Search Engine Optimization
|
The recent Search Engine Strategies 2001 conference in Boston was very informative. One theme ran throughout the various presenters. Content, Relevant Content. It was stressed over and over, the directory and search engine reviewers are looking for relevant content in your web site. If you say in your Title and Meta tags that your site is about fishing, then you had better be talking about fishing in your page content. And that means in the viewable text, not in the images, hidden text etc. A search engine spider (the program that indexes your page) cannot read what is in an image and loading your page with hidden text will probably be considered spamming and may result in your page not being listed. Your content needs to be rich in keywords and keyword phrases, you know the word or phrase you type into the search engine box. You want your pages to be full in these words and phrases, but not to the point where you are tagged as spamming. Spamming is a four letter word in search engine circles. There are tools available to help pick the most used keyword phrases relevant to your topic. Why build a page around keywords that no one uses in a search? It takes some work to come up with a good list of searchable keyword phrases, but it will be well worth the effort. Even the directories that use human reviewers look at the Titles and Meta Keyword tags to help rank your site. A well written Meta Descriptions will probably be used as you wrote it, making you and the reviewer happy. If yours is good then they don't have to rewrite it. Some directories, such as dmoz.com, use volunteer reviewers so the less work they have to do the better.. In summary, keep your content relevant to the page descriptions. Your page that is targeted to Bass fishing lures should have Title and Meta tags rich in that topic and your fishing pole page should be rich in keywords relevant to poles. Don't try to cover the keywords for every page on your home page, this will most likely hurt your ranking in the directories and search engines. Bill Gallot - rbcwebdesign.com |