SEO Resourses
Internet Marketing & Website Ranking Resources:
Things to Avoid in Search Engine Optimization
:
There are a few things you must avoid (or fix accordingly)
when considering to optimize your site for search engine
submission. These include the following and more:
Dead Links - As search engines index your entire site by
crawling through hypertext links, you must make sure you
check for dead links before submitting.
Graphics and Image Maps - Search engines cannot read images,
be sure to include Alternative Text tags.
I recently had someone ask me why their site couldn't get
indexed on the search engines. I wasn't surprised when I
looked at their site - 41 pages of pure images only - not
a shred of text on the site. That is the worst case scenario
of course, but you should keep pages under 64k (max) total
graphics and text. Anything else, your losing your search
engine food, and the load time is driving away users before
the page ever loads.
Frames - Many Search engines aren't frames compatible.
Meta tags and the <no frames> tags are important in
this instance.Only AltaVista, Google, and Northern Light
understand frames. If you use frames, make sure that your
first content page is search engine friendly, and that it's
linked to the main pages of your site by standard text links.
Submit this page to the search engines, not your frameset
page
Password protection - Most search engines cannot index
content available behind a password-protected page unless
you make special arrangement to provide password access.
Dynamic Pages - If your site uses database generated requests
or CGI scripts etc, consider submitting pointer pages with
the search engines.
SPAMMING - Avoid resubmitting your pages repeatedly to
search engines if your site does not get listed in the first
few weeks. Allow atleast 6 weeks before resubmission. Continual
resubmission (such as those caused by automatic submission
software) can cause your site to be penalized.
No Flashing! Nothing drives users away, never to return,
like flashing text, or abuse of animated gifs can. That
scrolling banner text ranks right up their too.
Ban Those Banner Exchanges! Link Exchange is the great
modern Internet myth of our time. I've talked to hundreds
of people in-the-know about this subject, and the facts
are simple - banner exchanges cost you repeat visitors in
the short run, the medium run, and the long run. Its like
putting a DO NOT ENTER sign with a big skull and crossbones
on your front door. Nothing spells Trailer Park like Link
Exchange - your left wondering why your hit rate slowly
fades away. It is one thing if you are getting paid for
it - it is another entirely if you are giving it away.
Cloaking, Door way Pages, Mini sites. It's all the same.
This and some of the tricks mentioned below are considered
"SPAMMING" by search engines.
Hiding Text. Padding your page with "hidden"
text, using fonts the same color as your background, will
prompt search engines not to index those pages.
Tiny Text. Visible text, whose only purpose is to pad the
page, will be penalized the same as using hidden text.
Banners and Links. If banners or links are the first things
that the search engine spider comes across, it may leave
your site and follow the link. Place banners and links to
other web sites after your own content, or on a dedicated
links page.
Optimizing Your Title Tag
Without question the title tag of your page is the single
most important factor to consider when optimizing your web
page for the search engines. This is because most engines
& directories place a high level of importance on keywords
that are found in your title tag. The title tag is also
what the search engines usually use for the title of your
listing in the search results.
Are every one of your title tags optimized?
For best results in the engines they all should be!
What it looks like:
Here's the title tag of this page:
<TITLE>Your Title Tag - learn to optimize your title
tag</TITLE>
Where it belongs:
The correct placement for the title tag is between the
<HEAD> and </HEAD> tags within the HTML the
makes up your page.
Tag limits:
We recommend that your title tag be between 50-80 characters
long - including spaces! The length that the different search
engines accept varies, but as long as you keep within this
limit you should be ok.
Tag tips:
We recommend that you include 1-2 of your most important
keyword phrases in the title tag, BUT be careful not to
just list keywords. If you just list keywords you risk being
viewed as a spamming the engines which can ultimately lead
to you being blacklisted by the search engines. Your title
tag should include your keyword phrases while remaining
as close to a readable sentence as possible to avoid any
problems.
Make your title enticing! Don't forget that even if you
get that #1 listing in the search engines your listing still
needs to say something that makes the surfer want to clickthrough
and visit your site.
Since the length of your title tag could be a little long
for some engines we suggest placing the keywords at the
beginning of the tag when possible so that you do not risk
having them cut off.
Each page of your site should have it's own title tag with
it's own keywords that related to the page that it appears
on.
Optimizing Your Description & Keyword Tag :
The search engines now usually look at a combination of
all the best search engine tips to determine your listings,
not just your metas - some don't even look at them at all!
What this means is that your page should have a combination
of all our tips implemented on your page - not just meta
tags. That being said, there are two meta tags that can
help your search engine listings - meta keywords & meta
description.
What they look like:
Description Meta:
<META NAME="description" content="This
would be your description of what is on your page. Your
most important keyword phrases should appear in this description.">
Keywords Meta:
<META NAME="keywords" content="keywords
phrase 1, keyword phrase 2, keyword phrase 3, etc.">
Where they belong:
The correct placement for both meta tags is between the
<HEAD> and </HEAD> tags within the HTML the
makes up your page. Their order does not really matter,
but most people usually place the description first then
the keywords meta.
Tag limits:
We recommend that your Keywords Meta not exceed 1024 characters
including spaces.
We recommend that your Description Meta tag not exceed 250
characters including spaces.
Meta description tips:
Make sure you accurately describe the content of your page
while trying to entice visitors to click on your listing.
Include 3-4 of your most important keyword phrases. Especially
those used in your title tag and page copy.
Try to have your most important keywords appear at the beginning
of your description. This often brings better results, and
will help avoid having any search engine cut off your keywords
if they limit the length of your description.
Meta keywords tips:
Aside from what we mention in the other tips below you
should only use those keyword phrases that you also used
in the copy of your page, title tag, meta description, and
other tags. Any keywords phrases that you use that do not
appear in your other tags or page copy are likely to not
have enough prominence to help your listings for that phrase.
Don't forget plurals. For example, a travel site might have
both "caribbean vacation" and "caribbean
vacations" in their keyword meta tag to make sure they
show up in both searches.
If you know of a common misspelling of a popular keyword
that could be used to find your site you should enter it
in your keywords meta tag. For example, a travel site might
use "caribean " in their keyword meta since it
is a common misspelling for "caribbean".
Watch out for repeats! You want to include your most important
phrases, but when doing so it can be difficult not to repeat
one word many times. For example, "caribbean vacation"
and "caribbean vacations" are two different phrases,
but the word "caribbean" appears twice. This is
okay to do in order to make sure you get the phrases you
need in there, but becareful not to repeat any one word
excessively. There in no actual limit, but we recommend
that no one word be repeated in the keyword meta more than
5 times.
If your site has content of interest to a specific geographic
location be sure to include the actual location in your
keyword meta.
