Lesson 11:
To take advantage of search engines, you need to understand how they
function. First thing you need to understand is that a web directory and a search
engine are different.
To get listed in a web directory, you need go to the website and enter your
details under appropriate categories. A search engine will automatically search the
web and if you are eligible, your website will automatically be indexed.
Alternatively you may enter your information at an appropriate URL, the search
engine will visit your website and based on the predefined criteria, your website
will appear on top or at the end of the listing.
It is quite possible that if you are listed in a web directory and if they (directory)
have optimized their pages properly, when someone searches at a search engine,
your name could appear in the search results - possibly on top.
A search engine's main job is to provide results that match exactly what a user
searches for. If they present a result that does not satisfy the user (and if it repeats
every time), it is almost certain that the user is not going to use that search engine
again.
Search engines use software robots called spiders to collect information on
the internet and to store them in advance (before a search is done). This process
is called crawling. The data collected by the robots from internet is then analyzed
to find the exactness of the data and decide the relevance of the sites.
Every search engine has its own formula in doing this process. In general the
factors like, domain name, URL of the webpage, title of the page, keywords, font
size & colour of the title (bigger the better), repetition of certain words, contents of
the page, number of inward and outward links at your site (known as link
popularity), contents of those linked sites, etc. are considered by almost all the
search engines.
Earlier the search engines used to check something called Meta Tags as the
main criterion in sorting the websites. But since the webmaster took advantage of
the search engines to attract visitors by (all means) manipulating the Meta tags,
search engines have tightened their criteria to decide the relevance.
In other words, search engines have become more intelligent than the website
owners and you cannot manipulate your website to rank high.
Before you could submit your website to the search engines, you need to do a
lot of home work. The following are the most required aspects for success with
search engines:
Website URL: Your website name (URL) should preferably contain your
keywords in it. The domain name of a website selling Antique Furniture having
shop and target audience in India may preferably be registered as
www.AntiqueFurnitureIndia.com. If you have a page that talks about exports of
antique furniture, then you can store the information in a file exports.htm. So now
your URL will be www.AntiqueFurnitureIndia.com/exports.htm.
Meta Tags: Though many search engines do not use meta tags anymore,
some still do. So it is still a good idea to use them. Meta Tags are placed between
the tags <head> and </head> in your html file. A basic Meta Tag consists of two
parts. They are:
Keywords: This is a list of keywords that are relevant to your site's content and
should also be around 100 to 150 characters. Each keyword or phrase should be
separated by a comma. For example: <meta name=keywords content=antique,
furniture, indian, exports, exporters, india>
Description: This is a brief statement about your site's content and should be
about 100 - 150 characters in length. For example: <meta name ="description"
content= "Exporters of all types of Indian antique furniture from India">
In case you do not know how to create meta tags, check your CD for FREE
Meta Tag Generator. You just have to create, copy and paste it into your html file.
Page Title: This is very important in getting a good position in search engines.
Provide a brief description, with the keywords that will be most relevant. In the
above-mentioned example, the title could be Exporters of antique furniture from
India.
Content: Needless to say, the content of the webpage should be relevant to
your keywords, description and page title. Keywords must be repeated as many
times as possible. Please remember that you cannot manipulate for the sake of
ranking high on the search engines. The content should flow naturally while using
keywords as many times as possible.
Relevance: When you suggest your URL to the search engines, you need to
select the right category that is appropriate to the purpose and contents of your
site. If not, your website will never be listed in the search results. And there are
possibilities that your site may be banned due to irrelevant content.
This is one important reason why you must never use the automated Search
Engine Submission software to submit your URL to 100s of search engines at a
time. You need to personally submit to search engines, if you want to rank high.
Link Popularity: In the last chapter we discussed about getting links from
other websites. This is one of the factors that are used to weigh your website. The
number of websites you are linking to or linking from is counted and the quality of
the websites is checked (i.e. whether or not the websites linked are related to your
business / content and their reputation in the field).
For example if your website is linked from about 100 websites that are related
to your business / information at your website. And your competitor is linked from
about 150 websites, out of which, only of 50 are related to their business. Then
you rank on top of your competitor, as far as this benchmark is concerned.
If you want to know how many websites (and who) are linking to your website,
search in Google for link:www.yourwebsite.com. This will show you the complete
list of websites that are linked to your website.
In a nutshell: If you are selling a book on Human Resources and you want
your site to be displayed on top when someone searches human resources, you
must preferably have most or all of the following: A domain name something like
www.humanresourcesguide.com, page title like Ultimate Guide for Human
Resources Managers, has keywords like human, resources, hotel, industry,
employees, insurance, font size of the title as bold and prominent as possible, the
words human and resourcesrepeated (at least) in the first few lines of your
webpage, contents that are relevant to the keywords, the sites linking from your
webpage are relevant to your content and your site is linked from as many sites as
possible that are similar to yours.
Patience: This method is not for creating instant traffic. Only PPC ads can
bring you instant traffic. It can sometimes take weeks or even months for a listing
to show up on some of the bigger search engines. Most people run some
automated submission program once and then expect the traffic to flood their
website. It does not work that way.
There is no single technique to rank high on search engines. The above
mentioned tips can help you understand what is happening at Search Engines.
Some search engines will rank you higher based on keywords, others use the
description and some use the title, while others use the text of the web page. By
maximizing each of these areas, you will find better results with search engine
listings.
Remember, this will be an ongoing process for you. All the search-engines
keep changing their formula very fast. As you start working on Search Engine
Optimization, you will get to know the techniques slowly. Frequently visit various
search engines and search for the keywords relevant to your site. See where your
site comes up. Compare the site that comes on top with yours and modify
whatever is required. Keep testing various aspects one-by-one.
Do not forget that the changes will take place only after about a week or a
month. Be patient and be persistent you will be successful.
Lesson 11: Search Engines
Labels: Lesson 11: Search Engines