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Virtually everyone who attends my internet seminars has an
interest in search engine rankings and most are somewhat disappointed with their
current positioning. Search engine
positioning isn’t easy. If it
was, everyone would have a top 10 ranking. Even though it requires a little planning and work on your
part, you can improve your search engine rankings dramatically by taking some
proactive steps and avoiding the many search engine myths that make the rounds. There are many search engine myths we’ve heard
that should be dispelled up front. Let’s
look at some of the more common ones. 1.
Search engines don’t matter. You already know that search engines do matter, so why do
so many speakers and designers claim they don’t? It’s called managing expectations. It’s a lot easier to discredit the method than it is to
find a solution. Many prospects
continue to find new sites via search engines, and the higher your position, the
better. 2.
The more times I submit my site to a search engine, the higher it will be
ranked. This used to be true, but the algorithms used by search
engine companies to rank sites will actually penalize sites in some cases for
over-submission. 3.
A high ranking is the result of meta tags. Yes and no. Most
search engines use <meta> tags for ranking purposes, but in most cases
they place a higher priority on other tags.
Some search engines actually penalize for using <meta> tags. 4.
Your domain name affects search engine ranking. This is just plain wrong.
Your domain name can help people find your site if it is easy to remember
and easy to type, but it has nothing to do with search engine ranking.
If it did, sites like Amazon and Ebay would have chosen “better”
domain names. 5.
The more search engines I register with, the better. Sorry. Feel
free to disregard those spams offering to register your site with hundreds of
search engines. Nobody uses most of them and registering with them may
actually increase the amount of spam you receive. Now that we’ve addressed the myths, let’s look at what
really does work. 1.
Pay attention to your tags. Search engines use the keywords found in four HTML tags to
rank your site. The tags are <title>, <body>, <image> and
<meta>. Make sure you place
keywords in each tag. 2.
Remember that keywords are like friends. You don’t need a lot of them, but you do need a few
really good ones. I recommend three
keyword phrases of 2-3 words each. Use
words you think visitors who are looking for sites like yours are likely to
enter into the search field. Also
include 20 word, 50 word and 100 word keyword descriptions. 3. Have your site submitted regularly to the top search engines. Regularly changes all the time. Two years ago, you could submit daily. If you do that now, your ranking will suffer in most cases.
Start by registering once each month. 4.
Build doorway pages Since every search engine uses different criteria to rank a
page, the only way you can truly optimize a site for all engines is by creating
a page for each individual engine. These
pages are called doorways, and they can dramatically improve ranking. 5.
Monitor results. Realize that rankings change all the time.
Hire someone to monitor results and make changes on an ongoing basis. Remember that regardless of how high your site is ranked, the only way to assure success is to provide valuable content to your audience. The few who achieve a high search engine ranking AND create a dynamic and existing site are being richly rewarded in the marketplace. |
