Search Engine Optimization Guidelines

To make the most of our services, we recommend, that you see to it that your website is well optimized for search engines. Because the task may seem more complicated than it really is, we would like to offer some guidelines that will guide through this process step by step, so that you can easily do this yourself.

It needs to be mentioned here, though, that if your website uses Flash, Frames, Dynamic urls or Image Maps or Javascript for navigation, it makes it very difficult for the search engines to list your web pages no matter how well you optimize and we submit them. So if your website uses any of the mentioned above, please e-mail us for further assistance.

In most other cases, please follow the steps below, or we can do it for you and fill in the following form and get stared NOW!:

INTERNET MARKETING FORM

Select the Correct Keywords

Selecting the correct keywords is the first and the most important part of optimizing your website for search engines. The choice of keywords is what eventually determines if your website will ever be found by the audience you are targeting, so allow enough time and effort for this step.

When selecting the keywords,

• Think like your target audience. Find out what words they use when searching for a website like yours.
• Use phrases instead of single words. Most people search using two or three words.
• Be specific. If you deal in simulated stained glass windows, use "simulated stained glass windows", not "glass windows" to attract customers looking specifically for what you offer.
• Introduce synonyms. People may be looking for "lawyer" or "attorney" and you certainly want them to find you in either case.
• Chose keywords for each page you list. It is very important for good search engine positioning that the keywords are page-specific.

Insert the Title Tag

Having an adequate title tag for every page of the website you submit is extremely important, because search engines and directories consider it to be the source of the most significant keywords. In most cases the title tag is also used as a description of your website in search results.

When writing the tag title,

• Include 1 or 2 of your most important keywords. This is eventually what the search engines are looking for.
• Make it a readable and enticing message. When your website appears in the search results, it is the title that will make the surfer decide whether your website is worth visiting.
• Keep it between 50-80 characters long. Search engines do not accept title tags that are too long.
• Use the keywords at the beginning of the tag. Some search engines accept shorter title tag than others and you do not want the keywords to be cut off in that case.
• Write a unique title tag for each page you submit. If the title tag is not relevant to the content on the page itself, it may be considered spamming by a search engine as much as by a visitor.

Work on Your Website Copy

The copy of every page of your website you submit is important for both visitors and search engines. Same as visitors reading the copy to understand what you have to offer, search engines screen it for keywords. For them, the copy of the page is as important as the title tag, so working on either without improving the other is spending your time and efforts in vain.

When re-writing your website copy,

• Try to use at least 200 words per page. After all, text and only text is what search engines are interested in, so give it to them.
• Integrate the keywords you used in meta tags. If the keywords in your meta tags are not found anywhere in the copy of the page, chances are, they will not be considered as such.
• Use your keywords every 10-12 words. This seems to be the optimal compromise between concentration of keywords and readability of the copy.
• Keep your copy readable and logical. At the end of the day, your website is for visitors, not search engines.

These three steps are vital to your website's positioning with search engines. If your website's title and copy do not have correctly selected and integrated keywords, we cannot guarantee your website will appear in the search results by keywords other than your website's url.

Optimizing Your Meta Tags

While not the almost only source of information on the website for search engines they once used to be, meta tags remain an important factor, determining your website's position in the search results. Meta keywords and meta description are the two meta tags that can really help your search engine listings.

In your Description meta tag

• Use less than 250 characters.
• Include 3-4 of the keywords. Make sure you include those already used in the Title tag and the copy of the page.
• Use the keywords at the beginning of the tag. Just as with the title tag, some search engines may limit the number of characters and the keywords need to stay in either case.
• Reflect the content of the page. Develop a description tag for every page you submit and make sure it matches the page it describes.

In your Keywords description tag

• Stick to less than 1024 characters.
• Include the keywords used in the copy of the page and other meta tags. Keywords that are not used anywhere else on the website are not likely to be regarded as such.
• Include the geographic location you are targeting. While it may not be in the list of your keywords, as long as it is used in the copy of the page, include it here to match local searches.
• Include plurals, -ed and –ing forms and common misspellings. This will insure your website will still appear in the search result, if a different form а a word is used as a keyword.
• Do not use any single word more than 5 times. While it is recommended to include all possible variations of a phrase, excessive use of a word may lower its prominence.

Make Images Work

While search engines only read text, the images your website pages contain can benefit your listing. The trick to give each of them an appropriate description that, of course, uses one or two relevant keywords. You can do this by adding an "alt" attribute to any image on your page. <IMG SRC="SubmitItLogo.gif" width="10" height="10" alt="A Description of the image with keywords integrated."> is what it looks like in the code.

When writing a description for an image,

• Stick to one or two sentences.
• Keep the description relevant to the image.
• Make sure the description is a readable text, not a list of keywords.
• Use the keywords that are included in the meta tags and the copy of the page.

Please, remember, that your website's optimization for search engines consists of different elements. But while some of them are more important than other, it is a combination of the elements that really define your website's position in the search results. This is why it is necessary to work on each and every one of them to achieve the desired results.

We hope the tips are helpful in making search engine optimization process more understandable and comprehensible for you. For specific issues, relating to your particular website, please, contact us and also use multiple resources pertaining to search engine optimization you'll easily find through… any search engine!