Search
Engine Optimization:
Getting people to your web site
This
question has come up more than a few times, so I figured I
should write a little about it. This is not an exhaustive
review of what to do to drive traffic, but I do provide the
basic steps, and help you to understand the fundamentals
What
is search engine optimization?
Search
engine optimization is the process of making changes
to your web site (the structure) and web pages (in the code
and text) that will make it easy for the search engines to
'see' what your web site is about. It is also about intelligently
making those changes so that you attract the traffic that
is interested in what you have to offer. If you are selling
jewelry, people interested in video games are not going to
help you much!
The
key steps to preparing your web site
Don't
use framesets
HTML
framesets can be fun (for those crazy people out there! :))
But they wreak havoc with the search engines. When most search
engines hit a frames based page, the best you can hope for
is that they index the text you inserted into the 'no frames'
section of the frameset.
The
'noFrames' tag was designed to display text to people who
did not have browsers that could read frames properly. Typically
you would put something like:
''This
site is designed with framesets, please update your browser
...''
There
was once a time when frames were new and some browsers didn't
support them! Must seem strange considering framesets are
now considered old crap that should not be used!
I've
been off frames for a long while but about 2 years ago a client
insisted on using them (I forget why) so I grudgingly created
the frameset-based pages. In the 'noframes' tag I inserted
text that went something like this:
''You
stupid idiot! Get yourself a browser that wasn't made in the
stone age! In case you didn't know: browsers are free! ''
I
put in that little amusement for myself figuring no one would
ever see it because framesets were a 100% supported. About
a week later I got a call from my client because his popular
web site was re-listed in the search engines with the text
from the 'noframes' content being displayed in the site listing!
Tens of thousands of people, when searching, would be kindly
greeted with my 'little' joke.
The
power of keywords
The
first thing you have to do when building your web site is
to figure out what keywords and phrases your target audience
is using to find web sites like yours. Besides using a little
common sense, where you put yourself in your audiences' shoes,
is the use of word search tools that give you the following
information:
•
How often people search for particular terms or phrases
•
How many other web sites are targeting these keywords
•
Keywords that are related to your category
•
Typical keyword misspellings when people make searches
This
type of information is invaluable, and companies traditionally
pay a fortune to get this kind of information, so take advantage
while it's still inexpensive. Marketing to your target audience
like this is like getting the secret fishing spots from the
locals ... you catch much more fish!
Effective
Site Structure
Search
engines find web sites and pages by following links - for
your web site to be found by the maximum number of engines,
you need to get other web sites to link to yours.
To
ensure that the search engines can properly index your pages
you need to include text links to all your sub pages that
the search engine robots can follow. One of the best ways
to this is to create a site map page. A site map is just a
simple HTML page that contains links to all your websites
pages. The site map should be accessible from your websites
home page.
Be
careful of Flash or DHTML menus
Fancy
Flash and DHTML menus give most search engines a tough time
crawling / searching your web site. The site map helps solves
that problem as well a secondary text links at the bottom
your pages.
Adding
you web sites content: seeding your web site with keywords
There
are four key spots on your web pages where you need to have
your target keywords appear:
•
The page's <TITLE>
•
In the META tags description:
Example: <meta name="description" content="A
short description of your website with keywords">
•
In your pages section headings: (H1 - H6)
•
In the list (<li> tags) and paragraphs (<p> tags)
of your pages
Don't
use the target keywords too much, just write your sentences
as you normally would and use those keywords when appropriate.
If you 'stuff' your pages with keywords, you could get punished
by the search engines.
A
note about meta tags
There
was once a time when the meta tag 'keywords' affected some
search engine results. But that never really penetrated very
well and the search engines have since dropped them (since
1997) because the results did not come in properly because
people kept screwing around. Concentrate on good content,
well-named page titles and building links.
Building
links
The
number one thing that will raise your position in the search
engines is the number of links (100 web sites linking to you
is better than 10), and quality of links pointing to your
web site.
What
are quality links?
Quality
links are links from important web sites. A good way to evaluate
how important a website is (according to Google) is the Page
Rank number. Google ranks pages from 0 to 10 where websites
like Google.com, Macromedia.com are 10's and some new website
with no links pointing to it has a score of 0.
Getting
links from a web page with a rank of 7 is worth much more
than a link from a web page with a rank of 4. Page ranks of
7 and up are rare, where as pages with ranks 1 through 6 are
much easier to find. There seems to be an exponential scale
with every Page Rank number; to go from 5 to 6 is much easier
than going from 6 to 7 ...
How
to find out what page rank a web site has?
For
PC users, the easiest thing is to get the Google
Toolbar where you get a display of each web sites page
rank as you hit it. At this time Google doesn't make a tool
bar for the MAC.
Another
thing to do is look at the top 10 web sites that appear in
searches that you're interested in and see if any will link
to you.
I
concentrate on Google because it accounts for the vast majority
of the searches made today. The Google search engine actually
powers other search engines like Yahoo, MSN and AOL among
others.
What
you put in the links makes a difference
When
exchanging links with other web sites, it's good to provide
your link code so that they can simply cut and paste it into
their web sites. Besides making their lives a little easier,
you can control what link text is being used.
The
words used in links (link text) play and important role in
categorizing your web site in the search engines. So remember
to include some of your target keywords in your links. |
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