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Improving Your Site's Search Engine RankingBy Patty Bradley-Diehl, Web Administrator What is a search engine ranking?Your search engine ranking is how high in the list of search results your site is when someone searches Google (or any other popular search engine) on keywords associated with your site. For example, let's say a potential 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. How search engines workThe higher your web site's search engine ranking on important key words, 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:
The popularity contestThe number of sites that link to your site is the number one determinant of your Google page ranking. The bulk of search engine optimization tactics revolve around getting other sites to link to yours. So how do you get other sites to link to yours?
Providing 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 in searches on preventing diabetes. 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. Providing 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. 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. Using heading tagsGoogle counts text contained inside heading tags 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, h2, sub-headings in the next-highest-level heading, h2, etc. Providing 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 ones for search engines are description and keywords. The description of your site should be succinct yet comprehensive. Keywords contain all the concepts that are associated with your site, or all the words or phrases that might be searched on. The description data is also used in searches. Providing Good Meta DataProbably the most important step in optimizing your web site for search engines is defining your keywords. Think about what terms people might type into a search engine when looking for a site like yours. Use every possible variation. For example, for the SPH web site, we use the following list of keywords:
Providing Good Meta DataListing the same keyword multiple times will not increase your search results rankings in searches for that keyword. Indeed, many search engines will penalize you for doing so. We included the word "health" multiple times only for context; we don't want people who search on "health" to find our site, only people searching on "public health," "school of public health," "health behavior," "health education," "health management," or "health policy" to find our site. Providing Good Meta DataHere 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, <meta name="copyright" content="Copyright 2007 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. Registering 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 various 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. Both Google and Yahoo! now have 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, dynamic URL's, image maps and JavaScript navigation. What to AvoidFlash 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. What to AvoidFramesProblem: 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. What to AvoidDynamic URL'sProblem: A dynamic URL is one that contains any of the following characters: ?, &, %, +, =, $, cgi-bin, .cgi. Pages with such URL's are usually ones that use a back end database or programming logic with a language such as PHP. Often, search engines will not display pages with dynamic URL's. If you have a large ecommerce web site with dynamic URL pages listing product information, it would be a problem. You simply cannot list information about all the products you are selling on your homepage. Solution: I have not attempted to solve this problem myself, but a Google search on the words "search engines dynamic url's" will point you to many articles with solutions to this problem. I found one on a web site that I trust called Developer Shed that lists steps you can follow. But beware; these steps assume that you have access to your web server's configuration settings. What to AvoidImage 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. What to AvoidJavaScript 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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