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Search engine optimization
Because search engine optimization is a very broad
subject, it is impossible to cover all of it in just one
article. That is why the search engine related
information at A Promotion Guide has been divided into
multiple articles, each of which discuss one aspect of
search engine optimization.
While this solution has many benefits, it also causes
problems. It makes it easy to get lost in the details
and fail to see the big picture. In short, there's the
danger of not being able to see the forest from the
trees.
The purpose of this article is to collect all the
theoretical information on this site and turn it into
practical suggestions. I'll attempt to list most of the
various factors that determine the ranking of a page in
search engines and estimate their importance or weight.
Rather than giving engine-specific advice, this article
will outline a strategy that should work fairly well
with all of them. Optimizing your site with this kind of
"middle ground" approach is a good choice, especially if
you aren't an experienced SEO.
On-page criteria
First, let's look at how the content of your page
affects its ranking. Since you control the appearance of
your pages, influencing the factors listed below is
relatively easy. Due to that fact, page content only has
a limited role in most algorithms. Yes, it is important,
but reaching the top without paying attention to
off-page criteria as well is extremely hard.
Page title
Currently, the title is probably the most significant
part of your page as far as search engines are
concerned. No search engine optimization process is
complete until you've added your keyword to the <TITLE>
tag.
Usually it is best to place the keyword phrase to the
beginning of the title. Short titles containing around
3-6 words seem to be generally preferred by search
engines. In longer titles, the keyword easily gets lost
in the "noise", which causes the ranking of the page to
drop.
If you're going for a two or three-word phrase, try to
keep it together for maximum effectiveness. "Search
engine optimization by Joe" beats "Joe is a search
engine expert and optimization guru", if your keyword
phrase is "search engine optimization".
It's not just for robots
The most challenging part is creating a title that is
visitor-friendly and keyword rich at the same time. Not
only is the title seen by those who visit the page, but
it is also clearly displayed when the page appears in
the search results.
Titles that are simply collections of keywords in
bizarre order can get you to the top of the search
results. However, they also tend to keep people from
clicking your listing. It's hard, but try to strike a
balance between search engines and humans to get the
best results.
Headings
<H1> and <H2> headings also carry a lot of weight. While
often ignored, they're a very effective search engine
optimization tool. Their largest drawback is their large
size, which makes it difficult to use a <H1> heading on
some pages.
CSS can be used to reduce the size of headings, but only
with great care. Extreme measures, such as the use of {
display: none }, may get you banned.
Generally, I attempt to create headings that contain
only the most vital keyword(s) and nothing else. This
isn't always easy, as the heading must also make sense
to those who read the page. Simply stuffing keywords
inside the tag in random order is not going to cut it.
Body text
A well-optimized title and a good heading won't do much,
unless the page also contains some keyword-rich body
text. Preferably, your document should contain several
occurrences of the keyword.
As many search engines place more weight to words found
at the top of the page, so it's also very important that
your keyword appears there. Again, you'll also need to
make your writing seem natural. Nobody wants to read a
page that is just one big list of keywords.
Using the keyword in bold, italics, underlined or in
outgoing link text can also provide a minor boost.
However, because it influences the readability of the
document, be careful with this one as well.
Some body text optimization tricks
Just like with the title and heading, keeping long
keyword phrases together in your body text is a must.
However, if you can't do so, splitting the phrase up is
better than not using it at all.
What about the number of keywords in body text? How
often should you repeat it? If you're aiming at a 2-word
keyphrase, start at somewhere around 1-3 instances per
100 words of text. Note that the 100-word figure
includes all very commonly used words (I, he, what and
so on).
META tags
The importance of meta tags has dwindled so much that
many search engine optimization experts have completely
stopped using them. Google completely ignores meta tags
and other search engines don't place much weight on them
either.
While the keyword tag is beginning to become fairly
useless, the description tag isn't entirely dead yet. It
still enables you to control the descriptions of your
pages in FAST, Teoma and some other engines. Use it and
strive to write an inspiring description that draws
people to your pages.
Remember to read the Meta tags article for more
information on the description and keyword tags.
Off-page criteria
Today, a large part of search engine optimization work
involves manipulating off-page criteria. It is perhaps
somewhat harder than influencing on-page criteria, but
still far from impossible.
The number one rule of improving your off-page criteria
is to have a great site. Good sites attract more links,
which boosts their link popularity. They also have an
advantage in search engines that use click popularity,
because users are likely to spend more time on a site
that isn't half-bad.
Link popularity
Here's some straight talk for you: Without good link
popularity, your pages will never be able to compete
under popular keywords. Having plenty of sites to point
to your pages is extremely important for your ranking,
especially in Google.
Yes, it's possible to compensate for a lack of links to
a degree. Use all of the search engine optimization
tricks listed above and you'll probably be able to beat
pages that have more link popularity but are badly
optimized. However, when your competitor has 6,000
on-topic links and you have six, no amount of
optimization is going to make you pass him in the search
results.
Thus, you'll need to build links in every way you can
think of. Exchange
reciprocal links, encourage your visitors to link to
you, write newsletter articles and so on. Just try to
make sure that when someone links to a page on your
site, the link text includes your most important
keyword. One more reason to include keywords in the
headings and titles of your pages.
For more information about this subject, simply read my
article about link popularity.
Click popularity
Safe to say, click popularity isn't nearly as crucial as
link popularity. It has some weight in some engines, but
isn't really a major factor in most of them. My general
recommendation is to ignore click popularity at the
moment and focus your
search engine optimization efforts on other areas
for now.
Still, click popularity is an interesting thing and
learning the basics about it is a good idea. Search
engine algorithms change all the time, so who knows if
one day Google starts using click popularity in its
algorithm..
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