it constantly searches for any patterns that match known spam practices. For example, an old (and unfortunately still used by less knowledgeable 'optimizers') spam tactic is to create numerous pages with basically the same content to get multiple placements under a single phrase.
Fresh
Search engines are always on the lookout for web sites that offer information useful to their users. If Google found new content every time it indexed your web site, your site would instantly gain credibility because this would indicate that your site is constantly evolving. Following the logic of a search engine (and they are all essentially logical), an evolving web site is likely to be more interesting to searchers since the content is up-to-date. As a result your site has a better chance of obtaining better placements and maintaining the positions gained.
Relevant
Relevance can not be emphasized enough! It is important that when you create the copy write for a web page you try to maintain the overall relevance of the topic. In other words, if your web page has been created to describe the process of "varnishing teak" then maintain that focus throughout the copy. Do not skip to a totally unrelated topic such as (an extreme example) how to change tires this will dilute the keywords on the page and it will make it more difficult for a visiting search engine to determine the placement that the page should achieve. A great deal of the SEO (search engine optimization) process is ensuring topical clarity throughout a web site. By ensuring that the copy on each page clearly indicates a desired topic (in this case the page focuses on teak varnishing), you will leave a search engine with little choice but to place your web site under your desired listing.
Visible
Seems simple right? Well, there are many ways to unwittingly damage the visibility of a beautifully written web site. Many of the following elements are straight out of search engine placement 101 but they must be noted:
Do Not Use Frames: There are few worse blocks to search engine indexing than framesets. If your site is using frames and all of your content is found within a frameset then you may need to reconsider a redesign. The "why" of this is simple; the home page actually has no content on it other than meta tags and a title because the page is only there to 'call' the framesets (which are the pages with the content). As a result, the search engines only see a page with a few links on it and some Meta tags; a very poor recipe for search engine placements.
Do Not Create a Site Totally in Flash: Flash is a beautiful medium for advanced and often engaging multimedia BUT, it should not be the sole medium for your web site because the content within flash is not viewable by a search engine. If you wish to use Flash then we recommend interspersing it throughout a web site much like images are. This way you can include the same impressive interaction capabilities and you can still write your content in html; the sole medium that search engines can index. The same rule applies to images; if you want your text to be found and indexed by the search engines then do not include it within a graphic.
Note: Image ALT tags do the job somewhat by providing an ALTernative copy of the text shown in the image, however, this is a poor substitution for true visible text.
Provide Alternative Navigation Options: Most sites employ a graphical navigation method which provides a very attractive and often functional method of navigating a web site. By ALT tagging each of the menu buttons with a topical summary of the destination page, graphical menus can even be effective for search engines. There are, however, a couple of alternative navigational items that we at StepForth recommend; a mirrored text menu at the bottom of the page and a text link to a sitemap located somewhere within every page.
The reason behind the text menu becomes clearer when you understand that hyperlinked text is more credible than a linked graphic. This is because the text within the link can be read and, as with any properly designed navigation, the menu's text link defines the topic of the destined page. Also, since this text is visible to visitors (unlike less visible ALT tags) there is less likelihood that you are trying to fool the search engines. This adds further credibility to the overall topic of the destined page which, in combination with the correctly written content, creates an even better atmosphere for top placements.
The sitemap is useful because of a certain well-known characteristic of search engines; they often take a long time to index pages that are located deep within a web site. So by creating a sitemap (preferably with text links) that is accessible from any page, you provide the search engines with a direct route to every page within your site. Not only do you facilitate a faster crawl of your web site but you provide the search engines with more text links which may further increase the credibility of your content.
In Summary
Now that you know what it takes to create content that the search engines will love, you are one major step closer to improving your search engine placements. Once you have a web site that meets the many qualities that were listed in this article, turn your attention to the proper optimization of your pages. If you would like some pointers please see my 10 Minute Search Engine Optimization tutorial which will walk you through the basics of the process.
By implementing my suggestions from this article and the 10 minute optimization you will have a much better chance of achieving better placements simply because they are designed to work with, and increase the value of search engine results. You can't lose if you add value; the search engines will love you!
Search Engine Submissions
The term 'search engine submissions' is as the name suggests about submitting to the search engines, in order to get your site indexed by the search engines and web directories, so that people can find your site. Search engine submission is also known as search engine registration.
Search engine optimization on the other hand refers to search engine positioning and placement, a concept whereby you improve your site's design and content to achieve higher rankings in search engines. Do not confuse search engine submission with search engine optimization.
Free submissions doesn't guarantee inclusion
You're going to learn how to submit your Web pages to the search engines. Where possible, I will discuss free search engine submissions. Most search engines offer a "paid inclusion" service, which guarantees inclusion of your Web pages, for a fee.
However, I haven't covered the paid inclusion topic in this course, so as not to confuse those of you completely new to search engine optimization. You'll find more information on paid-inclusion submission programs in my Search Engine Optimization Strategies e-book.
Please note that submitting your web site via free submission forms in search engines and web directories doesn't guarantee inclusion into an index. You may have to resubmit again and again get all of your Web pages indexed.
What are web directories?
Web directories are human edited lists of web sites organized into categories of topics and subtopics. Web directory submissions are an essential part of the search engine marketing and optimization process.
I highly recommend that you spend a bit of time selecting appropriate categories and composing your web directory titles and descriptions, as they will ultimately determine the success of your listings in the directories, and can also contribute a major part to the success of your listings in the search engines as well.
Each web directory has its own set of editorial and submission policies. So study the policies carefully before making any submissions. I recommend you submit your web sites to the top web directories, before submitting them to the search engines.
The reasons are because:
It helps search engines to find and index your web site, as they often crawl the top web directories
Some search engines place a great deal of importance on links to web sites from top web directories. This will help you search engine rankings.
There's only one recommended method of submitting your web site to the top web directories by hand.
Search engine submission software claim to submit to web directories. But in reality you spend as much time entering your web site's information into the software, as you would do if you submitted directly via the web directory submission form. So bypass the software and submit directly to the web directories.
What are search engines?
Search engines are defined as a set of programs that includes:
A spider (crawler, bot or robot) that crawls the Internet retrieving Web documents, then follows links to retrieve other Web documents
A program that creates an index from the documents retrieved by the spider
A program that receives search requests, compares it to the entries in the index, and delivers the most relevant results to the user.
Search engines are the starting point for most people when they're looking for something on the Internet. As such, it's essential that the search engines index your Web pages. Otherwise, your Web pages simply won't appear in the search engine search results.
Search engine submissions - also known as search engine registration - are important for getting your site indexed by search engines, but not as important as it used to be.
The reason is because more and more search engines, such as Google, do not rely on web site owners to submit their site for indexing. Instead they rely on finding sites via links from other web sites already in its index.
Having said that, it's still a good idea to submit your web site to the search engines.
There are 3 ways to submit your web site to the top search engines; submit manually, use submission software, or use an online submission service.
Manual search engine submission
The process of 'manual search engine submission' means personally visiting each search engine and registering your Web pages.
Some search engines have a policy of only accepted a limited number of Web pages each day, so you would have to return each day to submit additional pages.
Most search engine spiders only crawl a limited number of pages in a site. So if you have a large site you should register every important page of your site, which may require many visits.
Search engine submission software
The alternative to the manual search engine submission process is to use search engine submission software or online services that simulate manual submissions. There is a very important distinction between the two, as most search engines have banned automated search engine submissions.
If a program or service does not simulate a manual submission, your submission will likely be ignored or rejected.
I use this search engine submission software program. It simulates manual submissions, which like I said is important. But it's also helps report my rankings in the search engines.
Search engine submission services
Online search engine submission services are similar to their software counterpart except they are hosted online rather than on your computer. Just like search engine submission software, online search engine submission services should also simulate manual submissions.
Many online search engine submission services are very basic in design. They claim to submit your site to thousands of search engines. That is just marketing hype, so please ignore such claims.
The fact of the matter is there isn't that many search engines on the Internet. Of the thousands of search engines these online submission services claim to submit to, the vast majority are either small directories or link pages, with little or no traffic.
Most online submission services do not take into account that some search engines will only accept a maximum number of Web pages from one site per day. As such, people submit too many pages, which either get ignored, or rejected by the search engines.
Search Engine Submission
Here are the major search engines that you should submit to.
Google is the most popular search engine, powering Google, AOL and Netscape search.
Google searches over 4 billion Web pages, supports 82 languages and processes more than 200 million searches a day.
Read Google's own site submission and ranking tips in the Google Information for Webmasters section. Submit your site to Google for free.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Recently introduced its new search engine called, "Yahoo! Search Technology." It powers Yahoo! Alltheweb, AltaVista, and MSN. Yahoo! Offer a free site submission program. Expect a delay of several weeks before your URL is crawled.
http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request
In addition to the free site submission service, Yahoo! Also offer paid inclusion services; Site Match and Site Match Exchange (for sites submitting 1000+ web pages).
The benefits of paid inclusion include:
Guaranteed timely review and addition of your web pages in the Yahoo! Search index, within 4 business days.
48-hour re-indexing of web pages allows constant testing of search engine optimization to try to improve rankings.
Traffic reporting includes number of clicks, and search terms for each URL in the program. Both current and historical data are presented.
A dedicated account representative and XML feed for advertisers submitting 1,000 or more web pages.
Site Match Pricing
With Site Match, you pay a non-refundable annual fee, per URL, per domain, PLUS $0.15 or $0.30 per click through you receives. There is also a $50 refundable deposit to cover click through fees. If your URL is not accepted and you do not want to use the Site Match service, your $50 deposit will be refunded.
URL Submission
First URL: $49
Next 2-10 URLs: $29 each
11th URL and beyond: $10 each
Cost-Per-Click Fee
Tier 1 Categories: $0.15 CPC Tier 2 Categories: $0.30 CPC
Adult
Automotive
Books
Computers & Software
Dating
Education & Career
Jewelry & Watches
Music & Video
Office
Other
Reference
Sports & Outdoors
Toys & Baby Equipment Apparel
Electronics
Financial Services
Flowers, Gifts & Registry
Health, Beauty & Personal Care
Home & Garden
Professional Services
Real Estate
Telecom & Web Services
Travel
Site Match Xchange Pricing
For larger sites submitting 1000+ web pages. There is no annual fee. The pay per click fee is based on content category.
Ask Jeeves / Teoma
Ask Jeeves is powered by Teoma search engine. However, neither search engines provide a free submission form. The only method of submitting your Web pages is via their Ask Jeeves Site Submit program.
The submission fees are US$30.00 for the first Web page, and $18.00 for each additional Web page.
The fee guarantees:
Inclusion into the database powering Ask Jeeves and Teoma within 7 days
Web pages will be re-indexed every 7 days
Web pages stay included in the database for 12 months.
Please note that the Ask Jeeves Site Submit program neither guarantees top rankings, nor a boost in your rankings. The only guarantees are those listed above.
Visit the Ask Jeeves Site Submit site for more information.
Directory Submissions
Here are the top 3 web directories that you should submit to.
Yahoo!
Yahoo! The leading web directory generating hundreds of millions of search related page views every day.
Yahoo! Offers 2 submission programs:
Standard submission is for non-commercial web sites only. The service is free. However, Yahoo! Make no time guarantees of when your site will be reviewed.
Yahoo! Express submission is for commercial and non-commercial web sites. It guarantees a site review within 7 business days for a non-refundable US$299 ($600 for sites with adult content) submission fee.
However, payment doesn't guarantee inclusion in the directory. It only guarantees that Yahoo! Will review your web site within 7 business days. If you're web site is added to the Yahoo! Directory, you will be charged the non-refundable fee, every 12 months.
Yahoo! Provides instructions on how to suggest your site to their web directory.
Open Directory Project
Open Directory Project is the largest human-edited web directory with over 3.8 million reviewed sites. Its index is used by many of top search engines, including Google, AOL and Netscape. So it's essential that you submit your web site to the index.
The Open Directory Project has a page on how to add a site to the Open Directory. All submissions are free.
Look Smart
LookSmart integrates its directory on top web sites, such as Lycos, Infospace, Mamma.com, and CNET Search.
The LookSmart Directory is a web directory with a difference. It only accepts commercial web sites, and charges advertisers on a cost-per-click basis (CPC). The first 5,000 clicks each month cost $0.15.
Search Engine Marketing Glossary
404 Errors
A File Not Found error occurs when trying to access a web page that doesn't exist on a web server.
AdWords
Google's CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) based text advertising, which pre-dates Google's AdWords Select (defined below) and is being phased out.
AdWords Select
Google's new CPC (Cost Per Click) based text advertising. AdWords Select takes clickthrough rate into consideration in addition to advertiser's bid to determine the ad's relative position within the paid search results, which is a notable difference from Overture's CPC model that is based purely on bid amount. Google applies such a weighting factor in order to feature those paid search results that more popular and thus presumably more relevant and useful. You can apply for AdWords Select at http://www.google.com/advertiser?
Alt Tag
The alternate text associated with a web page graphic that gets displayed when the Internet user hovers the mouse over the graphic. Alt tags should convey what the graphic is for or about and contain good relevant keywords. Alt tags also make web pages more accessible to the disabled. For example, a vision-impaired user may have a web browser that reads aloud the text and alt tags on a page. (For those familiar with html, "alt" isn't actually a tag by itself but an attribute to the "img" tag.)
ASP (Application Service Provider)
An externally hosted service offers software and services remotely.
ASP (Active Server Pages)
A Microsoft invented proprietary programming language for building dynamic web sites.
Automated Submitting
Using automated software such as WebPosition Gold or an Application Service Provider (ASP) such as Microsoft b-central's Submit-It service to submit your web pages to the search engines. The search engines frown upon this tactic. Indeed, some search engines such as AltaVista have completely automated submissions by requiring the user to re-key in a one-time use submission code that is displayed on the submission page as a graphic.
Banned
When a search engine blocks your site from appearing in its search results.
Blacklist
Lists that either search engines or vigilante users compile of search engine spammers, which may be used to ban those spammers from search engines or to boycott them.
Bid management tool
Software or an ASP service used to manage bids on pay-per-click search engines such as Overture.
Bidding (as in "keyword bidding")
Placing a bid price that you are willing to pay as an advertiser on a pay-per-click search engine. The highest bid for a given keyword achieves the top spot in the PPC search results. In Overture, the top three bids are "featured" on Overture's partners' sites, including AOL, Altavista, Infospace, and others. The minimum bid amount on Overture is 5 cents per clickthrough.
Blog
Also known as a "weblog". An online diary with entries made on a regular if not daily basis. An anonymous author who uses a nickname maintains some blogs. And some handle instead of his or her real name.
Body Copy
Body copy refers to text visible to users, doesn't include graphical content, navigation, or information hidden in the HTML source code.
Bulk submission service an ASP that submits many URLs to the search engines on your behalf. For example: SubmitWolf. Search engines don't like these.
Cache
Copies of web pages stored locally on an Internet users' hard drive or within a search engine's database. A cache is the reason why web pages load so quickly when a user hits the Back button in their web browser, since the page is not being re-downloaded off of the Internet.
Google is unusual among search engines in that it allows Internet users to view the cached version of web pages in its index. Simply click on the word "Cache" next to the search result of interest and you will be taken to a copy of the page as Googlebot discovered and indexed it. This feature of Google makes it easy to spot cloaking.
CGI Bin
A "virtual" directory contained in URLs indicates a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) script is in use.
Cloaking
Serving different content to search engine spiders than to human visitors. Cloaking is basically a "bait and switch" tactic, where the web server feeds visiting spiders content that are keyword-rich, thus fooling the search engine into placing that page higher in the search results. Yet when the visitor clicks on the link they are given different content, which may be totally unrelated. Search engines frown upon this practice and some will penalize or ban sites that they catch doing it.
Cold Fusion
A web scripting language with limited capabilities, mostly centered on database access. Cold Fusion program files are saved on the web server with a .CFM file extension.
Conversion
The act of converting a web site visitor into a customer or at least taking that visitor a step closer to customer acquisition (such as convincing them to sign up for your e-mail newsletter)
Conversion Rate
The rate at which visitors get converted to customers or are moved a step closer to customer acquisition.
Cookie
Information placed on a visitor's computer by a web server. While the web site is being accessed, data in the visitor's cookie file can be stored or retrieved. Mostly cookies are used as unique identifiers (i.e. user IDs or session IDs) to isolate a visitor's movements from others' during that visit and subsequent visits. Other data that may get stored in a cookie include an order number, email address, referring advertiser, etc.
Cost Per Action (CPA)
The cost incurred or price paid for a specific action, such as signing up for an email newsletter, entering a contest, registering on the site, completing a survey, downloading trial software, printing a coupon, etc.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
The cost incurred or price paid for a clickthrough to your landing page.
Cost Per Thousand (CPM)
The cost incurred or price paid for a thousand impressions
Custom 404 Error page
You can customize the content and the look-and-feel of the default page that is displayed on your web server when a 404 File Not Found error occurs. A good 404 Error page has a friendly message explaining that the page they requested doesn't exist at the location, a site map to encourage the user to continue exploring the site, a search box so the user can conduct a search, and a look-and-feel that matches the rest of the site, including navigation of course.
Creating a custom 404 Error page not only helps keep visitors in your site, it is also an important part of the search engine optimization process. Inevitably pages on your site will get moved and removed over time. When a search engine spider returns to your site to re-index those now non-existent pages, they will have a set of links to explore in the form of the site map on the custom 404 page.
You can test for whether a site has a custom 404 Error page by trying to access a web page with a nonsense filename after the domain name in the web site address.
Database-Driven
As in "database-driven web site." Means that the website is connected to a database and web page content is based in part on information extracted from those databases.
Database-Generated
As in "database-generated web page." Means that a web page is created dynamically 'on-the-fly' from a database, in contrast with a static HTML page.
Deep Submitting
Submitting URLs of pages deep in your site to the search engines. For example, if a Webmaster of 200-page website submits each of those 200 pages. Some search engines frown upon this tactic because it unnecessarily clogs up their submission database when the search engine spider could find those pages on its own by exploring links starting at the home page.
Directory
Human editors groups websites into categories and provide site descriptions or edit descriptions that are submitted to them. With a directory, picking the right category and composing a description rich in key phrases will ensure maximum visibility. Contrast this with a search engine, which is unedited and concerned primarily with the HTML of a site's constituent pages.
Find Ability
How easily found your site is using search engines.
Flash
A technology developed by Macromedia Corp. that allows a web designer to embed interactive multimedia into web pages. If you visit a web page and see letters and numbers flying around with a funky beat in the background, chances are it was done in Flash. Flash requires a plug-in installed in the Internet user's web browser. Search engines can't 'read' content embedded in Flash. As such, this content will be invisible to the search engines and will not get indexed.
Flash intro
An animated 'short' created using Flash that Internet users are made to sit through upon entry to a home page. Flash intros annoy users. They also typically take the place of text content on a home page, and since search engines can't 'read' content embedded in Flash, the rankings of a home page that's just a Flash intro will suffer.
Frames
When separate web pages are combined into one, each potentially with its own scrollbar. You know you're on a framed website when part of the page scrolls while the rest of the page stays in place. Frames frustrate people because much of the time when the person tries to bookmark a specific page, it doesn't actually work but instead bookmarks the "frameset" page which is typically the home page. Search engines don't like frames. A framed web site is at a severe disadvantage compared to non-framed sites in terms of search engine marketing. Most search engines support frames, but only, as Google says in its FAQ section, "to the extent that [we] can." Searchers clicking through to a framed page from search results sometimes end up on an orphaned page.
Frameset
A web page made of frames. A useful analogy: if the individual frames that make up the frameset are the 'children,' then the frameset is the 'parent.'
Fresh
The term Google uses to refer to frequently changing home pages. When Google's Robot ascertains that a given home page is changing frequently, Robot will revisit and re-index this page daily.
Google Bombing
When a group of sites such as blogs join forces to link to an unflattering page about a company such that this page rises to the top of the search results in Google. Google bombing takes advantage of the power of hyperlink text and of Page Rank. For example, if a group of sites with high Page Rank all link to a page about XYZ Company's inappropriate behavior with hyperlink text of "XYZ Company sucks" then the linked page can shoot to the top of Google's search results for the term "XYZ Company."
Googlebot
Google's spider for deep crawls web sites monthly. In those cases where Googlebot ascertains that a given page is being updated frequently pages, Googlebot will visit and index that page on a daily basis and mark that page in its search results as being "Fresh".
Hallway Page
A page that serves as an index to a group of pages that you would like the search engine spiders to find. Once a search engine spider indexes the hallway page, it should also follow all the links on that hallway page and in turn index those pages as well. Note that a web page that has no links pointing to it will be at a severe disadvantage in regards to search engine rankings. A site map acts as a hallway page.
Heading tag (as in "H1" or "H2")
An HTML tag is often used to denote a page or section heading on a web page. Search engines pay special attention to text that is marked with a heading tag, as such text is set off from the rest of the page content as being more important.
Hidden keywords keywords that are placed in the HTML source in such a way that these words are not viewable by human visitors looking at the rendered web page.
Hits
Download of a file from a web server. Hits do not correlate with web page visits. Every graphic on a web page counts as a hit. Thus, single access of a web page with 20 unique graphics on it register as 21 hits 20 for the graphics and 1 for the HTML page. Web metrics guru Jim Sterne says hits "stand for How Idiots Track Success." People who talk in terms of hits are usually either ignorant or are trying to snow their boss into thinking the website is doing better than it really is.
HTML
Stands for Hypertext Markup Language. The programming language used to mark up web content and display it in a formatted manner. It's up to the web browser software, e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape, to render HTML source.
HTML Source
The raw, programming code. It can be accessed in Internet Explorer by going to the "View" menu then selecting "Source".
Hyperlink
Underlined text that points to another web page. Google pays particular attention to the text used in a hyperlink and associates the keywords contained in the hyperlink text to the page being linked to. Also see "Google bombing."
Impression
Every visitor is treated as an impression
Inbound Links
Links that point to your site from sites other than your own. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site's Page Rank.
Index
Search Engine's database in which it stores textual content from every web page that its spider visits.
Invisible Web, The a term that refers to the vast amount of information on the web that is not indexed by the search engines. Coined in 1994 by Dr. Jill Ellsworth.
Java Applets
Small programs written in Java programming language can be embedded into web pages. Applet programs run on the Internet user's computer rather than the web server's computer. Search engines cannot run Java applets. Consequently, if navigation or content is embedded in a Java applet, it will be invisible to the search engines and will not get indexed. Java source code gets compiled into executable code called "bytecode."
JavaScripts
JavaScripts run on the Internet user's comput