Search Engine Placement |
March 24, 2004 |
In this article we explore search engine placement and alternatives to costly ongoing monitoring of a web site listing.
Content is King
Generally speaking if you have strong and relevant content on your site, Google and other search engines will do a relatively good job of picking up on the strong content and giving your site strong placement.
Technical Details
Several technical areas should be addressed as part of a comprehensive review of your search engine placement for any keyword. We will be using the keyword "Money" as an example. Here are some of the technical "do's":
- TITLE tag: In at least one of your web pages that the search engine definitely spiders (check by search in Google), the <title> tag should have the word "Money" in it somewhere.
- Standard HTML Tags:Use Style Sheets that modify standard HTML tags such as <H1>. In plain English: there are HTML tags that have standard default formatting. The <H1> tag is considered a Headline tag and usually is at the top of a document. An assumption is made by some search engines that content in the H1 tag has important keywords. Some design tools avoid using the H1 tag in favor of other tags for defining style attributes. However, words within an H1 tag are given higher priority and should definitely be part of your web page. Your web page designer can alter the look of the H1 tag formatting to closely match the design that you would like titles to have.
- Content is King: Make sure your content accurately reflects the keywords that are important to you. If the keyword "Money" never appears on your page in plain text, then the search engine cannot pickup on the word.
- IMG tag descriptors: Each image is placed in a page with
an IMG tag. The IMG tag has an attribute called ALT. ALT stan da for alternative
description for those that have images turned off. The ALT description also
appears when the user hovers over an image.
- META tags: There are <Meta> tags that help describe
each page on your site to search engines. Some search engines completely
ignore the <Meta> tag, while other search engines use a portion of
the tag or give a minor weight of some sort to the tag. The bottom line is
that it doesn't hurt to have the tag in your pages.
- Referring Links: Google ranks pages based on how many sites
link to the site being spidered. The more relevant the site is that links
to your site, the more weight is placed on your site as having strong content.
Thus, Google boosts your ranking. It will benefit you to be linked to from
news sites and trade sites that discuss your products and services.
- Headings/Titles as Text Rather Than Images: Some graphically intensive web sites use images for headings rather than text. Usually this is due to a specific font requirement for headings. It is generally recommended that headings or titles be plain text so that search engines can pick up on the content. Although the ALT attribute in the IMG tag can be used to specify the text in the title for search engines to spider, the search engine still can't determine a relevancy for that particular image in relation to any other image on your site. As a result, it is best to use header tags such as H1 and H2 tags to denote such content.
There are developers sitting on the other side of the screen that are aware of new tricks and techniques for improving search engine placement. Here are some of the technical "Don'ts":
- Repeat Submission: Don't repeatedly submit your site to search engines. They will eventually blacklist your site making it difficult, if not impossible, for anybody to increase your rankings.
- Technical Trickery: Do not add text to the bottom of your web page in the same color as the background in order to hide the text from users but try to get the text submitted as important keywords to search engines.
- Fake Referring Sites: Do not setup a bunch of sites that
refer to your main site in order to improve your link ranking. The dummy
sites will have a low ranking and therefore their link to your main site
will have little to no weight to it.
A good rule of thumb is that if it appears as though you are doing something to trick a search engine, don't do it. Your ranking will drop.
Keyword Ads
After revising your site to perfectly position it for the keywords you want,
you might still find your site is outside of the top 20 to 50
pages. What's next? A popular method of appearing when a particular keyword
is entered
is purchasing an ad for the keyword. Google and Overture (owned
by Yahoo!) sell keywords based on a bid
system. The highest bidder is placed at the top for that particular
keyword. The bids are generally on a click-though basis. This means that
you only
pay for ad impressions that actually result in the user clicking
on your ad. The flip side of this is that if your ad is not generating click-throughs,
then the search engines will automatically place it lower on
the page. (After all,
they get paid based on the click-through and if your ad doesn't
seem to be working, it get's dropped down.)
Conclusion
Search engine placement can be a tricky business. There are many notorious companies out there willing to guarantee for a few bucks that you'll be the top result for a particular keyword. Be skeptical. Be very skeptical.
Additional References
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