Search Engine Tips

For the purpose of these tips a search engine is something like google. It scans the web for sites to include in its index. It will follow links and find new sites all on its own. A directory (such as Yahoo or DMOZ) includes sites one at a time, with a human being looking at each site.

You can learn a lot about different types of search engines at Search Engine Watch.

On key words... A keyword is simply a phrase someone searches on. So if I want to build a helpful unix site then my primary keyword might be unix tutorials.

Go to NichebotClassic.com, play with that tool, and build a list of keywords for whatever your topic is. You'll use these keywords in your pages and in your links.

1. Put your keyword/key phrase in the title tag of your page. It can be the only thing there, or you can make a complete sentence out of it. The title is also what appears in your bookmarks list. So a good title will help people remember you when they bookmark your site.

2. Google doesn't care what you put in the description tag, but other engines do. Put in a sentence which tells the viewer why the heck they should visit your site. What's in it for them?

3. Google doesn't care about what's in your keywords tag, but the other engines might. Put in a few words and phrases appropriate to your page. Include common mis-spellings.

4. Your primary keyword/phrase should appear in the headline at the top of your page.

5. Skip the graphics and banners. Write a page that's cool and interesting and is appropriate to your keywords. So if your keyword is cell phones write a cool, informative page about cell phones.

6. Skip the java, javascript, heavy graphics, etc.

7. Links to your page, either from your other pages or from other sites, should contain your keyword.

8. Any graphics should have keywords in the alt tag. This will help describe the image.

9. Links from your page should also contain your keywords.

10. Don't use your keywords too many times on a page. How do you tell? If your page starts to read badly, then you've used your keyword too many times. Links to your page count for far more than how many times your keywords appear.

For more on search engine positioning and getting ranked well, go here.