- Do Keyword Research: Keywords are words that people use to find your website by entering them into the search field of a search engine. For example, if you are looking for blue shoes, you would type "blue shoes" into a search engine and find websites related to "blue shoes". The phrase "blue shoes" is called a keyword phrase. When you are targeting keywords through the content on your site, you want to make sure that the words that you are using is the words that people are searching for. Just because you, as an expert in your field, would use certain words doesn't mean a layman will. Know your target audience and research what words will bring you the most targeted traffic. It doesn't do you any good to rank for the wrong terms.
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Take the Search Engine listing into account: You can customize what the search engine displays when it pulls up your site in a search result by using what are known as meta tags. If you don't use meta tags, the search engine will grab some text, usually the first text it sees, and display it. Instead of a promotional or a quick description, the listing will appear like a random block of text. People may or may not click on it that way, but even if they do, they won't be prepped to see what you're offering. For example, in a search for Houston plumbers, I got the following result for a company's description "Plumbing in houston Texas ... Contractors in HOUSTON, TX . Submit ...HOUSTON, TX . Map & Directions. PLUMBING CONTRACTORS. Sponsors ..." Contrast that with "Plumbing company offers plumbing repairs, installations, maintenance and ... Houston 's #1 Plumbing Repair service is available 24 hours, 7 days a week to". Which do you think is ranked higher by the search engines and presents a better picture to potential customers?
- Get Links: In order to rank high in the search engines, you need to have links from other websites pointing to your website. These links need to be from quality websites, not just some random sites on the web. Be careful of sites that offer you hundreds of links for one low, low price. Chances are, they're not talking quality links. Link building can be a difficult and time-consuming task, but it is the only way to get high rankings on the major search engines.
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Avoid Link farms: As I just mentioned, link trading is an important part of generating traffic, but you have to do it the right way. One especially bad way to go about it is called link farms. A link farm is a web page that is nothing more than a page of links to other sites. Sometimes the whole site is nothing more than links to other sites. Search engines consider link farms a form of spam, and search engines HATE spam. While your whole site is not likely a link farm, if you create a page filled with outbound links from reciprocal link exchanges, a search engine visiting your site may THINK you're running a link farm. Because a search engine is completely unreasonable when it comes to rules regarding spam, your site will be dismissed by the search engine and deemed unworthy of a respectable ranking.
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Avoid Creating A Flash Site: Yes, Flash sites look great, but search engines don't like them. Yes, the graphics are flashy and the animations are first rate, but the search engine doesn't care. Call it ridiculous if you like, but a search engine doesn't understand Flash, so it won't list it. Now, because Flash sites DO look great, there are times when a Flash site may make sense, but if you are trying to optimize your site for search rankings, understand that there is a huge trade-off if you choose that route. Make sure that you understand that trade-off before you choose to go with Flash.
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Avoid Spamming: The Internet is a breeding ground for spammers, so search engine programmers are constantly looking for ways to defeat those spammers. They are constantly updating the search engines to look for common spamming techniques and known ways people try to game the search engines. If your site happens to use any of those "spam" techniques (sometimes referred to as blackhat Search Engine Optimization), the search engine will assume you're a spammer and harm your ranking as a result. If you're hiring a search engine firm to handle your website marketing, make sure that they only use white Search Engine Optimization. If you discover that they are using blackhat SEO, fire them immediately, as their "help" will harm you in the long run.
In summary, you need to avoid doing things that make it harder to rank in the search engines and insure that your site conforms to those standards that appeal to search engines. How important is search engine ranking? There's a reason people try to get on the first page of the search results. The vast majority of people using a search engine don't go past the first page when they're trying to find something. Some studies show that as much as 80% of traffic goes to the first three search engine listings, and as much as 98% of traffic goes to the first page of results. So, if you appear in the search engines, but not until the umpteenth page, you're out of luck.
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