The following is excerpted from The Search Engine
"dilemma"....fact and fiction.... Listing your web site for highest
possible placement! Contributed to our BizWeb Gazette by Greg Landry, M.S.
If you've been on the 'net for any period of
time, I'm sure you've heard a lot of talk about listing a web site on search
engines (data bases of web sites that can be searched by keyword(s) or in some
cases category).
Although I've done considerable research in this
area, I certainly don't claim to know it all and I'm very open to your
comments/suggestions on this subject.... Greg@Landry.com
Also, if you want to do your own HTML (web page
design), I use software called "Hotdog Pro" by The Sausage Co. It's
less than $100 and makes the task pretty easy, even for a "non-techie"
like myself! Do a search for "hotdog" or "sausage".
I'll first list some general guidelines for
listing your web site with search engines and then some specific guidelines for
particular search engines.
When submitting your web site, keep in mind
that there are essentially two types of search engines.... "robot"
engines that send a "robot" to your site to capture and catalog
all the info on your site. These include WebCrawler, Excite, Lycos, Alta
Vista, Infoseek, Hotbot, and Inktomi. The second type only uses the info
that you give it. These include Yahoo!, www Yellow Pages, EINet Galaxy, Open
Text, WWW Worm, and World Wide Yellow Pages.
For best results, always submit your info to
each search engine individually rather than using a "submission
service". It's important to be able to tailor your info for each
specific search engine. It's takes more time but is well worth it!
Brainstorm for a list of 30 or 40 keywords(or
combinations of words "horse stables") for your site. Then, number
the keywords based on what your prospective customer would most likely be
using as a keyword. Although you need a strong list of about 20, your first
5 or so will be critical!
Use the plural when possible. If you list your
keyword as "horse stable", but someone searches for "horse
stables", it will not find your site. However, if you list your keyword
as "horse stables" and someone searches for "horse
stable", it will pull up your site!
The title of your site is **VERY** important!
Your title is NOT the first headline on your page, but rather what appears
on the title bar of your browser (upper left part of page in Netscape). Most
search engines treat the words in your title as MAJOR keywords.....
Carefully choose two or three keywords to put in your title, but keep in
mind that it should not just be a list of keywords....it should make sense.
Also, if you make it too long, it will be cut-off. The search engines weigh
the importance of a word in your title based on density. For example, if you
have five words in your title and one of them is horse, then it will
comprise 20% of your title. But, if you only have two words in your title
and one of them is horse, then it comprises 50% of your title and is
"weighed" much more heavily as a keyword!
Use your keywords FREQUENTLY in your text at
the VERY BEGINNING of your web site. Try not to put tables, graphics or
anything else at the top of your site. It should just be text that is rich
with your major keywords. Here again, just as in the title, the search
engines look at the DENSITY of your keywords rather just the number of
keywords. Also, keep in mind that you're NOT just listing keywords here.
This is actually the text of your web site.
"Meta tags" are NOT a magic formula
for getting listed at the top of search engines, but they may help on
AltaVista, Hotbot, and Infoseek. A meta tag, for our purposes, is a way of
providing a description and keywords that are only visable to the robots
from the search engines. However, there is debate over how much weight these
are given. The meta tags must go *inside* the header tags, so it looks like
this........
<HEAD>
<TITLE>your title here</TITLE>
<META name="description" content="your site description
goes
here">
<META name="keywords" content="your keywords go
here">
</HEAD>
DON'T "keyword spam"! This has been
a practice that many have used for good search engine placement....but it's
considered bad netiquette and the search engines are all starting to
penalize you when they catch it! It's done by repeating keywords *numerous*
times either in the meta tag or within the text of the page, sometimes where
it can't be seen unless you go to the HTML. I think this is a waste of time
now.....and will eventually backfire on you. Just try to legitimately use
your keywords as much as you can in the initial paragraphs of text on your
web site.
Be sure that your site is COMPLETELY ready and
online before you list your site with any search engines!
Your title beginning with a letter that's low
in the alphabet (abcd) may help in some of the standard search engines such
as Yahoo!, but it's really hard to tell how much that comes into play. I
certainly would NOT change my site title to something like "AAA
horses" just for the sake of starting with an a. If you can
legitimately start your title with a, b, c, d, etc., great, otherwise don't
worry about it.
If you're marketing online, many people
believe that OVER 50% of your hits will come from Yahoo! It's probably worth
spending a considerable amount of your time trying to get good placement on
this search engine!
Be patient......many search engines take weeks
to get you in the system.
*
Article by Jim Daniels of JDD Publishing. Jim's site has helped 1000's of
regular folks profit online. Visit http://www.bizweb2000.com
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