TIPS ::::: |
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| 27 Quick Tips To Top Search Engine Rankings |
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| Last Update: Friday, October 31, 2003. |
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| In this article I show you how to improve your
search engine rankings using 27 quick search engine
optimization tips. |
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| 1. Increase your site's link popularity by
increasing your internal and incoming links. |
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Internal links - Cross link all your sites
and important pages within each site. This
will maximize the PageRank of all your pages
within each web site. |
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Incoming links that you control - Create
several small web sites related to your main
site. Each site should only consist of a few
pages. Then cross link them all together using
the most important keywords. Don't forget
to include links back to the main site. |
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Incoming links that you don't control: |
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Ask sites that link to your competitors
to link to your site. To find out which
sites are linking to your competitors,
visit a search engine and enter, "link:"
followed by the competitors' domain
name. |
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For example: |
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link:www.yourcompetitor.com |
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Exchange links with sites listed in
the same category as yours in the major
web directories, such as the Yahoo!
Directory and the Open Directory. |
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Find sites that accept site submissions.
Visit your favorite search engine and
search for: |
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"add url" "your keywords" |
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Also try searching for the actual
submission page using its page name. |
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For example: |
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addurl.html, addsite.html, addlink.html,
etc. |
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| 2. Include a TITLE tag as the first META tag,
directly after the HEAD tag. |
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For example: |
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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing Software Tools
Reviews</TITLE>
... |
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| 3. Try to avoid stop words in your TITLE tag.
Stop words (a, an, and, but, he, her, his, i, in,
it, of, on, or, she, the, etc.) are common words
and characters ignored by some search engines to
enhance the speed and relevancy of their search
results. |
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| 4. Include a META DESCRIPTION tag, directly
after the TITLE tag. Include the most important
keyword phrase for the web page as close to the
beginning of the description as possible. |
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For example: |
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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing Software Tools
Reviews</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Mike's
Marketing Tools is the leading review site
for the very best internet marketing tools
for web marketers and webmasters.">
... |
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| 5. If you use a META REFRESH tag, make sure
it is set to refresh after 30 seconds. |
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<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh"
CONTENT="30; URL=http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com"> |
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Some search engines consider pages that
refreshes under 30 seconds as spam. I recommend
using a JavaScript redirect tag, if you require
a quicker page refresh. |
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For example: |
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Step 1 - Paste this code into the
HEAD section of your HTML document. Change
the 3000 to whatever number you like. 1000
represents 1 (one) second. |
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<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--
function redirect () {setTimeout("change()",3000);}
function change () {window.location.href="http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com";}
//--></SCRIPT> |
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Step 2 - Insert the onLoad event
handler into your BODY tag, so that the JavaScript
code is executed when the page loads.
<BODY onLoad="redirect()">
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| 6. Remove all other meta tags (author, date,
etc.), unless you're sure they are absolutely necessary.
The only meta tags I ever use are the META DESCRIPTION
and occasionally the META REFRESH tag. |
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| 7. Include a site map with links to all your
pages. This will help search engines find and index
all your pages. |
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Limit the number of links on a web page
to 50. |
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If you have more than 50 links, limit your
links to your most important pages. |
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Include text on the page as some search
engines, such as AltaVista, have been known
to kick out links only pages. |
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| 8. Use one or more header tags in your main
page body and include your most important keyword
phrase/s. |
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Use large header tags, such as <H1>
and <H2>. |
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Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to alter
the appearance of the header tags to fit the
look and feel of your site. For more information
read this CSS tutorial. |
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| 9. Check the first couple of lines of the first
paragraph to see if it's appropriate to be used
as a description of your page. Many search engines
utilize the first couple of sentences of the body
text as the search results description, instead
of the contents of the META DESCRIPTION tag. |
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| 10. Try to achieve an overall keyword density
of 1-2%. |
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| 11. Try to achieve a minimum word count of
300 and a maximum of 750 words on each page. |
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| 12. Register a domain name with the exact keyword
phrase you wish to target, using hyphens to separate
the keywords. |
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For example, if the keyword phrase is "search
engine rankings," then register: |
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search-engine-rankings.com |
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If the domain you want is unavailable, either
try a different extension, such as .NET, .INFO,
or .US, or add a keyword to the end (preferential)
or beginning of the domain. |
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| 13. Name directories after your keyword phrases,
using hyphens or underscores to separate the keywords. |
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For example, if an important keyword phrases
is, "search engine rankings," name
your directory: |
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www.yoursite.com/search-engine-rankings/
or...
www.yoursite.com/search_engine_rankings/ |
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| 14. Name web pages after your most important
keyword phrase. Separate the keywords using hyphens
or underscores. |
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For example, if the keyword phrase is "search
engine rankings," then name the page: |
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search-engine-rankings.html or...
search_engine_rankings.html |
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| 15. Name your graphic files after keyword phrases.
Again, separate the keywords using hyphens or underscores. |
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For example: |
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<IMG SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif"> |
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| 16. Include an ALT (alternative text) atrribute
in image tags. Include the most important keyword
phrases. |
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For example: |
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<IMG SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif"
ALT="search engine rankings."> |
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| 17. If you use an image map, include HTML links,
as some search engines do not follow image map links.
Plus image maps do not offer search engines any
link text to index. So, try to avoid the use of
image maps as they do not help with your search
engine optimization efforts. |
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| 18. Use the longer or plural version of a keyword,
where possible. Word stemming is a concept used
by some search engines to return search results
that include keywords that extend beyond what you
searched for. |
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For example, a search with the keyword
"engine" might return results for,
"engines," "engineers,"
and "engineering." If someone searches
for the longer version of a word and your
page only uses the short version, then your
page will be excluded from the list of possible
results. |
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| 19. Sprinkle a few uncommon keywords and synonyms
in your main body text. Less popular keywords have
less competition in the search engines. So your
web page is has a greater chance of being listed
amongst the top results. |
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| 20. Do not repeat keywords or keyword phrases
over and over again on a web page, as this would
be considered as spam by search engines. |
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| 21. Keep your pages as close to the root domain
as possible. Do not set up more than 3 directory
levels. |
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For example: |
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www.yoursite.com/index.html (1st level -
excellent)
www.yoursite.com/html/index.html (2nd level
- Good)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/index.html
(3rd level - OK)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/search/index.html
(Too many levels down - search engines will
find it difficult to find and index pages
this far down) |
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| 22. If you have a persistent (on most or all
of your pages) navigation bar at the side of each
page, your table is almost certainly set up in such
a way that it pushes your page's body text down
the HTML document. Search engines give prominence
to keywords nearer the beginning of a HTML document.
So, design your HTML table so that the navigation
bar is placed after your main body text. |
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| 23. Move Javascript code to a separate file,
or the end of the HTML document after your closing
BODY or HTML tag. Yes, this technique actually works! |
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Follow these instructions to move the JavaScript
code to a separate file and link to the file
from the HTML document. Then place the following
code in between the HEAD section: |
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<HEAD>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"
SRC="file-name.js"></SCRIPT>
</HEAD> |
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This procedure also reduces your file size,
and therefore your download time. In addition,
it allows you to reuse the code on other pages
by simply link to the JavaScript file. Both
of these techniques will move your important
body text nearer to the top of the HTML document. |
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| 24. Although not always practical, you may
like to try naming your cascading style sheet tags
after keywords. |
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For example: |
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.search {
color: #ff0000;
} |
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| 25. Use Robots.txt files instead of Robots
meta tags, as some search engine robots do not recognize
the tag. |
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| 26. Do not use font size one (1) text as the
default text size. Many search engines consider
tiny text to be spam. It's OK to use some font size
one text. |
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| 27. Do not participate in link farms or link
exchange programs. Search engines consider link
farms and link exchange programs as spam, as they
have only one purpose - to artificially inflate
a site's link popularity, by exchanging links with
other participants.
Do not confuse link farms and link exchange
programs with reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking
is the exchange of links with individual sites,
and is certainly an accepted technique for improving
your site's link popularity.
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| There you have it. My 27 quick search engine optimization
tips to improving your search engine rankings. |
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Michael Wong is a respected internet marketing
expert, and the author of a leading search engine
optimization guide, numerous marketing tips, and
reviews of marketing tools and ecommerce software.
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