Search Engine Ranking Strategies

Here's a checklist of strategies that you can use to improve your search engine rankings. If you follow these strategies before you submit your Web pages to the search engines, you'll have an excellent chance to achieve top search engine rankings. If you need to improve the positions of any page, simply modify your keywords.

Enhance Link Popularity

To increase your site's link popularity, increase your internal, incoming, and outgoing links.

Internal links - Cross link all your sites and the important pages within each site.

Incoming links that you control - Control your site's theme by setting up several small related sites. Then cross link them together, including links back to the main site. Select keywords that describe the theme of the main site and use those same keywords to link to the main site from the other sites.

Incoming links that you don't control - Ask sites that link to your competition to link to your site. To find out which sites link to a particular competitor, visit a search engine and enter, "link:" followed by the competitor's domain name (with and without "www"). For example:

link:yourcompetition.com and...

link:www.yourcompetition.com

Exchange links with sites listed in the same category as yours in the major Website directories, such as Yahoo and the Open Directory Project.
Find sites that accept site submissions. Visit your favorite search engine and search for:

"add url" "your keywords"

Also try searching for the actual page using its page name. For example:

addurl.html, addsite.html, addlink.html, etc.

Outgoing links - Improve the theme relevance of your site by adding outgoing links to other related sites.

2. Create a Theme
Create a site based on one theme. If your site has more than one theme, then create individual sites for each theme. Theme-based content is a concept used by search engines to classify a site as one based around one theme, much like a human would.

3. Use Title Tags
Include a TITLE tag as the first META tag, directly after the HEAD tag. For example:

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>search engine optimization</TITLE>

4. Keyword Phrase as Title Tag
Include the keyword phrase you're targeting in the title tag. Some search engines, such as Inktomi powered engines, are case-sensitive, so include the lowercase and capitalized versions of the phrase. For example:

<TITLE>keyword phrase - Keyword Phrase</TITLE>

5. Avoid Stop Words
Do not use stop words in your TITLE tag. Stop words (a, an, and, but, he, her, his, i, in, it, of, on, or, she, the, etc.) are common words and characters ignored by some search engines to enhance the speed and relevance of their search results.

6. Use Meta Descriptions
Include a META DESCRIPTION tag, directly after the TITLE tag. List your important keyword phrase near the beginning. For example:

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="search engine optimization is the
best method to top rankings.">

7. Include Meta Keywords
Include a META KEYWORD tag, directly after your DESCRIPTION tag, and:

Include your important keyword phrase near the beginning of the tag.

Include lowercase and capitalized versions of your keyword phrases.

Limit the number of keyword phrases, so that you don't dilute the keyword phrase.

Leave out commas, so that search engines can match even more keyword phrases.

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="search engine optimization
Search Engine Optimization.">

8. Use a 30 Second Meta Refresh
If you use a META REFRESH tag, make sure it's set to refresh after 30 seconds.

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="30; URL=http://www.newsite.com">

Some search engines consider pages that refresh in under 30 seconds to be spam. Consider using a JavaScript redirect tag if you require a quicker refresh. For example:
Step 1 - Paste this code into the HEAD section of your HTML document. Change the 3000 to whatever number you like. 1000 represents 1 (one) second.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"></SCRIPT>

Step 2 - Insert the onLoad event handler into your BODY tag

<BODY onLoad="redirect()">

(Source: Internet Related Technologies)

9. Navigation and Body Text
If you have a persistent navigation bar at the side of each page, it will push your page's body text down the HTML document. However, as search engines give prominence to keywords nearer the start of a document, design your HTML table so that the navigation bar is placed after your body text.

10. Unnecessary Tags
Remove all other meta tags (author, date, etc.), unless you're sure they are absolutely necessary.

11. Header Tags
Include one or more header tags. Use large header tags, such as <H1> and <H2>.
Use cascading style sheets (CSS) to alter the appearance of the header tags to fit the look and feel of your site.

12. Check Your Opening Sentences
Check the first couple of lines of the first paragraph to make sure it's appropriate to be used as a description of your page. Some search engines utilize the first couple of sentences of the body text, instead of the contents of the META DESCRIPTION tag, as the search listing description.

13. Keyword Density
Try to achieve an overall keyword density of 3-5%.

14. Watch Your Word Count
Try to achieve a minimum word count of 300 and a maximum of 750 words.

15. Name The Page
Name the page after your keyword phrase. Separate the keywords using hyphens or underscores. For example, if the keyword phrase "search engine optimization," then name the page:

search-engine-optimization. html or...

search_engine_optimization.html

16. Naming Graphics Files
Name your graphic files after keyword phrases. Again, separate the keywords using hyphens or underscores.

<IMG SRC="search-engines-optimization.gif">

17. Use Alt Tags
Include ALT tags, with your important keyword phrases, in images tags. For example:

<IMG SRC="search-engines-optimization.gif" ALT="search engine
optimization.">

18. Image Maps and HTML Links
If you use an image map, include HTML links, as search engines may not be able to follow image map links.

19. Keywords and Link Text
Include your keyword phrase in link text.

20. Register a Keyphrase Domain Name
Register a domain name with the exact keyword phrase you wish to target, using hyphens to separate the keywords. For example, if the keyword phrase is "search engine optimization," then register:

search-engine-optimization.com

If the domain you want is unavailable, either try a different extension, or increase the number of hyphens you use between the keywords. Using either of these methods, you'll almost certain to find a variation that is available. For example:

search-engine-optimization.net

search-engine-optimization.org and so on...

Or:

search-engine--optimization.com

search--engine--optimization.com and so on...

21. Plural Versions of Keywords
Use the longer or plural version of a keyword where possible. Word stemming is a concept used by some search engines to return search results that include keywords that extend beyond what the user originally searched for.
For example, a search with the keyword "engine" might return results for, "engines," "engineers," and "engineering." If someone searches for the longer version of a word and your page uses only the short version, then it will be excluded from the list of possible results.
22. Use Uncommon Keywords
Sprinkle a few uncommon keywords and synonyms in your main body text. Less popular keywords have less competition in the search engines.
23. Avoid Repetition
Don't repeat keywords or keyword phrases over and over again, as this would be considered spam by search engines.
24. Stay Close to the Root Domain
Keep your pages as close to the root domain as possible, and don't set up many levels of directories. For example:

yoursite.com/index.html (Excellent)

yoursite.com/search/index.html (Good)

yoursite.com/html/marketing/search/ (Too many levels down)

25. Naming Directories
Name your directories after your keyword phrases, using hyphens or underscores to separate the keywords. For example, if an important keyword phrases is "search engine optimization", name your directory:

yoursite.com/search-engine-optimization/ or...

yoursite.com/search_engine_optimization/

26. Move Your Javascript
Try moving Javascript to the end of the HTML document, after your closing BODY or HTML tag. This will move your important body text nearer the top of the document.

27. Naming CSS Tags
Consider naming your cascading style sheet tags after keywords. For example:

.search {
color: #ff0000;
}

28. Include a Site Map
Include a site map that links to all your pages.
Limit the number of links to 50 links. If you have more than 50 links, limit your links to your most important pages.
Include some text on the page -- some search engines, such as AltaVista, have been known to kick out links-only pages.

29. Use Robots.txt Files
Use Robots.txt files instead of Robots meta tags, as some search engine robots don't recognize the tag.

30. Avoid Tiny Text
Don't use font size one (1) text, as many search engines consider tiny text to be spam.

31. Beware Link Farms
Don't participate in link farms or link exchange programs. Search engines consider these arrangements to be spam, as they have only one purpose -- to artificially inflate a site's link popularity by exchanging links with other participants.

But be careful not to confuse link farms and exchange programs with reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the exchange of links with individual sites, and is certainly an accepted technique for improving your site's link popularity.

For additional information setting up a success web site go to our Net Masters page.

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