My introduction to search engine optimization started in London a few years back and, after experimenting with Web Position Gold, I honed these skills to attain very good results in promoting clients’ websites. Later, I discovered that link building was a necessary but highly tedious monthly process. This I still do to an extent, but today I am increasingly drawn to article writing as the medium for promoting both ourselves and our clients in the world of Web 2.0.

As a former sub-editor for a number of publications in London, it is quite a stimulating pastime to research subjects that interest me. It is also as a valuable means of gaining exposure for our sites. So this year I will be writing for ourselves and our clients through submitting relevant articles to high PR websites; each will then provide us with valuable one-way links.

Also, these articles will appear in the WordPress section of our website so as to syndicate the information further via our RSS feed. As an aside, Google’s Adsense has been added to WordPress and I am keenly aware that the use of high-paying keywords could see some additional rewards for our efforts ― ’search engine optimization’ ranking amongst the top performers.

According to www.weird-websites.com the top ten keywords are: 1) 213,259 paris hilton 2) 155,497 google 3) 124,016 yahoo 4) 121,086 ebay 5) 96,264 eminem 6) 96,262 britney spears 7) 94,014 mapquest 93,708 tsunami 9) 90,841 girls 10) 90,334 89.com

So, submissions have almost been suspended to the free directories and our monthly SEO programme is now much more focused on article writing. They are not intended to only have SEO value; they are being written to provide readers with relevant and interesting content that may not be commonly available elsewhere.

There seem to be a plethora of e-zines out there that accept articles from writers, but I am concentrating on making submissions to the following list that have PR rankings of 7 thru 5: http://www.ezinearticles.com - PR7 http://www.lilengine.com - PR7 http://www.webpronews.com - PR7 http://www.articlecentral.com - PR7 http://www.web-source.net - PR7 http://www.articlecity.com - PR6 http://www.goarticles.com - PR6 http://www.businessknowhow.com - pr6 http://www.articleCity.com - PR6 http://www.buzzle.com - PR6 http://www.web-source.net -PR6 http://www.xongoo.com - PR6 http://www.zinos.com -PR6 http://www.constant-content.com - PR5 http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com - PR5 http://www.submityourarticle.com - PR5 http://www.isnare.com PR5 http://www.authorconnection.com - PR5 http://www.articlealley.com - PR5 http://www.articlesfactory.com - PR5 http://www.articlefinders.com - PR5 http://www.ideamarketers.com - PR5

Rankings, Rankings, Rankings!

How do you get your website ranked well by the search engines? Well, it isn’t as hard as you think, but it may not be as simple either. It takes patience and an ongoing commitment to making search-engine ranking a long-term investment in your website. You will need to give it time and energy - it isn’t a quick fix.

One caveat before I dive into this: If you are a company that is working on attracting local customers, there are many other incredibly effective offline marketing tools to DRIVE people to your website. So, what if you really want to work on search-engine ranking for your site?

Keep these points in mind:

1. Search engines often change their ranking formula.

2. Each search engine has its own algorithm (formula) to determine site ranking.

3. META tag keywords are not a magic bullet to improve your ranking.

4. Search engines can take many months to index new information, so patience…patience.

5. Be cautious with graphics-rich websites if search-engine ranking is important.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Let’s start at the beginning. When you type a query into a search engine, what happens? Some people think that each time a search is entered into a search engine like Google, that the program hunts through the entire Internet to produce the answer. This is NOT what occurs.

Let’s say I type in the words “dog obedience” into Yahoo. Yahoo then takes these keywords and searches through its own unique database of indexed websites to find matches. To add to and update their databases, search engines have programs called “spiders” that crawl through pages on the Internet looking for pages and sites to index. However, they do NOT locate sites on their own. They find sites if someone has purposely entered a website into a search engine’s “Add URL” form. They are also able to find a website if another site in its database has links to it.

When a search engine finds a site, it considers the text on the website to be the number one thing to extract. It places data its database categorized by information it perceives as being important. So, if you have a company that has free articles teaching people how to train their dogs, but you don’t have the word “obedience” listed anywhere, your site may not be listed in the above sample search.

So then, after all of this - how do you get a high-ranking search engine?

Your Keys to Search Engine Ranking

You must think of search engine optimization as a long-term investment in your website. It is an ongoing marketing effort that takes persistence. As you begin to implement optimization techniques, remember it can take several months before you see the results, so be patient. Here are some tips to help you improve your website rankings in the future.

1. Plan Your Content: Before you develop your site, make a list of all the possible search words and phrases you think a potential customer would use to locate your website. A research tool such as WordTracker can help you in this process. Write compelling, professional marketing content for your site that is rich with these search words and phrases, especially on your home page. Make pages about 250 words. Tip: Hire a professional web copywriter to write your site content.

2. Meta Keyword Tags Are Overrated: Contrary to what many people believe, your META keyword tags in your HTML code have very little bearing on the words a search engine uses to reference your site. What does this mean for your site? Make sure your web pages have easy-to-understand paragraphs that describe your site and contain many of your important search words. These search words should match your META keyword tags, otherwise, the spiders tend to disregard the keyword tags.

3. Title Tags Are Vital: Most search engines give a lot of weight to your title tags. These are also the phrases that appear at the top of each web page. So, take the time to create juicy and precise title tags. Use words and phrases that people would be likely to use in their search for your business. Reflect what is actually on the specific web page.

4. Meta Description Tags: This is the area where you write HTML content to describe each of your web pages. Although it is not a major factor in search engine ranking, it IS what is displayed in the search results. People searching will use this description to make a decision to visit your site or not. Use this area for marketing purposes to entice people to click on your link.

5. Design a Site That Search Engines Like: Websites that have graphic Splash pages or are designed in Flash are not as friendly to SE indexing. For the most part, search engines do not index graphics. They read text (but not graphic text). Use small amounts of Flash animation and graphics in appropriate places, along with great HTML content. Along with these graphics, use text for your image ALT tags. If you have a graphic-based navigation system, make sure you have a site map that the spider can use to find all of your site page links.

6. Create a Compelling Site: If you haven’t created a website with gripping content that speaks to your visitors in plain, easy-to-understand language, you won’t get good long-term search-engine visibility. Nor, will visitors ever want to come back. Make your site so good that people will want to link to it. They will want to provide their viewers with your copious amounts of useful information. You can also go to sites that offer complimentary services or products and e-mail their webmaster to ask them to add a link to your site. This will enhance your link popularity, something search engines tend to consider important.

7. Submit your URL to the Directories: Read each search engine’s FAQs and follow it exactly. Mistakes in the submission process can make things extremely difficult to change down the road. Keep your website description short and sweet. Be sure to include keywords, but don’t use a lot of sales jargon.

8. Balance Your Online Marketing Approach: You will get the best results if you create a website that is content rich, popular with viewers, has a credible reputation, and is programmed using a smart approach to Meta tags.

Search engine spiders can be extremely slow to index new information, so be patient! It may take months to see your changes affect your search engine ranking. Remember, a website is a dynamic marketing tool that you are building over time. Treat it well, give it a little love and attention, and your long-term rewards will be well worth your efforts!

Wendy Maynard, your friendly Marketing Maven, publishes REMARKABLE MARKETING, a free weekly ezine for entrepreneurs, business owners, and freelancers. If you’re ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers, and make more money, sign up for her FREE EZINE and report now at http://www.gomarketingmaven.com

If you have a Web site, have you ever wondered what a search engine sees when it visits your site to add the site to its index? Do you know that it doesn’t see the beautiful graphics or the fancy Web design? Do you know that it only sees the source code, or the “skeleton” of your Web site?

Do you realize that knowing this little tidbit of information and doing something about it can make a huge difference in your search engine rankings and, ultimately, the success of your online business?

One very important thing that you need to remember is: the search engines like simplicity. The simpler your Web site is, the easier it is for the engine to determine what your Web site is about. And, if the search engine can determine exactly what your Web site is about, you have a better chance at top rankings under the keyword phrases that are important for your online business.

Let’s look at this concept in action with a page I recently created for one of my online businesses: Search Engine Workshops.

http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/search-engine-seminars.html

As you can see, it’s a very plain, simple page that was not created to be the “main” or “home” page of a Web site. Rather, it was created to pull in traffic through the keyword phrase, “search engine seminars.”

What I really want you to see is the source code of the page. So, when viewing the page, click on View on the top menu bar, then Source or Source Code.

The most important part of a Web page is what appears at the very top of the page. Why? Because a search engine starts at the top of the page and begins moving down as it indexes.

So, what appears in the section of your Web page is very important, because the section is at the top of the page.

Let’s look at the section of the source code:

Search Engine Seminars–your path to success on the Web!

There are only three tags in the section of this Web page: the title tag, the keyword META tag, and the description META tag. Because the title tag is in the section, and because of the importance that most engines place on the tag, it is considered one of the most important tags on your page, so it should always be the first tag in the section.

Notice that in the title and keyword META tag, the important keyword phrase (search engine seminars) appears as the first words in the tag. In the description META tag, the keyword phrase is still toward the beginning of the tag, as opposed to the end.

In other words, where you place your keyword phrase in the tags and content of your page is important. If you place your keyword phrase toward the beginning of all of your important tags and toward the beginning of the contents, you’re “proving” to the engines that the page is really about that particular topic.

I’ve mentioned one reason why the title tag is important, but there’s another reason too. The title tag is important because it almost always appears as the title of the site in the search engine results. Your description META tag may appear in the search engine results as well and is considered important by the some of the engines. So, when you create your title and description tags, remember two things: put your keyword phrase toward the beginning of the tags, and make the tags captivating and designed to pull in traffic.

Think of it this way. If your site is #10 in the search engine rankings, but if the sites above yours haven’t gone to the trouble to create appealing titles and descriptions, a search engine user may skip over those sites to visit yours.

Now, let’s go back to the source code. Look for this tag, which isn’t far from the tag:

This is the image, or graphics, tag for the Search Engine Workshops banner that appears at the very top of the page. Notice that the engine doesn’t “see” the graphic itself. It sees the name of the graphic (banner3.jpg), and it sees the ALT text that describes the image. It sees the width and height of the 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.

About The Author

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

Copyright 2002 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved.

RobinN@acws.com

If you’re a webmaster, you’ve probably spent almost as much time going after link exchanges as actually building your website. Gaining in-bound links, especially from websites with a higher PageRank than your own, can increase your own PageRank on Google, and help your site attain a better overall ranking in Google search results. Proposing link exchanges with other sites that have similar content to your own is a good idea, but the process can be terribly time consuming. So what else can you do?

Most webmasters tend to underestimate the usefulness of online directories in propagating links to their website. No, I am not talking about FFA pages or the thousands of small directories only the website owners and perhaps two other people know about. I am talking about the big directories, such as The Open Directory Project (ODP or DMOZ), Yahoo, Zeal, and even Buzzle.

Getting a listing, or multiple listings, in these directories can bring direct traffic to your website. But perhaps most importantly, these directories act as a propagation source for other sites that are looking to place relevant links on their site. For example, someone who has website about tropical plants may want to place a variety of links to other sites with the same topic. Chances are good they will go to one (or more) of these directories, pick out some links, and place them on their links page. Now, if your website has something to do with tropical plants, and your site was listed in the directory and category they took links from, you might have received a free link from this other website without ever having asked for it. You would probably be surprised just how many new sites fill their fledgling link pages with websites listed on Yahoo, ODP, and other directories.

Furthermore, various popular search engines directly use one or more of these directories to populate their search results. For instance, Google is known to use, and look favorably upon, sites listed in ODP. In fact, Google’s so-called directory is populated almost entirely with ODP categories and websites. And because ODP data can be freely placed on any website or within any search engine, literally thousands of websites and search engines use their data. Free links galore!

There really aren’t many search engines that directly use the Yahoo directory, but that doesn’t devalue a Yahoo listing. A website listed in the Yahoo directory will benefit due to direct traffic from that listing, as well as the possibility of better placement in the Yahoo search results. Yahoo is the most used search engine behind Google, so good placement within their results is important. And as mentioned previously, many websites will “borrow” links from the Yahoo directory to place on their own site. There is no doubt that getting listed in the ODP and on Yahoo will lead to more links beyond the one or two you get in the directories.

Smaller directories, like Zeal and Buzzle are also worth submitting to for the same reasons. Zeal is a particularly good deal because site submission is free (once you are a Zeal member) and the links in the directory are used throughout the Looksmart Network, which includes the sites Looksmart.com, Wisenut.com, Findarticles.com, and more. Buzzle is an informative directory that contains useful articles as well as links. Getting listed within the Buzzle directory costs $59 (nonprofit sites are free), but it may be worth it considering you are getting a link from a good site with decent exposure.

There are many other high-quality directories you may want to consider. Good places to look for directories are, ironically, in the ODP and on Yahoo under the category Directories or Search Engines. Yahoo is especially helpful in that it lists the most popular directories first.

Bradley James is the Chief Editor at GoogleAdvisor.org. He has a computer science degree (BS) from Truman state University, and is currently working on his MS degree at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro. He is especially interested in search algorithms used by such search engines as Google and Yahoo.