Search Engines

The "science" of search engine submissions is much too complicated and arcane to be discussed briefly. It is NOT rocket science, however, and what we hope to do is provide you with is an idea of how you can develop your website content so that it keys on proper search engine placement.

A lot of fee-based web submission services promise you top-20 ranking for your website, but they require you to use "cheats" such as doorway pages or multiple subdomains or optimize your site for obscure keywords that are of no use in growing your business.

A well-coded website can give you distinct advantages. With proper preparation it is possible to obtain a top ranking without even submitting your website to a search engine.

Think about your keywords carefully and choose for your meta-tags no more than seven or eight good keywords or phrases. It's much better to concentrate your search engine placement efforts on several excellent keywords than it is to list every possible word that relates to your subject or product.

Your keywords and their repetition are most important for you to succeed in getting a top rank. If your website's main product or service is something slightly unusual, all the better. Do not expect these tips or any fee-based submission service to get you a top ranking if your website topic or product is common or widely sold by others.

For example, a search at Google for the term "Beanie Babies™" returned over 155,000 results. To break into the top-20 on this category would be difficult, to say the least.

After choosing seven or eight appropriate keywords relating to your product or service, you must be careful to use them in the following places:

1) Your keyword meta-tags
2) Your description meta-tags
3) Your web page's title
4) Your web page's header
5) Your web page's first text paragraph.

There are also several other ways you can make your website "read" by the search engines more effectively.

ALT text: Several of the larger engines also index the ALT text field that is attached to graphics on your web page.

Using ALT text is also important for people who have graphics loading shut off in their browser and for the visually impaired using a browser with a text reader. Use your keywords or a shortened version of your site description for the ALT text.

Subdomains: If your website is broken into major content areas, or you have different types of products or services you offer, you may want to consider using subdomains and advertising them.

A subdomain is just a different way of routing users to your website. Your webhost can set up a direct URL like http://bigsale.mycompany.com that is easier for users to remember and still links to your main website.

Link popularity: Another way some search engines rank your website is through gauging "link popularity," i.e. how many other relevant websites link to yours.

So, along with submitting to search engines, it is also important to get listed in directory services like the Open Directory Project. There are also other directories that you can use, either connected to your geographical area or to the type of product or service you feature on your site. Be careful, however, of "link farms," websites that JUST consist of links to anything and ads for everything.

A final word of warning: be very careful of giving money to anyone that says they can submit your site and guarantee continued placement in the top 20 rankings.

Before you spend, talk to other business owners and deal with reputable companies. Many search engines now require a fee directly to them for placement in search results.

Which leads to our second warning: BEWARE of people offering to "market" your website via mass email or who contact you offering to "trade links."

The number of sites whose reputation was destroyed by spamming is uncountable, and professional spammers and link farms count on brand-new website owners' gullibility and desire for traffic as their selling point.

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This article was orginally written and published in a longer form for InReach Internet as part of their customer support material for web hosting customers.