Boost Your Search Engine Rankings, Part II Even more tricks to help push your site to the top of the search engine listings
By Joel Holland
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With billions of Web sites on the Internet, fighting to attractvisitors to your site is no easy task. Luckily, search enginesprovide an easy, effective and inexpensive way to edge out thecompetition and win the war for eyeballs.
In last month'scolumn, I covered part one of search engine tactics, explainingthe importance of using metatags. In this month's column,you'll learn how to optimize the title tag, page copy,"alt" attribute image tags and site design. I'll alsodiscuss some good resources for submitting your optimized site tothe major search engines and directories.
Proper use of the portion of the Web page header is critical fora high ranking in the search engines. In addition, most searchengines use the title tag for the results listing, so this tag isyour chance to create a one-sentence summary describing what yourWeb site offers to entice engine users to click on the link to yoursite instead of your competitors'.
If your Web site is dedicated to selling Web hosting, your titlemight read "HostPro: The Leader in Affordable WebHosting." This sample title not only gives your visitors anaccurate description of your Web site, but also holds the keywords"Web hosting" and your company name, "HostPro."I suggest that you keep your title tag within 50 to 80 charactersin length. Also, be sure to find a good balance between an accuratedescription of your Web site and the insertion of importantkeywords that search engine users may search for.
Because search engines index more than just the index page ofWeb sites, it is important to add a title to all pages within yourWeb site. On back pages, don't repeat the same title you usedon the index page; instead, describe what each page offers."Contact information for HostPro" for the contact page;"Web hosting pricing and information" for the productinformation page, and so on.
Some search engines also scan the text on your Web site to pickkeywords for your listing and to make sure that your site isaccurate for the keywords you entered in the metatags and title. Ifyou entered "Web hosting" as a keyword in the metatagkeywords section or title section, then you should also use thatphrase a couple times in the body text of the page to get reallygood accuracy and a high ranking in the search engine. The best wayto do this is by creating a short introduction paragraph for yourWeb site. Write a few sentences about your company and what youhave to offer. Not only will this help with search engine listings,but it's also a great way to let your visitors know immediatelywhat you have to offer.
Be careful not to add text to your Web site that is the samecolor as your background. Webmasters began hiding keywords on theirsites by making them blend into the background so visitorswouldn't see them but search engines would. This doesn'twork, and in fact, most search engines are programmed to figurethis trick out and penalize you for it.
Images also provide an excellent opportunity to throw keywordsonto your Web site. The "alt" attribute tag is hiddenbehind images and is only visible while the image is loading. Itwas created years ago when images took an extremely long time toload and was intended to let visitors know exactly what wouldeventually be seen. Today, images load so quickly that the alt tagis rarely seen by visitors, but is frequently scanned by searchengines. Add two or three words to each image in this manner:.
Search engines not only index the front page of Web sites, butalso scan and list back pages. They do this by following the linkson each page, which is why it is very important to add links on allpages of your site that link to each other. The best way to do thisis to make a links section at the bottom of each page made of text,like this: | Home | Products | Services | Contact Us | About Us |.Look at the bottom of this page or visit eBay.com and drop to thebottom of any of their pages for some great examples.
Your Web site is now optimized for search engines and ready forsubmission! Visiting search engines and submitting your Web siteinformation manually is free but extremely time-consuming. Luckily,there are many submission services on the Internet that can submityour Web site to the major search engines and directories for youfor a small fee. My favorite is Microsoft bCentral's"SubmitIt." For $79, you can submit your Web site for one year.After you initially sign up, Submit It will even submit your siteautomatically each month.
Joel Holland, age 17, has been starting and runningbusinesses since he was 12 and is currently the chief marketingofficer for Nortel Networks Kidz Online, a digital studio thatcreates educational content about technology for schools nationwideand in Canada. Holland is ranked in the top 10 nationwide for hismarketing skills through DECA, a national organization with morethan 300,000 teen members, and was named Business Student of theYear by the McLean, Virginia, Chamber of Commerce. To contactHolland, write to joel@joelkentholland.com.
