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Basic Website Optimization Tips
Knowledge Base Information for more web site promotion
and optimization information. Link
Meta Tag
Information:
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....
- Most of the engines have
chosen not to keep up and can not spider frames sites. Make NOFRAME
sections in web pages.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Alta Vista uses a case sensitive
algorithm. What this means is that typing in "PROMOTION"
will give you a different result from "Promotion".
- 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.
- 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, meta-tags 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.
- 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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