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copyright © 2007-2009, by Karyn Greenstreet. All
rights reserved.
When people search for you on Google, does your site show up on page 1
-- or on
page 20 -- of the search engine results?
Since 84% of internet traffic goes through search engines,
being ranked highly by search engines will send you a huge number of prospective
customers.
Are search engines sending you enough traffic to build your
business?
For instance, for the phrase "mastermind group" (which I rank
#1), Google sends me 23,000 visitors per year. For the phrase "small
business coach" (which I also rank #1), Google sends me over 10,000 visitors
per year. Just those two search phrases alone send 30,000 NEW visitors to my
site each year.
What if you could do the same for the keywords you want to
target?
Optimizing your site to get
it ranked highly on the search engines can be a complicated subject. To
simplify things, it's helpful to first understand how search engines add sites
to their database. Then we'll cover some tips that you can put on your own
website that will help you to get listed on search engines and get a higher
ranking.
The Major Search Players
Let’s start off with the
major search engines, the ones that most people use. Google is the most widely
used search engine, getting between 55-65% of all searches. Yahoo Search and Microsoft
Bing lag far behind with a total of 15-20% each.
While
there are thousands of search engines, it’s always a good idea to start with
submitting your website to the three largest. Why? Because 95% of all searches
go through either Google, Yahoo or Bing.
How Search Engines Read Your Site
There are two ways search
engines read your site: automated search engine spiders (also known as crawlers
and robots) and human-entered (directories).
Spiders
follow the links found on your site and enter your site into their search
database based on text they find on your pages. This text is either found on
your public pages, or the text keywords found in behind-the-scenes "meta tags".
Keyword Density is the number of times your keyword appears
on your page as compared to all the text on your page. The higher the density,
the higher your rankings. But in case you think you can load your page with
keywords in order to fool the search engine, think again. Search engines
are smart and you can be penalized for "spamming" keywords on your website.
While there is a lot of controversy in the SEO world around keyword density, for
plain ease-of-reading for your visitors, don't crowd your website pages with the
same keyword over and over again.
Human Directories are few and far between. Just
imagine hiring enough people to research the millions of website on the
Internet! It’s no wonder they’re steadily being replaced by automated
spiders. Yahoo and DMOZ are some of the most famous human directories, where real people
actually evaluate your site and categorize it in their search engine database directory.
Getting your
listing in a human-entered directory for free (such as DMOZ) can take months. Some human directories,
such as Yahoo Directory, are
charging a fee for business sites to be included in their directory.
How Search Engines Index and Rank Your Site
Search engines use several techniques to
determine which category your site belongs in and what keywords
people will use to find your site when using the search engine.
When they crawl your site, they check for repeated keywords in your text,
looking for a clue as to the purpose of your site or a particular page. Search engines can not read the text in graphics, so if
you are using a graphic-based navigation or have your keywords on a graphic next
to your logo, the search engine will not notice that text. There are special
ways to code a graphic to insert keywords, called ALT tags.
Some search engines will rank your site based on behind-the-scenes
coding called "meta tags." Each page gets a meta tag for a page title, page
description, and keyword list. While not every search engine will read meta
tags, it certainly can’t hurt to use them. Most search engines will read your
Title tag. Google's Matt Cutts says that Google definitely reads your
Description tag as well.
There are about a dozen more SEO techniques you can use (which I teach in my
SEO For Everyone class), but for now, the above techniques should get you
started on the path to good SEO.
Submitting Your Site to Search Engines
Once your site is primed
and ready for the search engines, then you have to submit it to them. You have
two choices: either go to each search engine and submit your site individually,
or use a search engine submission tool.
Remember that the majority of searchers
use either Google, Yahoo or Bing so consider submitting to those first. You’ll
often find a link on their main page where you can add a site to their search
engine. If you want to automate the process, use an automated submission tool.
Make sure the submission search tool you select will analyze your site to tell
you if you’re really ready to submit, then submit your site to the top search
engines for you.
Submit your site to the search engines:
Preparing your site for
submission to search engines can feel like a daunting task. With the above tips in
mind, you will save yourself a lot of time and frustration when it comes time to
submitting your site and rank higher in search results.
See you on the Internet!
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Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She
shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to boost
clarity and focus, create sustainable motivation, and increase sales and
profits.
Visit her website at
www.PassionForBusiness.com
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