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Choose
a right
Title
Firstly, make sure each page of your site has a descriptive title. Because
search engines usually give the most weight to the page's title, you should
place a descriptive phrase between the
<TITLE> tags. For best results, it is
advised that you keep it within 200 characters and to-the-point. Also, since
search engines return the title as the search results, your HTML title should
be both descriptive and attractive.
For example, the following title describes well the site, and therefore is
a good choice:
<TITLE>Dynamic
Web promotion software - submit your web sites to 1000+ major search
engines.</TITLE>
<META>
tags
You can control how search engines catalog your site with
<META> tags. Not all search engines make
use of these tags, but using them will definitely improve your position in
those that do. All <META> tags should
be placed within the
<HEAD>...</HEAD> portion of the
document.
The <META> description tag lets
you specify a short summary about your web site. This tag should clearly
describe what one can find at your Web site. Here's an example:
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="#1 best selling 5 star award winning
web promotion and site submission software. Increase your web site traffic
by submitting your sites to 1000+ search engines.">
Some search engines limit the description to 200 characters. To be on the
safe side, make sure your description does not exceed 200 bytes (characters).
If you do not use <META> tags to describe your site, the Web page
description will be derived from the first 200 characters in the HTML
<BODY>...</BODY> portion. Also note
that there should be only one <META> description tag per page.
The <META> keywords tag lets you
specify a set of keywords that a search robot should give precedence to when
cataloging the page or how people can find your web site. Here's an
example:
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="web promotion, site submission,
web advertising, increase traffic, promotion software, web site
promotion">
The keywords can include up to 1000 characters of text. Be sure that the
keywords you choose are relevant to the contents of your page. Note that
the keywords are used in the indexing process but will not display on your
Web page or on a search response page. Try to incorporate singular and plural
cases of words, as well as active and passive verbs. Also make sure your
keyword list includes both general and specific words related to your site.
You rarely want to target a single keyword, because, with the billions of
words indexed on the Web now, one word simply won't cut it. Always use phrases,
not plain words, in your list.
Frame
Sites using frames should definitely make use of <META> tags. The main
HTML file contains the <FRAMESET> tags, but fails to provide
robots with any real useful information about the Web site. Therefore, you
should utilize the <META> description tag to provide a description,
summarizing the site's contents. If JavaScript (or any other scripting language)
makes up the first several hundred characters on your page, you should use
the <META> description tag so your site comes up with a meaningful
description in search results.
Web
Site Contents
Search engines rely mostly on word density (frequency relative to the total
size of the page) or distribution (how well the word is spread throughout
the page). Some search engines even give precedence to text near the top
of a Web page, so make sure you place the most important stuff at the top.
Furthermore, search engines that do not support <META> tags use the
first 200 (or 250) characters for the site's description, so the first paragraph
should describe/sell your service.
Use <Hn>...</Hn> for headers, rather than the
<FONT>...</FONT> tag definition. Some search engines consider
header text particularly important.
Image
Description
If your site mainly consists of images, you should use the ALT attribute
to
describe each image. Most search engines index the ALT attribute in the
<IMG> tag. The following HTML definition shows how to use this
attribute:
<IMG SRC="image.gif" HEIGHT="486" WIDTH="60" ALT="Web
Site Promotion">
SPAM
The overuse and repetition of keywords may result in a lower relevancy score
and possible omission from some search engines. Most search engines count
only the first few occurrences of a keyword or phrase, and some even penalize
you for repeating words to improve your site's ranking. Infoseek and Lycos
are two search engines that penalize sites that are suspected of repeating
keywords, and Altavista will disallow URL submissions from those who spam
the index. Some search engines penalize your site if a keyword is repeated
more than three times.
Don't try to fool a search engine by using the phrase "web promote" three
times, and the phrase "web promotion" another three times. Search engines
are smarter than that, but they still aren't smart enough to associate "promote"
with "promotion."
General
Rules....
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Most of the engines have
choosen not to keep up and can not spider frames sites. Make NOFRAME sections
in web pages.
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Always make sure your
web site is completely finished, spell checked, online and working properly
before attempting to get indexed. One of the most common problems people
encounter in getting their web site indexed is due to a spider not being
able to reach the URL for indexing. Make sure your web site is up and responding.
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Alta
Vista and some other search engines, will index all words in your
document (except for comments), and will use the first few words (e.g. 250
characters) as a short abstract to serve back. It is possible for you to
control how your page is indexed by using the META tag to specify additional
keywords to index, and a short abstract.
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First paragraphs of the
text are the most important for search engines. Brainstorm with friends and
colleagues, etc. and put the most important keywords into a carefully crafted
paragraph at the start of your HTML document.
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Make sure that the HTML
code is using the proper tags in the proper places (called validating your
HTML). Most search engines do not tolerate invalid HTML code, that is, if
your code contains invalid HTML tags most search engines will not index your
web page or worse yet, not index you correctly.
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Most search engines can
take up to 3 to 4 weeks before getting around to indexing your web site.
Be patient. Keep track of when you asked to have your web site indexed and
check often. Requesting to be indexed over and over again will not help speed
up the process.
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Alta
Vista uses a case sensitive algorithm. What this means is that typing
in "PROMOTION" will give you a different result from "Promotion".
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Excite
does not take advantage of Meta tags, they do however look at the words in
the Title of your document. Excite may take as long as 4 weeks to index your
web site, so be patient and check often.
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Because 70-80% of information
searchers find what they are looking for in the Internet through the main
search engines, the best way to attract visitors to web sites is to be ranked
high in the main search engines. Before submitting your site to the search
engines and directories, spend some time reading about how to write your
title, metatags and the first few paragraphs of each page to obtain better
ranking. After submitting your web site, you should periodically review your
ranking in the search engine listings by the key phrases.
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To improve or maintain
position of your web site in the main search engines, you may need to rewrite
pages, add new content and additional web pages, change your description
and keywords, etc. If you need to learn HTML to do this, do it because the
reward is worth the effort.
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