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LISTING YOUR PAGES WITH SEARCH ENGINES
One of the single most important things you can do is learn how to do is effectively submit your sites to search engines. Submitting your site to search engines is easy. Almost every search engine has a "submit your site" link. While submitting the site is quite easy, knowing how to design your site so that it can easily be found is incredibly important. You can build a beautiful site, easy to navigate and incredibility useful, but if no one can ever find it, your efforts go to waste. How sad. We are going to learn how to correctly configure your pages and what strategies you should employ when listing them with directories and search engines. SEARCH ENGINES VS. DIRECTORIESIt is important to understand the difference between search engines and directories. Search engines create their listings automatically with the help of computer programs. They can scour the web quickly and can often help users obtain "hard to find" information. Some popular search engines are: Lycos, Alta Vista, Google, and Infoseek. Directories depend on people for their listings. You submit your site to them and a reviewer will eventually decide if it qualifies to be listed in the directory. Directory users enjoy the "humanness" of a directory and often find them much easier to use than a search engine. Sadly, the web grows much faster than directories can catalogue websites. Directories often fit a site into one category, and therefore often miss information stored deep in a website. Popular directories include Yahoo, NBCi, About, and AskJeeves We are going to learn how to correctly configure your pages and what strategies you should employ when listing with both directories and search engines.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK:
Spiders Search Engines employ programs called spiders, also called crawlers, which scour the web looking for files. The spider visits a web page, reads it, and then sends the gathered information back to the search engines main database. When the spider is finished cataloguing it follows any links it finds on the page and starts the whole process over again. After a while the spider will return to a catalogued site to look for changes. Generally, if the spider finds changes it records them and schedules a future stop back. Every time the spider finds changes it spends less time away from the site, until its examining your site for changes every day. If the spider doesnt find any changes, it will schedule a stop back in the far future. If the spider doesnt find any changes after three or four stops, it wont ever come back unless instructed by you to do so. Its a good idea not to list your site with search tools until its completely ready. Most Spiders catalogue every word on the home page. On the deeper pages spiders usually only record meta tags, the title, and first paragraph. Deep crawl engines, like Alta Vista, catalogue every single word on every single page.
Spiders and Your Jump PageIf your page uses a "jump-page" like a plug-in detector, you will need to include a HREF link pointing to your homepage on the jump page so spiders can follow to your main site.
Index Everything the spider finds goes into the search engines main database, the index. The index, sometimes called the catalog, is like a giant book containing a copy of every web page that the spider finds. The web page is organized and further broken down into sub categories. For example, sites that repeatedly use the word "dog" get filed under "pet sites", or specifically, dog sites. Search Engine Software Search engine software, often simply called the engine, is the third major part of any search engine. The engine is the program that sifts through millions of pages recorded in the index to find search matches. Using clever tricks, the engine also helps rank returns in order of what it believes to be most relevant.
How a Directory WorksA directory such as Yahoo depends on people for their listings. You submit your site to them and a reviewer eventually decides if it qualifies to be listed in the directory, where it will be listed, and what description should show when listed in a search return. Directories can be harder to get into, but they enjoy much more traffic than normal search engines, so it is very important that you list with them.
Meta TagsIn the Meta Tag section, we
learned the necessary composition of keyword and description Meta tags. Now we
are all set to learn what strategies we should employ when writing Meta tags.
Meta tags can be placed on any page, but some search tools like Yahoo only care
about the home page. Keywords Keywords are used to help search engines match specific user searches with your page. Basically, you should try to think of anything that someone who might benefit from your site would search for, and list it in your key words.
Using Key PhrasesWhen writing the content of
your keywords tag, you should be thinking in terms of key phrases, not
individual words. Research has shown that someone searching for pet supplies is
more likely to look for "dog chow" than "dog" or "chow". Key phrases are also more likely to rank you high because they have less competition. For example, there are many more sites using the keyword "pet" than the keyword "San Francisco pet store".
Get SpecificYou want site visitors that
are looking for your sites products or services. If your site is regionally
specific, include the city or area name. If you How many key words and phrases can I have? Resist the temptation to list the dictionary in your keyword tag. Search engines know this trick and will probably disqualify you from their listings. You should keep your keywords between 200 and 500 characters long. Having more than 500 characters will convince some search engines that you are trying to pull a fast one. Having less than 200 characters will convince others that your site is not very worthy of listing. Handy tip: Microsoft word will count characters for you. Simply cut and paste your keywords Meta tag into Word and click: File-> Properties. Search engines will also disqualify you if you repeat key phrases or if you use the same individual keyword too many times (five times is safe). You can use different keywords on different pages, though.
Nope. Court cases have
decided that if you dont really have a good reason to list a product or
company (other than to drive traffic to your site), you cant use their
trademarked items in your Meta tags.
You should make a list of all keywords/phrases that you
think would be a good match for your site. Ask your friends what they would
search for. Ask everyone you know. You'd be surprised what some people would
look for. Keep in mind that the most often searched for terms are not always the best. A
very specific term like "San Francisco web design school" may only have
received ten searches, but those searches are much more likely to turn into
sales if you own the Academy of Web Design, SF. Word tracker is a paid service, but is well worth it. After
you decide what words describe your site, word tracker searches the web and
analyzes your projected search returns based on your keywords, the number of
searches run on that keyword, and the amount of competition also using those
keywords. Word tracker will even suggest keywords for you based on your
business type. If an engine finds a search term in the Meta keywords, the
title tag, and the first paragraph of your site, it assumes that the page is really about that term, and ranks it high. It is very important to chase keyword
density, as it is the major deciding factor in where your page ranks on a
search engine. Most search engines dont care about your Meta Description
tag, but you should! The description will entice users to click, or it will
turn them away. A description should be under 150 characters, including spaces. Many people use keywords Meta tags, and leave it at that.
Big mistake. Search engines count other factors when ranking your pages. The
<TITLE> tag plays an important part in determining weather your site is
listed on the first or fiftieth page of a search return. Basically, your title
tag should contain all of the important key words in your Meta Keywords. Example: <META
NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Dog chow, on-line pet supplies, pet store"> <TITLE>
On-Line Pet Supplies, your virtual pet store! Dog chow, cat food, pet stuff
</TITLE> Your site users will only see the first couple of words in
your title, so make it human friendly in the beginning. Some search engines get
upset if your title tag is too long. Its best not to exceed twenty words. The first paragraph may be the trickiest part of search
engine page design. You need to craft an engaging opening paragraph, readable by
humans, that also contains all of your key phrases. The closer to the top of
the page your paragraph is, the better. For the above pet store, the opening
paragraph might read: <P> Welcome to Doggie Dancer, your virtual pet store,
and home of On-Line Pet Supplies. We have all sorts of pet stuff, from dog chow
and cat food, to hamster cages! </P> Some people suggest trying to trick a search engine by using
text in the same color as the background, putting meta terms in comment tags,
or trying to put a lot of small text at the bottom of pages. While some of
these tricks do work, the major search engines are developing tools to combat
them. You may get your site banned from a search engine if they determine that
youre trying to be sneaky. Pages created in a frameset and pages built with
Macromedias Flash dont have body text, but can still accept Meta tags in the
head and a well-crafted title. Some search engines recognize frames and full
Flash pages, and so some experts suggest writing an opening paragraph in
comment tags. Get on the Internet and pretend that youre "Joe User".
Search for a site like yours. Examine the top ranking pages for <Title>,
keywords, and first paragraphs. Im not telling you to copy their keywords, or
anything like that You do not have to wait forever for a spider to happen upon
your page. Every search engine has a link that you can use to submit to their service.
There are also tools available on the Internet that will submit your site to
many sites, often for free. It is important to note that you will probably be
hand submitting to the major directories like Yahoo, though. There is a wonderful tool to be used at: Self Promotion will correctly submit your site to the
major search engines and directories for free. Also available is a bunch of
other cool programs to help you figure out and test your keywords. It'll also
teach you how to set up in-bound links like this one: web design course that will help your ranking! Some search engines return listings in the reverse order in
which they were submitted. Some experts advise you to re-submit your page to
the major search engines every month or so. Other "experts" do not recommend
doing this, and claim that although some search engines do list in reverse
order, others list on the basis of list seniority. Either way, you should NOT
resubmit your site to Yahoo in this manner. Youll only make them mad. Yahoo is by far the most important place to submit your
site. Yahoo gets more traffic than any other site on the Internet. Yahoo is incredibly picky about your submission. If you do
anything wrong, they will reject your submission. Usually it will take them 6-8
weeks before they can review your site. Be patient. Dont bombard them with
e-mails or theyll get mad. If you are not listed with-in two months, send them
a gentle e-mail. If time is of the essence, you can pay Yahoo to look at your
site more quickly. Some things your site must have
before submitting to Yahoo: 1. A
complete site. Dont give them an "under construction" page or a half finished
page with links that dont work. 2. Commercial
sites must list the street address and contact information for the business
somewhere on the site. If your address is hard to find on the site, you can
direct the Yahoo people to it when they give you the chance to send comments
with your submission. To submit your site to Yahoo, you must first find the
category your site belongs in. This is very important. If you submit to an
incorrect category, youll get nowhere. Dig all the way down. Yahoo likes you
to get specific. After you find your category, youll click on the "Suggest a
Site" link at the bottom of the page. To find your category, try to search for a related site and
see what category theyre in. Commercial sites Regional Sites Heed This Warning The Open Directory Project The Open Directory Project is an indexed database that
allows itself to be searched by other search engines. It is gaining extensive
use and widespread recognition. The Open Directory Project is staffed by
volunteers and is currently the number-two queried search tool. The Open
Directory Project is gaining on Yahoo, and therefore a must for submission.
Submit at: I have found that it is important to teach your potential
clients a little but about successful submission. You should make sure they
know that successfully listing with search engines is a special skill that you
possess. Believe it or not, Ive found that most web designers know very little
about how to submit to a search engine. |
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