Keyword Optimization and Other Vital Steps for Optimizing Your Website |
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By Donald Nelson |
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There is a bit of confusion about keyword search optimization and other strategies for search engine optimization.
Some people think that SEO (the abbreviated form) is nothing
more than tricking search engines into giving a high ranking for
a particular site. Others think that search engine optimization
is so complex that they could not possibly understand it.
Neither of these views are correct. Search engine optimization
is best defined as the art and science of building web pages
that are both search engine friendly and user friendly. Below
are four basic steps that you should take when optimizing your
web pages. |
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| 1. | Your Web Design Should Emphasize Text and Not Graphics. |
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"Search engine friendly" means that search engines should be
able to find data on your site that they can put in their data
bases. That's why keyword optimization is so important. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a search
engine is trying to classify pages by text and not by images.
If you have an opening page with a beautiful picture of the sea
and only two words of text saying "enter here" then this page
will not rank high in searches for Florida Vacations. Similarly,
if you have a headline with important text containing your
site's keywords, it should not be displayed as a gif or jpeg
image. Pages that are all flash or all images are not search
engine friendly, and often are not user friendly as well.
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| 2. | Links to Your Interior Pages Should Be Easily Found by Search
Engines. |
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An important thing to remember is that you want not only your
main page, but all of your interior pages to be included in the
search engine index. While most people will probably enter your
site through the main page, many will enter after doing searches
which lead them to your inner pages. The best way to make sure
that search engines will find and index your inner pages is to
include text links to these pages. If you have a navigation
system which uses Java-script or images, then it is best to add
an additional text link navigation bar at the bottom of the site
to ensure that the robot follows the links to your inner pages.
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| 3. | Your Pages Should Be Built Around Specific Keywords or
Keyword Phrases. |
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Robotic search engines and human users have one thing in common:
they are trying to figure out what your site or your particular
web page is all about. It is not possible to get high rankings
for thirty different search terms with only one web page.
However, it is possible to build separate web pages which explain
and give importance to various aspects of your organization's
activity. Using on these sub pages so that they perform
well in searches for your various keywords.
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| 4. | Once Your Material is Organized, Then Your Keywords Should
Appear in Strategic Portions of Your Web Pages (Keyword Optimization). |
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If your site is about Florida Vacations, then these words should
appear in the following places of your html pages:
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a. |
In the File Name or the URL. |
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If your site is called www.floridavacations.com then this will give you a head start in any searches for this term. Similarly, if your company is called XYZ Travels, you may have a web page with this url: www.xyztravels.com/floridavacations.html.
The URL or file name is an important indicator to a search
engine, so don't miss the opportunity to put your important term
either in your main domain name or in your file names.
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b. |
In The Title Tag. |
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The text that is displayed in the blue line at the top of your
browser is your title tag. The title tag is located in the
<head> section of the document. If your main phrase is "Florida
Vacations" then the title tag in your html document should look
something like this: <title>Florida Vacations: Florida Vacation
Information by XYZ travel <⁄title>.
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c. |
In The Description Tag. |
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The description tag is not seen on the web page but search
engines often display it as the text which gives the searcher an
idea of what your page is about. The description tag should be
compelling, and make someone want to click and see your page,
while also containing the keywords that are in your url and your
title tag. A description tag for this site might look as
follows: <meta name="description" content="Florida Vacations:
Plan your Florida vacation with the help of XYZ travels. You
will find up-to-date information and the best rates on
accommodations, entertainment, and transportation in Florida on
our website.">
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d. |
In The Headlines. |
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Just as someone reading a newspaper looks at headlines to find
out what is important, a search engine robot looks at the
headlines of a web page in order to pick up the essential
feature of that page. Put your main phrase in a headline and
place it near the top of the page. Your headline text should be
enclosed with special header tags such as <h1>, <h2>, <h3>. A
headline tag for our hypothetical page could be written as
follows: <h1> Florida Vacations: Plan Your Vacation Now And
Save Money on Accommodations, Entertainment and Transport in
Florida<⁄h1>
If you don't like the look of the h1 tag, then use a smaller
tag, h2 or h3, or adjust your site's style sheet so that the h1
tag is displayed in a small font which better matches your body
text.
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e. |
In the Body Text of Your Page. |
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Your main keywords or key phrase should appear in the first
paragraph of text and in a natural way throughout the text and
also at the end of the page. In normal writing you would first
introduce your subject, then explain what it is about and then
summarize at the end. Follow this same procedure when you start
writing your web page. Pages written in this style will
automatically have keyword optimization — correct keyword density and distribution.
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f. |
In Anchor Text on Your Page. |
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| Anchor text is the clickable portion of links on your web page. Suppose you are describing your Florida Vacations and you want to direct your web visitors to an inside page with more information about this subject. Instead of making a link that says "click here," it would be better to have a link that says "Click here for more information about Florida Vacations" or even better, the link text will only be "Florida Vacations" and the "click here" will be rendered as normal text.
If you follow these search-engine-optimization steps when
building your website you will end up with web pages that are
easily understood by your visitors, and easily classified and
indexed by search engines.
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Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He
is the proprietor of A1-Optimization and provides search engine
optimization, copywriting, reciprocal linking and article
marketing services. He recently launched a new reprint article
directory.
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For More Information Contact: Joe McVoy |
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You are free to copy this article to use on your web site or blog as long as you make no changes and keep contact info including web site and email address intact. © 2006 Profitable Marketing Systems, LLC |
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