In
order to succeed in today's ultra-competitive Web hosting market,
getting listed in the Internet's major search engines and directories
is not an option - it's a must. On today's Internet, search portals and
success go hand in hand; therefore, it's extremely important to pay a
great deal of attention to them.
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There
are typically two ways to get listed in most search engines and
directories: manual or automatic submission. Like their titles imply,
manual submission entails actually visiting the search engine/directory
and submitting your Web site to them; automatic submissions use
software to speed up the process.
But
as search sites continue to develop, they are becoming increasingly
wise to automatic submission programs. In the past, many have
unfortunately used them to try and trick search engines through various
methods that involved spamming; therefore, it is highly recommended
that you manually submit your Web site to search engines whenever
possible.
The
same line of thinking should apply when considering services that claim
to submit your site to 100+ search engines at a time. Most of these
services disregard one important fact: 85 of those 100 search engines
are not important, and will be responsible for little (if any) traffic
directed to your site. The only way to guarantee your pages being
indexed is to do it yourself. What's more, some search engines have now
developed a system whereby you need to enter a "code" displayed on your
computer in order to submit a site, thereby preventing submission
programs from working. Altavista has been doing this for quite some
time, and now limits submissions to five pages per session.
Tuning Up Your Site for Submission
Before
submitting your site to any search engine or directory, you'll want to
make sure that your Web site is well-optimized for the search engine
spider or editor that will (hopefully) visit your Web site after
submitting it to them. And ensuring your site is well-optimized begins
with your site's HTML tags and site text.
There
are a number of HTML tags you should know if you wish to show up
anywhere near the top in search engine rankings. These are the TITLE
tag, the ALT tag, and the META tag series.
The TITLE Tag
This
tag, which is placed at the top of every HTML document, provides a
summary of what your site is about to search engine spiders. It is
crucial to try to include as many search terms in the title in a
relevant manner.
The ALT Tag
While
this tag is not often used any in any practical manner any longer (it
was originally intended to display text when an image took too long to
load and a user aborted, or if there were errors on the page), it is
very important to engine spiders. Most of them will index the text
within an ALT tag, so use it to your advantage and enter some keywords
there as well.
META Tags
META
tags are placed between HEAD and BODY tags at the beginning of an HTML
document to inform spiders about the content of your site. These tags
are crucial to your ultimate search engine ranking; spiders try to
determine what your site is about and how to categorize it in their
database largely through what your META tags say.
The Various Types of META Tags
While
there are many META tags in HTML, search engines are usually only
concerned with the keywords tag and the description tag.
The
keywords tag tells search engine bots what keywords you want your site
to be associated with. The description tag contains a short description
of your site that is often displayed in the engine's search results.
Try to keep your descriptions short, as many bots will stop reading
after 50 to 100 characters (although some will read up to 1000 or so).
Here's an example of how to use META tags. Let's say, for example, your site focused on offering dedicated servers:
<head>
<title>Company Name: Dedicated Web hosting packages</title>
<META name="description" content="Dedicated Web hosting.. cheap!">
<META name="keywords" content="dedicated web hosting, web host, dedicated server">
</head>
Most search engines will then display:
[your site's name]
Dedicated Web hosting.. cheap!
Not
all search engines will recognize your META tags. Some will read your
ALT tags, or the first few lines of text they encounter on your site
and will index that instead. It is therefore important to ensure that
the opening paragraphs of your site contain a description of what that
particular page is about. Also try to avoid repetition - make sure your
keyword sequences for your ALT and META tags differ. This will make
your listing more concise, increase the chances of your site receiving
a higher ranking, and ensure that the bot does not think you are
spamming it.
Once
you've established what your META data will be, make sure your Web
site's text corresponds to the keywords you have chosen. It is
extremely important, however, to ensure that the copy contained within
your site is concise, makes sense and is well-written; otherwise,
search engine spiders (and human directory editors, too) will conclude
that you are trying to trick them, and drop your site from their index
completely with little chance of re-instatement.
Other Important Tips
- Avoid password protected pages. Search engine spiders will not follow them.
- Try to avoid using clickable image maps as menus. Many search engines ignore them.
- Don't send engines to pages with redirects. Many spiders will not follow them.
- Be
patient. Most of these engines and directories will take four to six
weeks to index your site in their database. If you still don't see
results after six weeks, re-submit your sites. Failing that, you can
even call them or email them and find out why your site hasn't been
indexed.
Now
that your site is properly optimized for search engine spiders and
human directory editors, you're ready to submit it to the Internet's
major search engines and directories. Next time we'll take a look at
the most important ones to submit to and the most effective ways of
doing so.
Get more information by reading Part 2: "Developing Effective Search Engine Strategies" ..click here.
