Top 10 Search Engine Secrets

Top 10 Search Engine Secrets

By Earl B. Hall

Search engines, in most cases, should not be considered the "end all" for advertising and promoting your web site. When done properly it can generate a significant amount of traffic for almost no cost. It will take a little time and effort though. But, the pay off can be multiplied times over.

There are millions of web sites, with more being added daily. Guess what! A great many of them fail to use proper meta tags. These are used by search bots to index your site.

Here are a few tips and tricks:

1. Use your most common keywords in the title. Most search engines will weigh these heavier in their ranking system.

2. Use the plural form of your keyword. (example: "books", instead of only "book". When a person looks for either "book" or "books" your web page will be pulled up.

3. Use both upper and lower case spellings of your keywords. (example: books, Books, BOOKS). More than 3 common forms of the same word will not help much. Although, common misspellings can help.

4. Use combinations of your targeted keywords. People generally search using phrases containing two or more keywords. (example: "storage facilities", "STORAGE FACILITIES") To really target your market, add the words "self, "SELF" and "your city/state". Lots of visitors that can't buy your product/service aren't of much value.

5. You must use meta tags. Many search engines index your site by the meta tags. These go between the <head></head> tags in your html and will not show on your web page. View the source on one of the top ranking web pages for specific examples.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>your title goes here</TITLE>
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="your page description">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="your keywords go here">
</HEAD>

Here's an example from one of our web pages.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>A to Z free, low cost internet marketing resources, bulk email software,ezines</TITLE>
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" content="Grab the latest free and low cost software, tips, tricks and tools. Get more visitors, repeat traffic and create more income from your
website!">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" content="internet marketing, Marketing, free ezines, FREE EZINES, E-zines, bulk email, BULK EMAIL, software, SOFTWARE, web site promotions, home study courses,selling on-line, sales help, advertising,">
</HEAD>

6. Use a good combination of your 10 to 20 best keywords. Keyword rich text is often the deciding factor in your ranking. HINT: Try to use your strongest keyword at the start of each paragraph and/or search phrases early in the text if possible .

7. Fill the ALT tag in your image links with keywords.

8. Every page of your site should be registered with the search engines, not just the title page. HINT: Many of the search engines will re index your site periodically and if there has been no change you could lose positioning, so keep your content fresh.

9. Warning! Keyword spamming is a technique that some people have used in the past to gain good ranking. It's done by repeating your keywords over and over. Then, changing the color of the text to match the background of the page. Many search engines will penalize you if you are caught doing this.

10. Create & customize a unique web page for each major keyword. Design it specifically for each major search engine. This will take some time but, once completed can dramatically improve your rankings. HINT: Make sure it contains a link to your index page and a few others as well.

Earl B. Hall is the publisher/editor of NetPower New-World Gazette and owner of NetPower Publishing. Check out his FREE software, marketing books, web hosting services &
more at http://www.powerpub.com. You'll find tons of tips, tricks & tools for getting more unique visitors, repeat traffic and maximizing income from your website!