Hi Martyn
Thanks for the question. The problem of search engine optimization is
a common one but is not too difficult to solve given an understanding
of how search engines rank web sites.
Since you haven't mentioned the URL of your site in the question, I
will answer in general terms which you should be able to apply to your
individual site(s).
Site content is the most important part of search engine optimization.
If the text of your page has a wealth of relevant keywords and linked
terms then the crawler will pickup on this and your page is more
likely to appear highly in a specific query. You can add to this
using the meta tags in your HTML code. Within the <HEAD> .... </HEAD>
tags, you can add code to the effect of
<META NAME="title" CONTENT="Your site's title">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A description of your site">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, etc">
which is used by some search engines to determine the relevance of
your site.
An appropriate title is one which concisely describes your site and
should be as specific as possible so as to attract attention from the
correct search queries. Select keywords which accurately describe the
content of your site and, although your should never spam a search
engine by repeating words, don't worry about using a variety of
similar terms (eg. bike, bikes, biking, bicycle, bicycles) to include
a range of possibilities.
Graphics within your site cannot be recognised by search engines and
will therefore not effect your position, however the ALT tag can be
used to describe their content to a crawler.
eg. <IMG SRC="image1.jpg" ALT="A mountain bike">
The number of other sites linking to your own is an important factor
taken into account by some search engines, and indeed Google's
PageRank system relies heavily upon your 'popularity' with related
sites.
An explanation of Google PageRank is available here:
Google Technology
://www.google.com/technology/
Essentially, the more links that exist to your site from other
relevant web sites, the better your ranking with Google, Yahoo and
possibly other search engines. To increase the number of links to
your site, I would suggest first looking for other related sites to
whom you would link from your site if they agreed to link back to you.
An additional way of working with similar sites is to join a Web Ring,
a group of related sites which are interlinked through a central hub.
I personally recommend rings from:
WebRing
http://dir.webring.com/rw
Using a web based directory provides another opportunity of a link to
your site. Most directories are organized into categories to make
them more manageable and it is important for the submitter of the site
to find the correct category to submit to. It is also important to
read the submission criteria and to adhere to these when writing a
site title and description because sites will generally be rejected if
they are not described in an unbiased and descriptive manner. In my
opinion the most important directories to submit to are:
Google Directory
://www.google.co.uk/dirhp?q=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=
Open Directory Project
http://dmoz.org/
Yahoo.com
http://www.yahoo.com
In all three cases, work down through the hierarchy of categories
until you find one appropriate to your site and then click on the
'Suggest a Site' link. You will then be guided through the submission
process.
It is possible to discover the number of sites linking to your own by
using the Google link search function available as one of the advanced
search options at ://www.google.co.uk/advanced_search?hl=en
Once the number of links to your site have increased, you should
notice that your ranking within the search results improves
significantly. As a final note, it is probably worth referring to the
Google Webmasters Dos and Don'ts section to ensure you have not
contravened any of their recommendations.
Google Information For Webmasters
://www.google.com/webmasters/dos.html
If working with other search engines as well as Google, the following
articles may be useful to you.
Search Engine Optimization FREE!
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/23/index1a_page3.html?tw=e-business
Search Engine Optimization Tips by Submit It!
http://www.submit-it.com/subopt.htm
How to Web Design for Web Positioning
http://webpositioning.co.il/web-positioning-articles/web-positioning-articles.html
How Search Engines Work
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/work.html
I hope this answer provides you with all the information needed to
make your site successful within the Google rankings. If you would
like any clarification please do not hesitate to ask.
mcfly-ga |
