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Is Your Website Optimized for Search
Engines?
© 2002 Scott Buresh
For the technically inclined, there are numerous places
on the web to get detailed, in-depth information on how to
properly optimize a web site for the best possible search
engine rankings. However, many people don't care about the
technical aspects of search engine optimization- they just
want to know what is wrong with their site (and how to fix
it). What follows is a practical guide that covers some of
the most basic search engine issues. It is in no way
intended to be comprehensive, but it should help the average
site owner determine whether their site is optimized, and if
not, how to make some simple changes to improve their search
engine rankings.
Issue #1- The Title Bar.
On your homepage, what does the title bar say? If you use
Internet Explorer, this is the blue bar at the extreme top
of the window that displays your page (it may include the
words "Microsoft Internet Explorer" at the end).
Does your company name appear here by itself, when you have
more important keywords to emphasize? Worse yet, does it say
"untitled"? This area should contain the most
important keywords you see on your homepage (Don't have any
text on your homepage? See issue #2). To check the rest of
your site, click on any link from your homepage and see if
the words in this title bar change for each page in your
site. They should- and each title bar should contain the
most important keywords from their corresponding page. Note:
Very long keyword strings in the title bar should be
avoided- six words or less is optimal.
Also, words in the title bar should not repeat more than
once, and identical words should not appear next to
one another.
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Issue #2- Content.
Search engines all try to list sites that contain good
content. Translation- you need words on your pages, not
flashy graphics. This text should contain the most important
keywords that your potential customers would use to find you
on a search engine. If you have very few or no words on your
pages, it is a good idea to add some, ideally around 250 per
page.
For aesthetic reasons, this is not always practical, but
even 100 well-written words can have an impact on rank. It
is also important that you make certain that the words are
written in a language the search engines can read. Using
your mouse, bring your cursor down to the text on one of
your web pages. Clicking and holding down the left mouse
button (make sure you aren't near a link) see if you can
highlight just one or two words of the text. If you can,
everything is most likely fine. If nothing happens, or you
can only highlight a large block, it is most likely in
graphic form. Graphic text needs to be replaced by standard
html text to allow the search engines to read it. Your web
expert should have no problem understanding what you
require, and the transition should be fairly simple and
affordable.
Issue #3- Meta Tags.
Some people believe that meta tags are the Holy Grail of
search engine optimization. Unfortunately, their
effectiveness is limited (many engines ignore them
completely), but they can play a limited role in determining
rank on some engines. To see if your site has meta tags, go
to your home page. Click the "view" command at the
top of the browser window. From the pull-down menu, select
"source". This should open up another window that
shows your code. Much of this may seem indecipherable, but
there should be two commands there (usually near the top of
the code). One of these says meta
name="description" content= and will go on to
describe your company and products, and one says meta
name="keywords" content= and goes on to list
applicable keywords for your site. If these tags are
missing, have your web expert insert them.
Issue #4- Links.
Link popularity has become increasingly important to search
engine rankings, with 19 of the top 20 engines using it in
their ranking algorithm. Simply put, search engines
give a ranking boost to sites that have incoming links from
quality, related sites. There are numerous free tools
on the web that will allow you to see what sites link to
yours (just type "free link popularity check" in
your favorite search engine). If you don't have many sites
linking to yours, it may be time to start a link building
campaign. This is where you find quality,
non-competing sites in your industry and ask them if they
would like to exchange links. An additional benefit of
link exchanges is that these links can bring you additional,
highly targeted traffic.
Conclusion
Although following the above guidelines will by no means
guarantee you top page rankings for your keywords, fixing
one or more of the problems should have a very positive
impact on your search engine rankings. For the volumes of
potential customers that a search engine can send to your
site, it's certainly worth the effort.
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Scott Buresh is co-founder and principal of Medium Blue
Internet Marketing. For more helpful tips, visit
http://www.mediumblue.com.
For a free search engine analysis, please visit http://www.mediumblue.com/analysis.html.
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