| 27 Quick Tips To Top Search
Engine Rankings |
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| Last Update: Friday, October
31, 2003. |
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| In this article I show you
how to improve your search
engine rankings using 27 quick
search engine optimization tips. |
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| 1. Increase your site's
link popularity by increasing
your internal and incoming
links. |
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Internal links - Cross
link all your sites and
important pages within each
site. This will maximize the
PageRank of all your pages
within each web site. |
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Incoming links that you
control - Create several
small web sites related to
your main site. Each site
should only consist of a few
pages. Then cross link them
all together using the most
important keywords. Don't
forget to include links back
to the main site. |
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Incoming links that you
don't control: |
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Ask sites that link
to your competitors to
link to your site. To
find out which sites are
linking to your
competitors, visit a
search engine and enter,
"link:" followed by the
competitors' domain
name. |
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For example: |
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link:www.yourcompetitor.com |
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Exchange links with
sites listed in the same
category as yours in the
major web directories,
such as the Yahoo!
Directory and the Open
Directory. |
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Find sites that
accept site submissions.
Visit your favorite
search engine and search
for: |
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"add url" "your
keywords" |
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Also try searching
for the actual
submission page using
its page name. |
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For example: |
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addurl.html,
addsite.html,
addlink.html, etc. |
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| 2. Include a TITLE tag as
the first META tag, directly
after the HEAD tag. |
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For example: |
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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing
Software Tools
Reviews</TITLE>
... |
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| 3. Try to avoid stop
words in your TITLE tag. Stop
words (a, an, and, but, he, her,
his, i, in, it, of, on, or, she,
the, etc.) are common words and
characters ignored by some
search engines to enhance the
speed and relevancy of their
search results. |
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| 4. Include a META
DESCRIPTION tag, directly after
the TITLE tag. Include the most
important keyword phrase for the
web page as close to the
beginning of the description as
possible. |
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For example: |
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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing
Software Tools
Reviews</TITLE>
<META NAME="description"
CONTENT="Mike's Marketing
Tools is the leading review
site for the very best
internet marketing tools for
web marketers and
webmasters.">
... |
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| 5. If you use a META
REFRESH tag, make sure it is set
to refresh after 30 seconds. |
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<META
HTTP-EQUIV="refresh"
CONTENT="30; URL=http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com"> |
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Some search engines
consider pages that
refreshes under 30 seconds
as spam. I recommend using a
JavaScript redirect tag, if
you require a quicker page
refresh. |
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For example: |
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Step 1 - Paste
this code into the HEAD
section of your HTML
document. Change the 3000 to
whatever number you like.
1000 represents 1 (one)
second. |
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<SCRIPT
LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--
function redirect () {setTimeout("change()",3000);}
function change () {window.location.href="http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com";}
//--></SCRIPT> |
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Step 2 - Insert
the onLoad event handler
into your BODY tag, so that
the JavaScript code is
executed when the page
loads.
<BODY onLoad="redirect()"> |
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| 6. Remove all other meta
tags (author, date, etc.),
unless you're sure they are
absolutely necessary. The only
meta tags I ever use are the
META DESCRIPTION and
occasionally the META REFRESH
tag. |
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| 7. Include a site map
with links to all your pages.
This will help search engines
find and index all your pages. |
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Limit the number of
links on a web page to 50.
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If you have more than 50
links, limit your links to
your most important pages. |
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Include text on the page
as some search engines, such
as AltaVista, have been
known to kick out links only
pages. |
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| 8. Use one or more header
tags in your main page body and
include your most important
keyword phrase/s. |
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Use large header tags,
such as <H1> and <H2>. |
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Use Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS) to alter the
appearance of the header
tags to fit the look and
feel of your site. For more
information read this CSS
tutorial. |
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| 9. Check the first couple
of lines of the first paragraph
to see if it's appropriate to be
used as a description of your
page. Many search engines
utilize the first couple of
sentences of the body text as
the search results description,
instead of the contents of the
META DESCRIPTION tag. |
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| 10. Try to achieve an
overall keyword density of 1-2%. |
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| 11. Try to achieve a
minimum word count of 300 and a
maximum of 750 words on each
page. |
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| 12. Register a domain
name with the exact keyword
phrase you wish to target, using
hyphens to separate the
keywords. |
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For example, if the
keyword phrase is "search
engine rankings," then
register: |
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search-engine-rankings.com |
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If the domain you want
is unavailable, either try a
different extension, such as
.NET, .INFO, or .US, or add
a keyword to the end
(preferential) or beginning
of the domain. |
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| 13. Name directories
after your keyword phrases,
using hyphens or underscores to
separate the keywords. |
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For example, if an
important keyword phrases
is, "search engine
rankings," name your
directory: |
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www.yoursite.com/search-engine-rankings/
or...
www.yoursite.com/search_engine_rankings/ |
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| 14. Name web pages after
your most important keyword
phrase. Separate the keywords
using hyphens or underscores. |
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For example, if the
keyword phrase is "search
engine rankings," then name
the page: |
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search-engine-rankings.html
or...
search_engine_rankings.html |
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| 15. Name your graphic
files after keyword phrases.
Again, separate the keywords
using hyphens or underscores. |
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For example: |
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<IMG SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif"> |
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| 16. Include an ALT
(alternative text) atrribute in
image tags. Include the most
important keyword phrases. |
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For example: |
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<IMG SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif"
ALT="search engine
rankings."> |
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| 17. If you use an image
map, include HTML links, as some
search engines do not follow
image map links. Plus image maps
do not offer search engines any
link text to index. So, try to
avoid the use of image maps as
they do not help with your
search engine optimization
efforts. |
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| 18. Use the longer or
plural version of a keyword,
where possible. Word stemming is
a concept used by some search
engines to return search results
that include keywords that
extend beyond what you searched
for. |
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For example, a search
with the keyword "engine"
might return results for,
"engines," "engineers," and
"engineering." If someone
searches for the longer
version of a word and your
page only uses the short
version, then your page will
be excluded from the list of
possible results. |
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| 19. Sprinkle a few
uncommon keywords and synonyms
in your main body text. Less
popular keywords have less
competition in the search
engines. So your web page is has
a greater chance of being listed
amongst the top results. |
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| 20. Do not repeat
keywords or keyword phrases over
and over again on a web page, as
this would be considered as spam
by search engines. |
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| 21. Keep your pages as
close to the root domain as
possible. Do not set up more
than 3 directory levels. |
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For example: |
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www.yoursite.com/index.htmll
(1st level - excellent)
www.yoursite.com/html/index.htmll
(2nd level - Good)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/index.htmll
(3rd level - OK)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/search/index.htmll
(Too many levels down -
search engines will find it
difficult to find and index
pages this far down) |
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| 22. If you have a
persistent (on most or all of
your pages) navigation bar at
the side of each page, your
table is almost certainly set up
in such a way that it pushes
your page's body text down the
HTML document. Search engines
give prominence to keywords
nearer the beginning of a HTML
document. So, design your HTML
table so that the navigation bar
is placed after your main body
text. |
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| 23. Move Javascript code
to a separate file, or the end
of the HTML document after your
closing BODY or HTML tag. Yes,
this technique actually works! |
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Follow these
instructions to move the
JavaScript code to a
separate file and link to
the file from the HTML
document. Then place the
following code in between
the HEAD section: |
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<HEAD>
<SCRIPT
LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="file-name.js"></SCRIPT>
</HEAD> |
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This procedure also
reduces your file size, and
therefore your download
time. In addition, it allows
you to reuse the code on
other pages by simply link
to the JavaScript file. Both
of these techniques will
move your important body
text nearer to the top of
the HTML document. |
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| 24. Although not always
practical, you may like to try
naming your cascading style
sheet tags after keywords. |
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For example: |
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.search {
color: #ff0000;
} |
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| 25. Use Robots.txt files
instead of Robots meta tags, as
some search engine robots do not
recognize the tag. |
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| 26. Do not use font size
one (1) text as the default text
size. Many search engines
consider tiny text to be spam.
It's OK to use some font size
one text. |
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| 27. Do not participate in
link farms or link exchange
programs. Search engines
consider link farms and link
exchange programs as spam, as
they have only one purpose - to
artificially inflate a site's
link popularity, by exchanging
links with other participants.
Do not confuse link farms
and link exchange programs with
reciprocal linking. Reciprocal
linking is the exchange of links
with individual sites, and is
certainly an accepted technique
for improving your site's link
popularity. |
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| There you have it. My 27
quick search engine optimization
tips to improving your search
engine rankings. |
