Search Engine Ranking... Oh, the Mystery!

Rankings, Rankings, Rankings!

How do you get your website ranked well by the search engines? Well, it isn't as hard as you think, but it may not be as simple either. It takes patience and an ongoing commitment to making search-engine ranking a long-term investment in your website. You will need to give it time and energy ? it isn't a quick fix.

One caveat before I dive into this: If you are a company that is working on attracting local customers, there are many other incredibly effective offline marketing tools to DRIVE people to your website. So, what if you really want to work on search-engine ranking for your site?

Keep these points in mind:

1. Search engines often change their ranking formula.

2. Each search engine has its own algorithm (formula) to determine site ranking.

3. META tag keywords are not a magic bullet to improve your ranking.

4. Search engines can take many months to index new information, so patience?patience.

5. Be cautious with graphics-rich websites if search-engine ranking is important.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Let's start at the beginning. When you type a query into a search engine, what happens? Some people think that each time a search is entered into a search engine like Google, that the program hunts through the entire Internet to produce the answer. This is NOT what occurs.

Let's say I type in the words "dog obedience" into Yahoo. Yahoo then takes these keywords and searches through its own unique database of indexed websites to find matches. To add to and update their databases, search engines have programs called "spiders" that crawl through pages on the Internet looking for pages and sites to index. However, they do NOT locate sites on their own. They find sites if someone has purposely entered a website into a search engine's "Add URL" form. They are also able to find a website if another site in its database has links to it.

When a search engine finds a site, it considers the text on the website to be the number one thing to extract. It places data its database categorized by information it perceives as being important. So, if you have a company that has free articles teaching people how to train their dogs, but you don't have the word "obedience" listed anywhere, your site may not be listed in the above sample search.

So then, after all of this ? how do you get a high-ranking search engine?

Your Keys to Search Engine Ranking

You must think of search engine optimization as a long-term investment in your website. It is an ongoing marketing effort that takes persistence. As you begin to implement optimization techniques, remember it can take several months before you see the results, so be patient. Here are some tips to help you improve your website rankings in the future.

1. Plan Your Content: Before you develop your site, make a list of all the possible search words and phrases you think a potential customer would use to locate your website. A research tool such as WordTracker can help you in this process. Write compelling, professional marketing content for your site that is rich with these search words and phrases, especially on your home page. Make pages about 250 words. Tip: Hire a professional web copywriter to write your site content.

2. Meta Keyword Tags Are Overrated: Contrary to what many people believe, your META keyword tags in your HTML code have very little bearing on the words a search engine uses to reference your site. What does this mean for your site? Make sure your web pages have easy-to-understand paragraphs that describe your site and contain many of your important search words. These search words should match your META keyword tags, otherwise, the spiders tend to disregard the keyword tags.

3. Title Tags Are Vital: Most search engines give a lot of weight to your title tags. These are also the phrases that appear at the top of each web page. So, take the time to create juicy and precise title tags. Use words and phrases that people would be likely to use in their search for your business. Reflect what is actually on the specific web page.

4. Meta Description Tags: This is the area where you write HTML content to describe each of your web pages. Although it is not a major factor in search engine ranking, it IS what is displayed in the search results. People searching will use this description to make a decision to visit your site or not. Use this area for marketing purposes to entice people to click on your link.

5. Design a Site That Search Engines Like: Websites that have graphic Splash pages or are designed in Flash are not as friendly to SE indexing. For the most part, search engines do not index graphics. They read text (but not graphic text). Use small amounts of Flash animation and graphics in appropriate places, along with great HTML content. Along with these graphics, use text for your image ALT tags. If you have a graphic-based navigation system, make sure you have a site map that the spider can use to find all of your site page links.

6. Create a Compelling Site: If you haven't created a website with gripping content that speaks to your visitors in plain, easy-to-understand language, you won't get good long-term search-engine visibility. Nor, will visitors ever want to come back. Make your site so good that people will want to link to it. They will want to provide their viewers with your copious amounts of useful information. You can also go to sites that offer complimentary services or products and e-mail their webmaster to ask them to add a link to your site. This will enhance your link popularity, something search engines tend to consider important.

7. Submit your URL to the Directories: Read each search engine's FAQs and follow it exactly. Mistakes in the submission process can make things extremely difficult to change down the road. Keep your website description short and sweet. Be sure to include keywords, but don't use a lot of sales jargon.

8. Balance Your Online Marketing Approach: You will get the best results if you create a website that is content rich, popular with viewers, has a credible reputation, and is programmed using a smart approach to Meta tags.

Search engine spiders can be extremely slow to index new information, so be patient! It may take months to see your changes affect your search engine ranking. Remember, a website is a dynamic marketing tool that you are building over time. Treat it well, give it a little love and attention, and your long-term rewards will be well worth your efforts!

Wendy Maynard, your friendly marketing maven, is the owner of Kinesis. Kinesis specializes in marketing, graphic and website design, and business writing. Visit http://www.kinesisinc.com/resources/article s.html for more articles and free marketing wisdom.

You can visit Wendy's marketing blog, Kinetic Ideas at: http://www.wendy.kinesisinc.com

Want to harness the power of kinetic marketing? Sign up for Kinesis Quickies, a free bi-monthly marketing e-newsletter: http://www.news.kinesisinc.com

---

Search Engine Ranking - What Works Now

The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may... Read More

Using Google

Thanks to a unique algorithm that produces most relevant results... Read More

Finding The True PR Of A Page?

I had an email "conversation" this last week which I... Read More

Importance of Keywords in Anchor Text or Title Text

Keywords are indisputably, the single most important element of an... Read More

Simple Way to Get High Pagerank

Everyone knows that if your website has a high Google... Read More

Agressive Linking Strategies Help To Get Your Site Noticed

A good link building strategy has become an essential part... Read More

Beyond the Box with Googles Web API

Google, the most popular, and many say best, search engine,... Read More

Use Keyword Articles for Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is very important for your online business... Read More

SEO Expert Guide - Ongoing Monitoring of Results (part 9/10)

In the Guide, you have, so far, learnt how to... Read More

Search Engine Optimization --- An Overview

Search engine optimization is one of most popular online marketing... Read More

Building Link Popularity with Topical Articles

One of the important factors in ranking high in search... Read More

Local Search Optimization - A Guide to Getting Started

While searching the web these days, it's hard not to... Read More

Google: The Ultimate Web Writer?s Style Guide

Indulge me for a moment.Forget that Google is a search... Read More

Why Articles Are Not The Route To High Search Engine Rankings

If you have any interest in getting high search engine... Read More

Rock Your Rank With a Dynamite Text Link - Yahoo Directory Explodes Rankings

Last week a client called me excitedly exclaiming that their... Read More

Click Click Boom: a Linking Strategy that will Blow Away Your Competition

Web marketers, do you hear what I hear?"Click-click BOOM"That's the... Read More

Sales And Crawlers, Update! Update! Update!

The importance to the algorithmic web crawlers that speed throughout... Read More

Google Ban - How Not To Get Banned By Google!

Given that Google now provides over 75% of all Internet... Read More

Search Engine Marketing Simplified

All the great efforts made for making your own site,... Read More

How to Choose Keywords to Theme Your Pages and Boost Your Traffic

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is... Read More

7 Simple Steps to Spy on Your Online Competition and Acheive a High Page Rank

My Grandfather ran a small Grocery Store and when you... Read More

Search Engine Optimization - Free Tips and Help - Part One - The Title Tag

Search Engine Optimization is a widely misunderstood industry. Many webmasters,... Read More

Types of Links

Internal Linking ? An introductionThe web as they call it... Read More

Are Your Keywords Making Money for You?

I built my website, it's perfect. My chosen subject of... Read More

Google Tests Expanded Search To Include Printed Works

Google Labs is currently testing Google Print, which returns results... Read More

See No Google, Hear No Google, Speak No Google

That's right - I dreamt of a World Wide Web... Read More

Google Is Taking Descriptions From Alexa!

In a recent study looking at the "descriptions" of website... Read More

Search Engines The Masters Of The Internet Universe ? Part 2

"This is a continuation of the pervious part, split into... Read More

13 Tips For Good Search Engine Placements

When used properly in combination with other basic search engine... Read More

All About Links -- Interview With Link Building Expert , Bob Gladstein

Julia: Welcome Bob. Thank you for taking the time to... Read More

RSS Feeds - a Website Owners Friend in Disguise

We've all heard about it-it seems like all the buzz... Read More

Seek Engines: What If Seek Had Bumped Out Search?

In the early days of the World Wide Web, when... Read More

Search Engine Optimization for Everyone

There are many facets to SEO and the search engines... Read More