Assignment 2 - The basics of SEO
That's right folks, 4 Easy Steps!
Once you have determined which search engine systems you want to utilize, whether they be search sites such as Google, or search directories like the Open Directory Project, you must ensure that your website is optimized for search engine sites and that you know how to and where to submit it.
Lets get started!
There are four steps that should be taken in order for your Website to become successful with search systems. If you follow such steps, which I will cover in a minute, you will be “too cool for school ”, oh and you will have a better understanding of the techniques for improved web page optimization and seach engine submission.
Step 1: Do A Keyword Analysis
To better your chances of a high search engine ranking, it is important to decide which keywords and/or keyword phrases you want to use. You should determine which keywords people will be searching for at search engines sites. A good way to start your keyword research is by going to one of your friendly search engine sites and typing in a keyword that you feel is closely related to the topic or theme of your website. Look carefully at the results that are listed as the top 10 ranked websites. Are they indeed potential competitor sites, are they closely related to your website, or are they completely different? Searches for the most obvious keywords first will help you narrow down your keywords list. Once the most common keywords are out of the way, it is time to start thinking like the user performing a search.
Step 2: Design for the robotic spider bots!
Before you continue!
Keep in mind that this step is not an issue for search directories. Remember that search directories are only categorized websites, therefore humans, not programs, record the information.
If you expect your website to show up in search engine results, you have to create "spider or bot friendly" pages. Spiders or bots, are those programmed explorers who find, analyze, and record website data. Without them, search engine technology probably wouldn't advance very quickly. So you can see why it is important to design and develop sites that please those crazy little critters. The following are several, but not all, things to consider when optimizing your web site for search engines. The details of each media and data website element will be covered in later posts. For now just consider the tips below.
Avoid using frames
Search engines robots do not like websites using frames . They have trouble knowing what content will be placed within a target frame. I would suggest not using frames at all, but if you are just doing it to spite me, then let me provide the following tips:
and Make sure that your- Include
and "noframe" tags between the "body" tags, placing 200 to 300 keywords within. - Add links to all other pages within your website within the "noframe" text.
Create Keyword Rich Titles
Titles are what you see displayed in the browser's title bar. Search engine assume that a web page's title describes its content. That is a reasonable assumption, even for a robot. Other than telling you that a web page's "title" tag is something to pay close attention to, I would like to offer the following suggestions:
and You should try to use between 40 to 60 characters for a page's title.- Make sure that your title includes key words that are relevant to your content and to the keyword list you created in step 1. You have started thinking about your keyword list right?
Provide Search Friendly Navigation
So you have created a snazzy javascript drop down menu to serve as the site's navigation and your so proud of how nice it looks. You even managed to organize the cluttered javascript code by putting it in its own file and calling it from your main website pages. You spent a while doing that right? Well, I hate to burst your bubble but a search engine robot has a rough time trying to figure out how to navigate your website if your navigation is source is within an external file or if it uses embedded javascipt. A robot or spider will be able to find your home page, however will not be able to get to any of the other pages. If you must use an external scripting language for your navigation, it would be wise to consider the following steps:
and Include redundant navigation links to provide search engine robots access to your sites. This will not only help with the indexing process, but will benefit end users who are viewing your webpage on a wireless device browser.- Add a sitemap page to your site. It will serve as your mini directory that robots and spiders can quickly find and index.
Include lots of Content
The fact remains that you can have the nicest designed website on the planet, but if your site does not contain textual data, it just won't rank as high as some ugly, content rich website (If you could hear me, you would have heard me cough Jackob Nielson's name). There isn't much more to say about content, other than you need to either find some, or write some. Try incorporating some RSS feeds from some popular news sites or blogs. Also you might want to:
and Limit the amount of Flash used within a site, especially Flash if it is being used to display textual data.- Make sure that the textual content you need to display is not a graphic. It is wise to not create the text within a graphics program, unless you have a really good reason for doing so.
- Consider what the overall point of the site is. The keywords you collected for search engine optimization should somehow relate to the content itself. The closer your keywords and your actual content are, the closer you are to becoming the master of the SEO.
Implementing your Keywords
So you have your list of keywords ready, right? Good, I thought you did. And you went back and got rid of your framed site, right? Ok, well then were ready to move on. Having a page that is readable by search engine robots and spiders is suburb, and having a list of keywords that users will potentially search for is great, but you must first make sure you know how to add those keywords to your pages. After all, what good is a list of keywords if you don't know how to offer their sacrifice to the robot and spider gods. Take into consideration the following as you begin to incorporate your keywords into your web page.
- Try to place any keywords into "header" tags. Headings are very important and summarizes content. Search engine robots see the headings and assume they are important.
- Use bold and italic keywords. Search engines like this too.
- If possible, put keywords into bulleted lists.
This again, will appeal to the search engines. - Use keywords multiple times on a page, but be sure not to over due it, especially when using word phrases. If a particular word makes up, say 10% of all other words on a page, then it is probably overkill, and the engines might think you are up to no good.
Step 3: Register with search systems
So, now your web pages are more prepared for search engines. You've spent some time making sure that when a search engine robot or spider attempt to index your page, they will be able to do so more effectively. There is only one problem. There are millions of websites on the Internet, all competing for that #1 search engine ranking. You can upload all of your web page files to a server and yes, the search engines will eventually find some of your content, but at a slower rate than the others who have taken the time to submit their website to search engines and directories. To recap from the assignment one posting, a search engine uses programs, called spiders or robots, to search and index content from websites all over the world. A directory on the other hand is like a recipe book that contains categorized information about a website. Directory companies utilize actual humans to do the indexing, not a programmed bot. Directories and engines work together to bring "searchers" effective results, therefore it is important to know how to make yourself known to them both.
Submitting Web Pages to Search Engines
Search engine companies have managed to take control of web marketing. They dictate what and how information is found. They have also managed to figure out a way to make lots of money doing so. It may be suprising to know that just because your website is on the Internet, your not guaranteed that search engines will actually find it. To test this out, go to Google and do a search for "IMD398 Independant Study Philip Huffstickler". My results came up empty, but I know for a fact that my site exists. I am even using google's blogger application to create my content, so why no results? What about the crap you had me do in steps 1 and 2, you may ask? Keywords and layout practices can help you increase your ranking, but you should submit to search engines, so they know exactly where to sick their spider bots. You need a way to let search engines know that you mean business. So, lets look at how to submit your site, shall we?
Submitting To Search Engines For Free
The following search engine companies, below, accept free URL (web address) submissions. Keep in mind that some search engines have limitations on the number of daily submissions. The engines also limit your submission to only one URL. If this is the case, provide a URL for one of your web pages that contain the most links to all of the other pages within your web site.
Search Engines who accept free web page submissions:
Google: www.google.com/addurl.html
Yahoo!: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit *requires a Yahoo! account
MSN: search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Search Engines who charge for web page submissions:
There are literally thousands of search engine companies out there. Remember, we narrowed them down to a small list? Of course, each one of those engines are going to try to suck as much money out of us as they can, so we need to know, again, who the key players are in the paid-inclusion system. Paid-inclusion simply means that you pay to have good search engine results. If you are financially stable and do not have much time on your hands, then paid-inclusion is just what you need. Me on the other hand, I am broke, which is why I am doing this Independant Study in the first place. That and the fact that I really want to know how this SEO stuff works, so I can save on business overhead in the future. Anyways, now on to the paid-inclusion systems.
Google: www.google.com/ads/
Yahoo: www.searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srchsb/sse.php?mkt=us
AltaVista: www.altavista.com/web/express_incl
AskJeeves: www.sitesubmit.ask.com
Submitting Web Pages to Search Directories
Search directory companies, once again, do not use robots or spiders to index information. They use human beings who search for websites, determine what category they are in, and index their information. You might think that they are a waste of time. After all, a human can't possibly stay current on website content, especially with the dynamics of web content today. This is true, however many search engines feed off of the search directories' content. Also, believe it or not, people still use directories such as the Yahoo! directory to find content. Not everyone is a pro at knowing what keywords to search at search engines, you know!
Step 4: Get Other Websites To Link To Your Site
Search engines determine a website's rank by a number of things including popularity. Its like being back in highschool. You become "cool" as other people begin to tell other people about you. The more popular kids have credibility amongst their peers, therefore can boost your coolness rating. In the world of the web, being cool means that people are visiting your web pages. Since a search engine robot or spider cannot look at your sexy web graphics to determine if your cool, they need to base it on the number of links to your site from other websites. The other website's popularity can also help your ranking, so starting selling out and make friends with every website on the Internet, even if they do wear braces!