Maximizing Search Returns
Welcome to the short but informative web book titled Maximizing Search Returns. This instructional guide will help out your sites search engine returns by offering a few pointers that can enhance keyword content adn submission procedure.
Content is King
A site that is layed out with images but has very little text, will receive very few hits from search engines. There is no content to search through. This is why content is king. Fill your site with as much relevant content as you can. Be informative, instructional offer a service. If you have no content to your site, rethink your approach and redesign your site.
Maximize the Code to Content Ratio
Javascript and DHTML make a site fun and functional but be careful not to clutter up a page with extensive lines of code. If anything will limit your search returns, this is it. The better way to add code to a site is to link the page to an external script.
Analyze Page Keywords
Keyword content percentages are very important to search engines, so a page must be analyzed for the words which have the best percentage and the META tags made to suit. Some schools of thought believe that a page should be written with keywords in mind but this sometimes is not practical or feasible. The best approach is to first analyze the page for its keyword content and then edit it in order to enhance any lacking target keywords. The META tags should be made to correspond with the keyword percentages.
Use Keywords in the Optimum Tags
Keyword spamming is a bad habit that search engines usually frown upon. Due to this, search engines are now careful about which tags they pluck keywords from. For instance a spammer might put a large number of repeating keywords into a comment tag or an alt tag. Search engines no longer mark these keywords as content. Tags which are relevant to search engines include the HEADER TAGS h1, h2, h3, etc., the LINK TAG, <A> the PARAGRAPH TAG <P> and the TABLE DATA TAG <TD>. Keywords are best optimized within these tags.
Optimize Your Description
Write the Description META tag after you have analyzed the keyword content of your page and match the description content to include the first five to eight words in your Keyword META tag.
Optimize the Title
The same goes for the page title. Make it contain at least the first two words of the Keyword META tag.
Optimize the Keyword META Tag
When arranging the Keyword META tag, make sure to order the words from highest percentage to lowest percentage. Keep your keyword content down to about eight to twelve words.
Add a Search Key
If you are optimizing a business site, be sure to put the company name into the Keyword META tag. Last in the tag is a specific keyword that has no relevance to site content. Something like GABBAGABBAHEY. With this keyword, you can search for your site with search engines that you have submitted it to, in order to verify that the engine has indexed the page.
Match Search Engine Requirements
Each search engine looks for different keyword percentages. For example Google might look for something in the range of 2%-3% keyword relevance while Lycos might look for a relevance in the range of 0.2% - 1%. On the far end of the spectrum, an engine like Altavista looks for an 8% - 10% relevance. In order to maximize returns from each engine. Keyword META tags should be optimized with different ranges of word relevance. This however is a complicated procedure and is only suitable for sites with extensive content.
Rate Your Site
Go to the internet content rating ascociation home page and fill out an application to rate your site. Add the ICRA Meta tag to your index pages. See the Links section for more details.
Manually Submit Your Site
Search engines know when a site has been submitted to them manually or automatically. Auto submissions are placed last in line for waitng to be indexed. Search engines want people to visit their site and if they are going to support your page with their engine, it is only right to visit their page in order to support them. See the Software section and the features Section for tools which can help to make this process much more efficient.
Quantity is Key
Search engines vary as much as people do, so the key is to submit your site to as many different search engines as possible. Try for at least 100 search engines and strive for 1000. If you can find three new search engines a day to manually submit your site to, then in less then a years time you can reach the 1000 mark. Do not repeatedly submit your sites to the same engine.
Read the Search Engine FAQ
Before submitting your site to an engine, read its Add URL FAQ to see what type of page criteria it is optimized for. This step alone can greatly increase search returns.
Check for Keyword Meta Tags
Some search engines do not use META tags but rely on keywords given to them during the submission. Analyze the keyword content percentage requirements for the search engine and then submit to the engine the best page you have which matches this criteria. You can check to see if an engine requires META tags by either reading the FAQ or by viewing a few pages returned from the engine
These techniques are not at all regarded as spamming and can greatly increase returns from search engines. For keyword analysis and search engine submission tools see the Software section.
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