Search Engine Optimization Tips & Tricks

• <META name="description" content="your site description here">

  The description tag. Keep your site description short. No more than 50 fifty words or some of the search engines will ignore it. 25 words or less would be even better. For the ones that use this tag, what you put here will be the displayed description. Be accurate.

• <META name="keywords" content="your keywords here">

  The keyword tag. Use only keywords that are relevant to the content of your site. And please, only use the same word one or two times. See the section on "spamming" for why.

<IMG SRC="graphic.gif" ALT="description goes here">

Some of the directories will use descriptions in these tags to help form your ranking. Use short, but descriptive phrases that include a few of your more important keywords. And don't forget, what you use in the "ALT" tag, will show up on screen when the mouse is over it. It also shows up on browsers with the graphics turned off. So, make it something relevant that your viewer will understand.

Link to the search engines themselves. Link to Netscape®, to Microsoft®, to Disney®, and as many other of the most popular sites as you can, while keeping them relevant to your own site. Once again, some of them take the number of hits your linked pages get into consideration. Remember, keep the links out of the way, probably near the bottom. You want the search engines to see them, but you do not want your visitors to follow them.

By the way, don't bother making these links (or anything else) invisible. The practice of adding text that's the same color as the background is a trick they caught on to a long time ago. These days, they tend to penalize pages that try this.

Get a free-for-all links page for your site. These days, not much of anyone post links on them except for "get-rich-quick schemes" or "porno" sites. And, these postings are usually through automated services, so not many people ever see the page. But, it will give your site a few hundred more links. And some notice this.

Use as many free services as you can to submit your site to other places. You see adds everywhere, "submit your site to 1500 search engines in five minutes," or something similar. Almost all these search engines are free-for-all link sites, but - it is getting other sites to link back to you. Once again, some notice this.

If you do use these submission services, never use your real e-mail address in the submission form. Get an account with Hotmail® or some other free e-mail service. Use this address on the submission forms. Why? For every submission, you will get a confirmation e-email. Most of these will try to sell you on some questionable get-rich-quick plan. Then you will begin to get follow-ups. A year later you will still be getting some. Like we say, "it's not just a lunch meat anymore".

• Submitting your URL to the search sites almost every day.

  Instead of submitting your URL all the time, only do it when there are changes to your page. Some search sites take a few days, or even a few weeks to actually list your site. If you keep re-submitting, your site keeps getting put at the "end of the line" because it is a new submission. As a result, you may never get listed with some services.

• Using a list of keywords multiple times in your document.

  Only use a keyword list one or two times in your document. Any more than this is considered "spamming" by most of the big search engines, and they will penalize you for it. This means a lower ranking. And your site will be harder to find in the searches. Instead of using too many lists of keywords, pick your most important keywords & use them as often as you can within the document itself. This way the more "intelligent" search sites will see that your keywords are actually relevant to the document. You should get rewarded for that.

• Repeating the same keywords over & over in the same list.

  Don't get in the practice of repeating the same keywords 10 or 20 times withing your KEYWORD tag. Once again, the more "intelligent" search sites will detect this, and penalize you for it. As with the previous suggestion, use the important keywords within your document instead.

• Using keywords that have no relevance to your subject.

  Some people load their keyword list with anything they can think of. For example, say it's an olympics year. Lots of people are searching for olympic related sites. So, you put a lot of olympic keywords in your tags, even though your site has nothing to do with the olympics. Don't do this. Keep your keywords relevant. The more "intelligent" engines will not detect these keywords in your document & you will be penalized.

  While on the subject, if someone does find your site by using a non-relevant keyword, how long will they stay at your site?

• Your URL, or web address, can be anything you want, so long as it is not already taken. You may have your business name, your product name, or even your name as a domain name. This makes it easier for someone to find you.

• Shorter URLs are usually better. Instead of having an address that looks like:

  http://subdomain.their-domain.net/~neighborhood/directory/index.html

  your address could just be:

  http://your-domain.com/

  Isn't that an easier address?

  And, forget the longer domain names. Who's going to remember:

  www.wasntthisagreatideausingalongdomainnamejustbecauseican.com

• You will also have the ability to have unlimited e-mail addresses that forward to your primary address from your ISP. Addresses like:

  sales@my-domain.com and service@my-domain.com

  However, before you use too many different addresses, see our section on spam. No, you won't be a spammer, but they'll have your address -- all of them.

• Since this chapter is about search engines and how to do better with them, domains certainly help. Some of the major free web space hosts (we won't name them here - but you know if you're on one) have "tenants" who have been such problems with the search sites, it's hard to even get listed if you're with one of them. Your own domain will help you get around this problem.

• Some of the search sites list sites alphabetically by the URL. This means if your address is "aardvark.com" (we tried to get it - it's taken by a company in Canada. ) it's going to be one of the first listed. Not many search sites do this, but if a "lower" domain name makes sense for your company or product - get it.

Most of the web hosts can help you out with domain name registration. They will have details on how to set up your own domain at their sites. Most web hosts do this at no charge. To see if a particular domain name is already taken go to: Network Solutions - the #1 domain registrar