With the recent threads about guys putting up websites, I thought I would share some tips with you on how to improve your rank count on search engines. This will help drive traffic and business.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is optimizing your site so search engines rank your pages higher. Instead of being on page 15 on a google search, this will help you move up, hopefully to the 1st page. Each search engine operates a little differently, but there are things that they all share in common when crawling your pages and ranking them.
Tip 1 - The more sites that link to your site, will help you gain a higher rank.
A couple of points about this. The sites shouldn't be your own sites on the same server linking to each other. The search engine will recognize this and give a bad ranking to your page. Instead have a friend or partner with someone and link to each others site.
Another important point, the more in common the linking sites have with each other, the better the crawler will rank you. For example, if 2 woodworking sites link to each other - that is excellent because it shows relevance. This is important to seach engines. So if a wood working site links to a CD store site, it really doesn't show relevance and won't help much.
Tip 2 - Use your <TITLE> tag properly!
With in you HTML, this is probably one of the most important ways to help rank your site. MAKE SURE IT IS RELEVANT TO THE PAGE. If a particular page on your site sells "postcards", make sure postcards is in your title tag. For example it should look something like this <TITLE>Holiday Postcards by PostcardsRUs.com</TITLE>.
The order of the words is important and the count of words is important. Limit yourself to about 80 characters, anything else will most likely be ignored. Once again, MAKE SURE IT IS RELEVANT TO THE PAGE. The more revelence the title keywords have to the text in your page the better ranking you get. The engines will not only ignore pages that don't have relevant titles, but flag them as BAD pages.
Tip 2 - Use your <META NAME="description"> tag properly
This is the information that will display in the search engine results under the title of your page. Again, RELEVANCE counts here also. For example -
<META NAME="description content="Holiday Postcards created custom for you by request. Happily brought to you buy PostcardsRUs.com"/>. Again limit yourself to characters here, the SE will stop after so many.
The <META NAME="keywords"> tag is close to useless. Because you can enter any word in the world in there, most search engines ignore them, or will rank your page badly if they are not relevant.
Tip 3 - Keep your <HEAD> tag as clean as possible
The search engine will look through this tag only for so long. Keep your CSS and JavaScript out of here and put them in include files.
Tip 4 - Repeat keywords often in your text
For example if the page is about Holiday Postcards, make sure "Holiday Postcards" is written several times, it will make your page more relevant. Also text with in the <H1>, <H2> tags are considered important! If your familiar with CSS, use it customize the font formatting with in them.
Tip 5 - Always have a sitemap.html with in your site
Basically what a site map is, is a simple page that displays all the categories to your site. Here is an example of one - http://www.forbes.com/fdc/sitemap.shtml
Keep it simple and clean, not a ton of graphics.
This is the first page a seach engine will look for! It will use this page to crawl your site. So its always a good idea to have one in there.
Other Tips -
Search engines can't read images or flash content. So if REALLY important, make sure it in plain text some where on the page.
Don't link to a zillion other sites on your page unless they are RELEVANT. The search engines will frown upon this and rank your page badly.
Sites that are already ranked high and optimized well are difficult to pass, so make sure to find your nitch and market yourself properly.
Also, IT TAKES ABOUT 4-6 WEEKS FOR YOU SITE TO BE RE-CRAWLED AND RANK. Therefore, if you make changes to your site, don't expect to see a difference immediately. It takes time.
Sometimes search engines will put your site into a "holding" period if its new and can't determine if its for real.
Thats about all I can think of now, if I do think of more i'll pop them up here. Just thought i would share with you guys some stuff that may help in a field I actually know some things about (unlike this cigar business :hysterica)
If you have any questions, or would like me to help you with your site (for free of course) feel free to PM me.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is optimizing your site so search engines rank your pages higher. Instead of being on page 15 on a google search, this will help you move up, hopefully to the 1st page. Each search engine operates a little differently, but there are things that they all share in common when crawling your pages and ranking them.
Tip 1 - The more sites that link to your site, will help you gain a higher rank.
A couple of points about this. The sites shouldn't be your own sites on the same server linking to each other. The search engine will recognize this and give a bad ranking to your page. Instead have a friend or partner with someone and link to each others site.
Another important point, the more in common the linking sites have with each other, the better the crawler will rank you. For example, if 2 woodworking sites link to each other - that is excellent because it shows relevance. This is important to seach engines. So if a wood working site links to a CD store site, it really doesn't show relevance and won't help much.
Tip 2 - Use your <TITLE> tag properly!
With in you HTML, this is probably one of the most important ways to help rank your site. MAKE SURE IT IS RELEVANT TO THE PAGE. If a particular page on your site sells "postcards", make sure postcards is in your title tag. For example it should look something like this <TITLE>Holiday Postcards by PostcardsRUs.com</TITLE>.
The order of the words is important and the count of words is important. Limit yourself to about 80 characters, anything else will most likely be ignored. Once again, MAKE SURE IT IS RELEVANT TO THE PAGE. The more revelence the title keywords have to the text in your page the better ranking you get. The engines will not only ignore pages that don't have relevant titles, but flag them as BAD pages.
Tip 2 - Use your <META NAME="description"> tag properly
This is the information that will display in the search engine results under the title of your page. Again, RELEVANCE counts here also. For example -
<META NAME="description content="Holiday Postcards created custom for you by request. Happily brought to you buy PostcardsRUs.com"/>. Again limit yourself to characters here, the SE will stop after so many.
The <META NAME="keywords"> tag is close to useless. Because you can enter any word in the world in there, most search engines ignore them, or will rank your page badly if they are not relevant.
Tip 3 - Keep your <HEAD> tag as clean as possible
The search engine will look through this tag only for so long. Keep your CSS and JavaScript out of here and put them in include files.
Tip 4 - Repeat keywords often in your text
For example if the page is about Holiday Postcards, make sure "Holiday Postcards" is written several times, it will make your page more relevant. Also text with in the <H1>, <H2> tags are considered important! If your familiar with CSS, use it customize the font formatting with in them.
Tip 5 - Always have a sitemap.html with in your site
Basically what a site map is, is a simple page that displays all the categories to your site. Here is an example of one - http://www.forbes.com/fdc/sitemap.shtml
Keep it simple and clean, not a ton of graphics.
This is the first page a seach engine will look for! It will use this page to crawl your site. So its always a good idea to have one in there.
Other Tips -
Search engines can't read images or flash content. So if REALLY important, make sure it in plain text some where on the page.
Don't link to a zillion other sites on your page unless they are RELEVANT. The search engines will frown upon this and rank your page badly.
Sites that are already ranked high and optimized well are difficult to pass, so make sure to find your nitch and market yourself properly.
Also, IT TAKES ABOUT 4-6 WEEKS FOR YOU SITE TO BE RE-CRAWLED AND RANK. Therefore, if you make changes to your site, don't expect to see a difference immediately. It takes time.
Sometimes search engines will put your site into a "holding" period if its new and can't determine if its for real.
Thats about all I can think of now, if I do think of more i'll pop them up here. Just thought i would share with you guys some stuff that may help in a field I actually know some things about (unlike this cigar business :hysterica)
If you have any questions, or would like me to help you with your site (for free of course) feel free to PM me.
