Search engines send robot "spiders" to index the content of your webpage, so
let's begin with steps to prepare your webpages for optimal indexing. The idea
here is not to trick the search engines, but to leave them abundant clues as to
what your webpage is about. This approach is called "search engine
optimization," abbreviated as SEO.
1. Write a Keyword-Rich Page Title. Write a descriptive title for each page --
rich in keywords you want people to find you with -- using 5 to 8 words. Remove
as many "filler" words from the title (such as "the," "and," etc.) as possible,
while still making it readable. This page title will appear hyperlinked on the
search engines when your page is found. Entice searchers to click on the title
by making it a bit provocative. Place this at the top of the webpage between the
<HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: <TITLE>Web Marketing Checklist -- 37 Ways to
Promote Your Website</TITLE>. (It also shows on the blue bar at the top of your
web browser.)
Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on your home
page. If you specialize in silver bullets and that's what people will be
searching for, don't just use your company name "Acme Ammunition, Inc.," use
"Silver and Platinum Bullets -- Acme Ammunition, Inc." The words people are most
likely to search on should appear first in the title (called "keyword
prominence"). Remember, this title is your identity on the search engines. The
more people see that interests them in the blue hyperlinked words on the search
engine, the more likely they are to click on the link.
2. Write a Description META Tag. Some search engines include this description
below your hyperlinked title in the search results. The description should be a
sentence or two describing the content of the webpage, using the main keywords
and keyphrases on this page. Don't include keywords that don't appear on the
webpage. Place the Description META Tag at the top of the webpage, between the
<HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format:
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Increase visitor hits, attract traffic through
submitting URLs, META tags, news releases, banner ads, and reciprocal links.">
The maximum number of characters should be about 255; just be aware that only
the first 60 or so are visible on Google, though more may be indexed.
When I prepare a webpage, I write the article first, then develop a keyword-rich
title (#1 above). Then I write a description of the content in that article in a
sentence or two, using each of the important keywords and keyphrases included in
the article. This goes into the description META tag.
Next, I strip out the common words, leaving just the meaty keywords and phrases
and insert those into the keywords META tag. It's no longer used much for
ranking, but I'm leaving it in anyway. I think it may have some minor value. So
to summarize so far, every webpage in your site should have a distinct title and
META description tag. If you implement these two points, you're well on your way
to better search engine ranking. But there's more that will help your
ranking....
3. Include Your Keywords in Headers (H1, H2, H3). Search engines consider
keywords that appear in the page headline and sub heads to be important to the
page, so make sure your desired keywords and phrases appear in one or two header
tags. Don't expect the search engine to parse your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
to figure out which are the headlines -- it won't. Instead, use keywords in the
H1, H2, and H3 tags to provide clues to the search engine. (Note: Some designers
no longer use the H1, H2 tags. That's a big mistake. Make sure your designer
defines these tags in the CSS rather than creating headline tags with other
names.)
4. Position Your Keywords in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text. Search
engines expect that your first paragraph will contain the important keywords for
the document -- where most people write an introduction to the content of the
page. You don't want to just artificially stuff keywords here, however. More is
not better. Google might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area
of maybe 1.5% to 2% for a word that should rank high, so don't overdo it.
5. Include Descriptive Keywords in the ALT Attribute of Image Tags. This helps
your site be more accessible to site-impaired visitors (www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/glance/)
and gives additional clues to the search engines. The ALT attributes do help get
your images ranked higher for image search (see #12 below).
6. Use Keywords in Hyperlinks. Search engines are looking for clues to the focus
of your webpage. When they see words hyperlinked in your body text, they
consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords and
keyphrases. To emphasize it even more, the webpage you are linking to could have
a page name with the keyword or keyphrase, such as blue-widget.htm -- another
clue for the search engine.
e.