To be "search engine friendly" your pages should conform to the protocols the major search engines follow in ranking your pages.
DO
Submit
your site properly the first time.
While there are people that say to submit to the Search
Engines, either once at the beginning or on a regular schedule I
have found this out to be unnecessary, even detrimental.
A (IMO), better way is to have the search engine spiders find
your site on their own.
To do this, contribute to a popular topical forum and when you
do, make sure you have a link to your site in your "signature"
on the forum.
Every time you post or contribute your link is added.
WebMaster
Tip: Do NOT submit
your pages to the major search engines until you have
established at least one outside link to your
site. The Major Search Engines use link popularity in
determining a ranking. The more outside links you have, the
better.
The best helper program for designing pages to excel in ranking
is
WebPosition
- Make certain that ALL your
keywords are reflected in the text on your page.
There is NO VALUE in "keyword stuffing". (Keyword
stuffing is the addition of every and any keywords that you
can think of to your meta tags.)
- Make certain all your Meta tags
include your keywords.
E.G.
<title>WebMasters CD. Designing
your pages with the proper Meta tags</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="WebMasters CD designing meta
tags">
<meta name="description" content="Using The WebMasters CD
makes designing Meta tags easy">
Notice that the keyword phrases "Webmaster CD" and
"designing Meta tags" are included in the "title" "keywords"
and "description" categories.
- Research your keyword phrases.
People search in phrases for more relevant results.
- Use plurals; E.G. tags - not tag
- Use your keywords in your graphic
"Alt" tags.
Alt tags are the text that appears when you hover
your cursor on a graphic"
This was shown in the previous page.
WebMaster
Tip: Name your image
using your keywords.
- Use your keywords
once at the beginning, middle, and end of the text on your
page.
Search
engines use keyword relevancy as a factor in determining
position.
Include
your primary keyword in a "h1- 2 or 3" heading
E.G. <h1>Webmasters
CD</h1>
which would display as:
Webmasters CD
DO NOT
- Design your website in frames.
Frames are both search engine and user unfriendly.
Search engines find them so, as they do not read the sub
frames.
Users find them unfriendly, as it is impossible to bookmark
an individual page. Adding a framed site to your bookmarks
brings you to the opening page when you return. You then
have to navigate through the site to the page you intended
to bookmark.
- Use a splash page.
The search engine "Spiders" (Automated electronic robots
that gather information from your site's pages.) are looking
for information. Splash pages generally do not provide
anything but a graphic and an enter link.
- Spam (1)
Spamming on a website is the constant repetition of your
keywords. People used to have dozens, hundreds, or even
thousands of their major keywords repeated in text colored
the same as the page background.
There was a time when this worked well to get your site
listed with the search engines. This no longer hold true.
Now all of the major search engine will ban
your listing if you do this.
- Spam (2)
In this instance Spam is considered the inclusion of
keywords in your Meta Tags that are NOT reflected in the
page.
- Spam (3)
Repeat your keywords in your Meta tags more than 3 times.
Once is enough.
Search engines are building databases based on
information.
The information that your keywords represent must be
present in the page.
WebMaster Tip:
Last but not least, DO NOT use an automatic submission program
to submit your pages to the major search engines. You will get
the best results by doing manual submissions. To assist you in
doing this, keep a text copy of your webpage details open when
doing the submissions. In some cases you will be asked for
contact information and page details. (Title and Description)
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