Newsletter #121 Seven Steps Toward Search Engine Happiness

Created on 19/03/08

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Our last newsletter (17th December, 2007) was "Reallocate Resources to the Web".
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Feature Article

Search Engine optimisation is an important part in any marketing plan as the world moves increasingly digital. Much of Search Engine optimising is fairly basic stuff that you can do yourself, although you will need your Webmaster to make changes to your site.

To get your site up the rankings and generating more visitors we recommend the following seven steps:

1. Some of the keywords and phrases that you think would be best for your company Website may not be the terms people are using, so use a keyword selection tool like Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) or Overture (inventory.overture.com). Bear in mind that these tools are US-based. Next type those terms into Google and see how many results you get; a relatively big number indicates a great deal of competition for the search term. The best possible keywords are those that are frequently searched for but have low levels of competition.

2. Use the keywords you’ve decided on to theme and name your page files. Each page should have a theme of, at most, two to three search terms. The page file name shows in the address bar at the top of your browser and should look similar to this: http://www.yourwebsite.co.nz/search-terms.html. If your domain name includes your best search term this is even better. Eg http://www.best-search-term.co.nz/other-search-terms.html

3. The code on your pages is important; you may need your Webmaster for this step. When you theme your pages make sure that the search terms for that page are within the title tags , you use heading tags (h1 to h6) write invisible meta tags and create alternative text for all images.

4. Avoid complicated navigation menus (eg. Flash, complicated rollover effects etc) that can’t be followed by search engines. Adding a sitemap that shows all the pages within your site is a good idea as it speeds up the indexing process.

5. The number and quality of inbound links is extremely important especially for Google. See how many links you have from other sites by going to www.linkpopularity.com. The number of Google links shown will be lower as only higher ranked sites show, however they are the most important ones. See who links to your competitor’s sites as it will provide ideas on who to approach.

6. If you have the capability, create content on your site such as articles, white papers or other information that relates to your industry that may be of interest to potential customers. Good content can organically grow the number of links to your site thereby improving your rankings. Sites that are updated more often will also get more Search Engine attention.

7. Make sure your site is listed in as many relevant directories as possible. Start with the Open Directory Project www.dmoz.org and make sure you are in industry-related directories and sites for organisations that you belong to. Contact suppliers and customers, if appropriate and ask them to link to your site. Approach the Webmasters of the high ranking sites you found above with an individual email asking for a link and keep a track of progress.

Don’t be suckered by paid placements to sites that are links only without any obvious content. These ‘link farms’ can actually damage your rankings.

Getting a site highly ranked in the most important search engines requires doing the right things over an extended period of time – unfortunately there is no magic bullet.

Hot Tips

Newbies

You can easily copy images from the Web into your Windows program by right-clicking on the image, selecting "copy image" and then click in the document and pressing "Ctrl" +"V" (both keys together). Note you shouldn't use images copied in this way for any commercial activity.

Power Users

DNS Servers translate the user-friendly addresses such as www.netinsites.com into a numeric IP address that computers understand. This translation is made via large tables where the correspondence between the two types of addresses are kept. Most people are unaware that each local computer has the capacity to resolve Web addresses and thereby speed up browsing and block ads and other unwanted data. In Windows 2000/XP the file is in \Windows\system32\drivers\etc\ as well as a .sam file which is a sample. More about the hosts file next article.

Interesting Sites

PicLens is an add-on that can transform your Web browser into a multimedia experience. It's a little difficult to explain but go this page http://www.piclens.com and click on View Demo and I guarantee you'll be impressed. What's more it supports just about all browsers including Safari for Mac. If you're interested in creating slideshows on your Website there is also PicLens Lite for Webmasters and bloggers.

InsiteFul Quotes

"Stretching his hand out to catch the stars, he forgets the flowers at his feet." Jeremy Bentham

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page of www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

Archives

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Best wishes

Alex Garden

Internet Strategy | Website Design | Website Promotion | Web Text Messaging | Email Newsletters | Online Sports Games | Content Management