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Search
Engine tips and suggestions
Here is a brief overview on how to use Search Engines
to help promote your site.
There are many search engines on the net today,
and there seems to be more coming out often. However, the big list
remains the same, Google,
Northern
Light, Altavista,
Lycos, Hotbot,
Excite, Overture
( formally goto.com ), MSN,
AOL Netfind,
are pretty much the biggest ones today. No matter what, getting
your site listed with these are a top priority, they will generate
a lot of traffic for you if you use your META
tags correctly.( Among other things, see below ) It is also
important in getting listed in the directory
sites. Don't confuse directories from search engines, they are
different.
Most of these engines will spider
your site, and depending on the spider schedule, it may take up
to 6 weeks for you to get listed with them, so once you have submitted
your site for indexing, be patient. Usually the engines post a time
frame in which your site will be listed, so keep an eye out for
it. It is best to read over our search
engine section, and be sure you understand how each one works.
There are several key things that go into engines
returning search results, which will determine at what place your
site returns in the listing. META tags, link popularity, themes,
and word count are the most important.
Link popularity basically means 'how many' places
your site appears in a search engine, from other sites around the
Internet. ( How may other sites have a link to your site ). Link
popularity is based goes by a per page basis. So it will vary depending
on which page you are on at your website. Obviously if no one links
to your front page, but about 20 other sites link to another page
of yours, that 'other page' will have a much better link popularity
rating. Quality links are important. Its best to try to exchange
links with sites that are similar in content to yours, and have
them use keywords in the link to your site instead of just your
site name, depending on which page they are linking to. For example,
if someone wanted to link to my free HTML templates section:
http://www.icehousedesigns.com/downloads/
or
Free
HTML templates
I would much rather have them use the second choice
over the first. Spidering search engines, such as Google, would
see the second choice as a much better rating for that page for
those keywords, and therefore when someone searches for "Free
HTML templates" on Google, that page would have a slightly
better chance to rank higher in the results. Of course, this is
only one of many factors.
Themes is just what the name suggests. Every page
on your site should have a theme, and try to stick to it. Try to
get links INTO that page from sites with similar content to that
page, and feel free to place 1 or 2 OUTBOUND links in that page,
to other sites ( or other pages on YOUR site ) that are similar
in content. Pick a few key phrases, and use them in the page title,
description, keywords, and in any paragraph titles that are bold,
underlined, or italicized.
A few things to remember, most important is, DO
NOT TRY TO CHEAT THE SEARCH ENGINES! They, or one of your competitor's,
will find out and could get you banned, resulting in tons of lost
traffic to your site. Don't try to 'stuff' keywords into hidden
comment tags, excessive ALT text spamming, hidden links, etc. I
hope you get the idea. You have been warned.
Click on a link below to see a description of
the topic, or click
here to return to the search engine index.
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