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Search Engines play a big role in marketing a web site. Achieving a top
ranking in the search engines brings a website owner more traffic, more
leads, and potentially, more sales. Over 85% of the traffic a website
receives comes from search engines. While there are thousands of search
engines and directories on the Internet today, the three that a website
owner should pay the most attention to are Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
Several years ago, all a website owner could do was to submit their
sites to the search engines and directories, tweak their meta tags, and
hope for the very best. Now, the rules have changed. The following tips
can help you optimize your site to make it more search engine friendly.
The absolute first step a webmaster should take when optimizing a
website is to find out what keywords are to be used. How will your
customer search for you? What words and phrases will they use? Will any
words be misspelled? Begin by making a list of as many targeted
keywords that you can think of, starting with the most obvious and
relevant keywords.
The webpages that you are promoting should contain these keywords.
However, placement of these keywords matters a great deal. Begin by
making sure that you use your keywords in the "ALT" description of your
image tags. Then, look at the links that you have on each page. Use the
"Title" portion of the hyperlink tags to use your keywords or key
phrases as well.
Next, move to your meta tags. Meta tags are not outdated. Search
engines do still look at meta tags, and any opportunity to use your
keywords should be taken. Make sure that you use your keywords in the
title, description, and keyword portions of the meta tags.
The headline, or heading of your webpages should contain your main
keywords. These are the keywords that are most obvious, or most
relevant to your site. You should also use your most targeted keywords
in the "Title" tag, which is between the "Head" tags of the webpage.
Make sure you use a sentence or phrase here.
Finally, move to the actual text of the page. Make sure that you use
your keywords throughout the text. It is said that search engines give
weight to words that are in bold, italics, or highlighted, so make sure
that you use these features on your keywords, without overdoing it.
Link popularity has become a popular marketing technique. Not only does
this allow you to get traffic from other, related sites, but it also
increases your ranking in the search engines. Make sure that you only
link to quality sites, and that they place your link on their pages as
well. Check often to make sure that your link still resides on the
sites you are linking to. If you can get your link on other sites
without being required to provide a reciprocal link, that is even
better. This can be done by posting in the forums, using a signature
file, and by writing and distributing articles.
Finally, make sure that everything on your site works. Check often for
broken links or page errors. You want you site to be professional, and
you want the search engines to really like it. Check your HTML code
with an HTML checker, and make sure that everything is spelled right
using a spelling checker.
About the Author: Monique Danielle owns Portland Marketing Agency DivaDesignWorld.com,
a full service firm that offers web development, graphic design,
consulting, and a wide variety of creative services. She is also
the founder of divadirectories.com,
a free online resource designed to promote the growth and development
of female business owners throughout Oregon, Washington, and the
Northwest.
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