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Search_Engine_2000_Checklist
| Search Engine 2000 Checklist
Check your web site for search engine readiness with this quick
overview about what to do and what not to do for effective
listing in the search engines. This list in and off itself is
not the true path to millions of hits, but it can help you
towards the goal of appropriate, effective search engine
listings.
- Keyword Phrases
Identify your most important keyword phrases and design your
site around them. In our experience keyword phrases are much
more attainable than individual keywords for a high search
listing. In addition keyword phrases are more descriptive than
single keywords so they produce more targeted traffic. For
example "Handmade Furniture" is not only more descriptive than
"furniture" but is also easier to get the top spot in search
results.
- Title Tags
The title tag should be the first thing after the head statement
and should say what you do, not who you are. In most search
engines the title of your document carries a lot of weight, in
many they are the most important part of your document. Think of
it this way - how many times do you think "Tamara's Terrific
Teas" is searched for? A lot less than "organic tea", so which
should be in your title tag.
- Where to Be Listed
We believe that the most important place to be listed is in
Yahoo! Pay very close attention to the instructions and write a
description with zero hype if you are lucky, you might get
listed. Next we suggest getting all your pages listed in the
Inktomi database that handles the spill over search results for
Yahoo! and also powers HotBot, Direct Hit, Canada, Anzwers, and
others. Finally we suggest getting all pages listed in The Open
Directory Project, AltaVista, Infoseek, Lycos, Excite, Northern
Light in that order.
- Getting into Inktomi
We've noticed that it's easier to get listed in Inktomi if you
submit your pages to Canada or Anzwers then if you try to add
them to HotBot itself. If you get them into the Inktomi database
they'll show up in HotBot searches in around 7 days.
- Keep Good Records
Where is your site listed/not listed? When is the last time you
submitted to Yahoo? Where is the majority of your search engine
traffic coming from? These are questions you really should know
the answer to. Refer logs help here, if you don't have access to
them get your hosting provider to set them up for you. If they
won't - change providers, they're that important. - Check Out
the Competition
Now, I'm not abdicating stealing another site's title, tags,
etc. but you do need to check out the sites at the top of the
search engines for your chosen keyword phrases. This can show
you not only what they are doing right, but can also give you
insight into how the search engine works. Make sure you check
out the top 2 or 3, as examining only the first result can
sometimes be misleading.
- Make a "SiteMap" Page
One very simple idea is to include a page on your web site that
has links to every page on your site. This way you can submit
this page to search engines with good spiders to get all of your
pages listed without having to submit them all individually. As
an added benefit some search engines like Excite seem to favor
lists of html links with descriptive titles.
- Use those Alt Tags
At least half of the large search engines index Alt tags, if you
are not effectively using them you're loosing ground to the
competition. This does not mean keyword stuffing though - give
it a little thought and come up with alt tags that are
descriptive as well as effective. One new thing we've been
fooling around with is alt tags not only for pictures but also
for hyperlinks.
- Make use of Heading Tags
A few of the large search engines rank words inside of
very highly. Our recommendation is to put your keyword phrase
inside of a heading tag near the top of your page. With a little
work you can usually work it out so that it is aesthetically
pleasing and if not there is always cloaking.
About the author:
James T Kendall gets TurboPromo's clients sites listed well in
the search engines - http://www.turbopromo.com and develops
sites for http://www.jtkconsulting.com
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