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Search Engine Submission and Optimizing Your Website For Top Search Engine Results
SterlingReport.com --
Getting your website listed at the top of the search engine results is no easy task, but it can be done -- especially if you target your webpages to specific keyword searches. For most major free search engine submissions, you should expect your site to take at least 8-10 weeks to show up in the search results. And though it may seem daunting at first, there are some simple principles that can vastly improve your website's chances of gaining top search engine placement.
There are a few major steps and principles to getting top search engine ranking:
As you build or optimize your website for top search engine ranking, keep in mind the best practices principles described below for the content and the HTML code. You can outfox the search engines with all kinds of tricks that may last for a little while, but it's a constant battle that may end up penalizing you in the end.
Search engineers and search optimization "consultants" play a cat-and-mouse game that gets very time consuming for the webmaster after a while. For example, it used to be that stuffing your page with keywords helped get higher rankings. As the search engineers figured out the new tricks, they'd program penalties into their search bots to fight these practices. Now your website may be banned for trying to trick search engines with doorway pages, stuffed keywords, and other "optimization" techniques.
Focus First on the Major Search Engines
The bulk of your traffic will come from three main companies. These companies have been gaining market share with excellent search technologies and seem to just keep getting bigger and bigger as other search companies go out of business. So start with these three:
- Google
- Yahoo!
- Inktomi (MSN, About, HotBot, LookSmart, Overture)
But don't just go off and submit without improving your pages first -- read on for more information.
Google is a true search engine, while Yahoo! is a Directory (humans actually look at submissions and catalog them), and Inktomi licenses its search technology to other companies, such as MSN and About.com). If you can get top ranking on these three, you're doing great.
Content is King
Continue to fill your website with quality and relevant content, and you will soon find that more and more customers arrive to your website from the top search engines. With most website statistics programs, you can see which keywords and referrers are sending visitors to your site.
Topic-focused Webpages
As you build individual webpages, try to keep each page's content on a focused topic. Later in this article we'll cover ways to code your HTML to improve search engine ranking but the same principle remains -- target your page to specific interest. For example, If you have a website that reviews DVD Players, you'd want to target customers looking for a variety of DVD-related topics, such as:
- General DVD Player information
- DVD Player Reviews
- Progressive Scan DVD Players
- Portable DVD Players
- DVD Movies
- Combination DVD VCR Players
The articles you write for your website should consider these specific "market segments." It will be very difficult to get the number one spot on Google for the hugely popular search term "DVD Player", or "DVD". But if you had a top 10 spot on google for the term "DVD Players Review" as well as other more specific keyword terms, such as "Progressive Scan DVD," "Region Free DVD Player" and "Combination DVD Players" you will see your traffic grow steadily.
Separate each article on your website so that one would be reviews of DVD players, another would be about progressive scan DVD players, and another article about portable DVD players. This way you can also target the HTML title and keyword and description META tags to these specific searches (more on this later).
It only takes a few of these smaller wins to start growing significant traffic to your site, and the more content you add, the more traffic growth you will see. For example, much of the traffic to our website at http://www.znews.com comes from the top 10 ranking of this search term on Google: "DVD Players Review". With this strategy, your customers will directly find content that is much more relevant to their search terms, and by focusing on these smaller niches, you can actually achieve top search engine ranking.
This is not to say that you shouldn't try to get the number one spot for the hundreds of thousands who search Google on the term "DVD". But if you work the smaller slices of the pie first, you'll find that your traffic is growing steadily, and your web statistics will prove that these more specific search terms are responsible.
Well Researched Keywords
You should definitely incorporate a keyword website promotion plan into building your site before you submit to search engines. If you have an existing site, you can improve your chances of appearing at the top of search engines with some simple changes to certain HTML tags on your webpages.
One of the most useful tools in website promotion -- both for Pay-per-click keyword advertising and search engine optimization, is WordTracker, which helps you determine the keywords in your industry that are searched for the most. You'll be a lot better of at the top of the search engine rankings for keywords that get a lot of querries than for those that don't.
If you use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you can also use Overture's keyword tool, which is accessible once you set up your account. These tools provide valuable information about which keywords relevant to your website's content will help get you the most traffic.
Using the DVD website again as an example, Overture's keyword tool shows the top DVD-related querries and keywords as follows:
2,122,950 - dvd player
595,953 - dvd
129,271 - dvd movie
127,815 - power dvd
88,710 - dvd recorder
73,066 - dvd copy
67,534 - dvd burner
54,225 - adult dvd
50,336 - portable dvd player
49,218 - dvd software
39,399 - dvd decoder
This can help you determine the content of your website as well as the related title and metatag keywords -- for example, we hadn't thought of adding content information on Power DVD until we saw how many people search for the term. As mentioned in the previous section, don't neglect the smaller keyword topic segments either, but use all the available information to get maximum search engine exposure.
HTML Coding for Search Engines
You don't have to be a programmer or expert HTML coder to improve your website's HTML code for better search engine ranking. There are several key considerations to follow when building or optimizing your website for better search engine raking:
- HTML TITLE tags and META tags
- Other HTML tips and tricks
- Tables, Frames and Dynamically generated pages
Our free Search Engine Optimization Report will give you step-by-step instructions on how to get your website to the top of the major search engines, including Google. To get the report by email, please fill out the form below. You will receive an email that you must confirm, before receiving your report. This confirmation is to prevent spam abuse.
Submit to Major Search Engines and Directoires
It's best to optimize the HTML of your webpages before submitting the URLs to the major search engines. This is not necessary when using a Pay-per-click (PPC) search engine because with the PPC service, you pay for placement of your specific keywords in the search results. If you do not plant to optimize your HTML webpages, you can still submit your URLs to the major search engines, but you should also use a PPC service for maximum qualified traffic to your website.
Here are the links to the free "Submit URL" pages of the major search engines. Most of the search engines below are free, while some now offer a guaranteed listing option for a small fee:
- DMOZ (Helps improve your Google listing. Submit here first)
- Google
- MSN
- Alta Vista
- Lycos (Create free account, then scroll down to bottom of page for free Submit URL section)
- Yahoo (Free for non-commercial Submit URL; paid Business Listings)
- Alltheweb
- Add-Me (submits to multiple search engines)
- Excite (Update: Has recently switched to paid listing)
Get Top Search Engine Ranking with Pay-per-click
For a faster and more sure stream of immediate qualified traffic to your website, read our reviews of the top Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines, which can send you targetted customers for as low as $0.01 per targeted customer.
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