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Improving Your Site's Search Engine RankingBy Patty Bradley, Web Administrator (Click to expand table of contents) Also see Google Webmasters Guidelines. Table of Contents
Glossary
Why Your Search Engine Ranking is ImportantIf your site doesn't show up on Google or other popular search engines, no one except those you tell about your site will find it. Let's say, for example, a prospective student types the words "school of public health" into Google. If the SPH web site turns up high on the list of resulting web sites, then SPH has a better chance of recruiting this student. The higher a websites PageRank, the higher it will show up in search results. Google and other search engines use secret algorithms pointing to dozens of factors to determine PageRank. You can find out the PageRank of any web page below:
How Search Engines WorkThe higher your web site's search engine ranking on important key words is, the better. So how do you increase your site's search engine ranking? In order to answer this question, you need to understand how search engines work. They all work differently. Here is how they work in general:
What this Means
Determine your KeywordsThe first step in optimizing the findability of your web site is to make a list of the words and phrases that someone might use in a search engine query to find sites like yours. For the SPH web site, we might list the following:
There are tools to help you do this. Google Insights for Search is one. Enter one search phrase into the search box and click the Search button. Scroll down and you will see search terms related to the search term you entered. The Popularity ContestThe number of sites that link to your site is the number one determinant of your Google PageRank. Moreover, the popularity of the sites that link to yours matter. The bulk of search engine optimization tactics revolve around getting other popular sites to link to yours. So how do you get other sites to link to yours? Target appropriate sites, such as affiliates/partners, business/trade web sites and related sites. One way to find related sites is to use Google to see what sites are "related" to yours. Go to Google and search on "related:www.yoursite.com" (substituting "yoursite.com" with your own domain). You will see a list of the sites Google thinks are related to yours. Additionally, you can find out what sites already do link to your site with Google. Search on "link:www.yoursite.com" (substituting "yoursite.com" with your own domain). Once you target sites, contact the webmaster of each one and ask for a link exchange. If you offer to link to their site, they will be more likely to link to yours. Get people talking about your site. Today there are plenty of social media sites (such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) where people post content, including links. A social media campaign could increase your web site visibility. Pay attention to the words that link to your site. Having other sites use your keywords in their link labels will help increase your search engine ranking on those keywords. Use Human-Readable URLsOutside of getting popular sites to link to your site, your URL is the most important factor for search engines. A web site about diabetes with the URL www.diabetes.org will rank higher than one with the URL www.sph.umich.edu/diabetes/. If you can, use your most important keywords in your URL. The order of words as well as the density of words are important. This is true for your entire URL, not just your domain. Name sub-directories that represent the sections of your web site for that section. For example, The "About" section of the SPH web site has the URL www.sph.umich.edu/about/. Here is how it works:
Provide Good Page TitlesWeb page titles count for a lot, too. I am referring to what comes between the opening and closing title tags in the head section of your documents, and appears in the title bar of the web browser when viewing the page. Page titles are usually shown in search engine results. Be sure to use short, descriptive page titles. Be sure to make the titles different on all your pages, but make sure that all of them include the site's main title. The page your are reading is in the Web Services section of the Informatics & Computing Services website. Hence the title tag is as follows: <title>Improving Your Site's Search Engine Ranking - Web Services - UM SPH Informatics & Computing Services</title> Provide Good ContentSearch engines like Google actually record the content on your page and use it in their search algorithms. If your site is about preventing diabetes, saying so on your page will increase your search engine rankings for searches on "preventing diabetes." The first 200 words on a web page are crucial. The first 2 or 3 sentences may be used in search engine result listings. A well-written first paragraph, packed with keywords, can do wonders for your search engine ranking. When I say content, I mean the actual text on your page, not text images. Search engines cannot read text images, although they can read alt tags. Make sure that there is text on your site's homepage describing your site and its purpose. Each sub-page or section should also contain text describing their purpose. Use Sound Structural and Valid MarkupGoogle counts text contained inside headings as more important than text that is not. Your page is bound to include headings and sub-headings. Be sure to enclose that text in actual heading tags. Your site name should use the highest-level heading, h1, sub-headings in the next-highest-level heading, h2, etc. Google also gives high priority to alternative text for images and titles for links. Be sure to use these attributes in your pages. Finally, pages with valid markup naturally receive higher search engine rankings than do pages with invalid markup. See the world wide web consortium for more information. Provide Good Meta DataMeta data is defined by the meta tags you use in the head section of your HTML document. Meta tags form name-content pairs. The name is stated in the value of the name attribute and the content is stated in the value of the content attribute. You can make up your own meta tags, but the important ones to use are:
The most important one for search engines is description. Keywords are less widely used, but are still used by some search engines. The description of your site should be succinct yet comprehensive. Each page on your site should contain a unique description, and that description should say what that page is about. The character limit for descriptions is 250 characters. Keywords should contain your entire list of keywords. Listing the same keyword multiple times in meta data will not increase your search results rankings in searches for that keyword. Indeed, many search engines will penalize you for doing so. Here are the actual meta tags we use for the SPH web site: <meta name="title" content="The University of Michigan School of Public Health" /> <meta name="description" content="The University of Michigan School of Public Health creates and disseminates knowledge, through research and teaching, to prevent disease and promote the health of populations worldwide." /> <meta name="keywords" content="school of public health, public health, University of Michigan, UM SPH, graduate schools, biostatistics, environmental health sciences, epidemiology, health behavior, health education, health management, health policy, reproductive health, genetic policy" /> <meta name="copyright" content="Copyright 2009 The Regents of the University of Michigan" /> It is easy to add meta data using Dreamweaver. Just click the Insert drop-down menu, choose HTML, Head Tags, Meta. Update your Content OftenMost-recently updated pages rate higher in search engine listings. Adding a "date updated" date to your pages helps, but search engines know when pages were last updated. Register your Site with Internet DirectoriesGoogle (and many other search engines) uses the Open Directory Project as the source of their online directory. In their own words, "the Open Directory provides the means for the Internet to organize itself." It is maintained by volunteers from all over the world. If you click on the "Submit a URL link", you will learn how to submit your site. It is not simple, nor quick. There are many rules. First you must decide which category and sub-categories your site fits into, then submit your URL. You can only submit your URL to one category. Once it is submitted, a volunteer Editor will process your submission, and inform you as to whether or not it was accepted. I suggest that you read the "How to add a site to the Open Directory page" very carefully before submitting your site. Submitting Your Site to Search EnginesSome search engines let you submit your URL directly to them. Some will let you do so for free, others will charge a fee. Be sure to read all the fine print before submitting your site. Here are links to the three most important search engine submission pages: On the "Add a URL" page for google, it says "We do not add all submitted URL's to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear." This is very true. In fact, there is no guarantee that submitting your URL to any search engine will increase your ranking in search results. Of all the strategies discussed here, this has the least impact on your rankings in search results. But it takes very little time, so it is worth doing. Google has recently begun offering a Site Map tool for Webmasters. You can submit a Site map as part of Google webmaster tools. Google uses your Site map to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your web pages. I have not tried this yet. Should You Pay to List Your Site?There are hundreds of pay services that will register your site on multiple search engines. Some search engines will only let you register your site with them for a fee. I personally feel that the other strategies discussed here should increase your search engine rankings enough that you do not need to do this. Sponsored Links and Local ListingsAnother way to bring traffic to your web site (and be found via search engines) is to purchase sponsored links on search engine sites, like Google AdWords. With AdWords, you supply Google with a list of keywords for your site, and Google puts ads for your site on the right-hand side of their search results pages under "Sponsored Links." Every time someone clicks the link to your site, you pay Google. How much? It varies from five cents to one hundred dollars per click. Yahoo! has similar programs, as do other major search engine sites. I have not used any of these services personally. Google has a local listings section, and you can list your business there for free. You may have noticed these local listings showing up at the top of search results. Google does not charge for this service, but you do need a GMail account to sign up. What to AvoidCertain design elements make it harder for search engines to scan your site, such as flash and image-based sites, frames sites, image maps and JavaScript navigation. Flash and Image-Based SitesToday, it is easy to create complete web sites using programs like Adobe FireWorks, Adobe ImageReady, and Adobe Flash. Once you finish creating your pages graphically, you can export all the images and HTML. The biggest problem with this approach is that text displayed in images and in Flash movies cannot be scanned by search engine robots, and will not be displayed in search engine results. I avoid using text-images whenever possible. Another problem with image and Flash-based sites is that the HTML created by your image-editing program (or by Adobe Flash) may not contain the page titles, meta tags and heading tags that are so important for search engine optimization. If you do create web sites this way, be sure to edit the HTML and add these elements. Solution: Of course, using images and Flash movies on your web pages is perfectly fine; just don't let them contain all of your site's content. And be sure to add in good page titles, text content, and meta tags. FramesProblem: If your site uses a frames layout, your homepage (index.htm or index.html) itself contains no content. It merely contains references to the pages that do contain content. Therefore, when search engine robots scan your home page, they do not pick up any content. You can still use good page titles and meta tags in the head section of your main page, however. Solution: Use a CSS layout instead of a frames layout. Image MapsProblem: If you use an image map for your web site's navigation, you fall into the same traps as when you use text images for your site's navigation. Additionally, some search engines get "trapped" inside image maps and can't spider your site. Here is an example of an image map: <map name="meet"> Solution: Use standard HTML hyperlinks for your site's navigation. Use CSS to control how they are displayed. JavaScript NavigationProblem: If your site uses JavaScript links for navigation, search engines will not be able to follow those links. Here is an example of a JavaScript link: <a href="javascript:link()" onClick="popUp('cs1/02.html',700,550)"> It is also important to remember that many web users have JavaScript turned off in their web browsers. Never use JavaScript to provide access to content. You can test how your page looks without JavaScript enabled by turing off JavaScript in your browser settings (just don't forget to turn it back on afterwards). I use a browser extension for Mozilla Firefox called NoScript that allows me to turn JavaScript on and off on the fly. Solution: Use standard HTML hyperlinks for your site's navigation. Use CSS to control how they are displayed. Underhanded Tactics
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