27 Quick Tips
To Top Search Engine Rankings
In this article I show you how to improve
your search engine rankings using 27 quick
search engine optimization tips.
1. Increase your site's link popularity
by increasing your internal and incoming
links.
Internal links - Cross link all your sites
and important pages within each site.
This will maximize the PageRank of all
your pages within each web site.
Incoming links that you control - Create
several small web sites related to your
main site. Each site should only consist
of a few pages. Then cross link them all
together using the most important keywords.
Don't forget to include links back to
the main site.
Incoming links that you don't control:
Ask sites that link to your competitors
to link to your site. To find out which
sites are linking to your competitors,
visit a search engine and enter, "link:"
followed by the competitors' domain name.
For example:
link:www.yourcompetitor.com
Exchange links with sites listed in the
same category as yours in the major web
directories, such as the Yahoo! Directory
and the Open Directory.
Find sites that accept site submissions.
Visit your favorite search engine and
search for:
"add url" "your keywords"
Also try searching for the actual submission
page using its page name.
For example:
addurl.html, addsite.html, addlink.html,
etc.
2. Include a TITLE tag as the first META
tag, directly after the HEAD tag.
For example:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Mike's Marketing Software
Tools Reviews </TITLE>
...
3. Try to avoid stop words in your TITLE
tag. Stop words (a, an, and, but, he,
her, his, i, in, it, of, on, or, she,
the, etc.) are common words and characters
ignored by some search engines to enhance
the speed and relevancy of their search
results.
You'll find a list of 297 commonly-used
stop words ignored by most search engines
in my search engine optimization guide;
Search Engine Optimization Strategies:
Top 30 Search Engine Optimization &
Ranking Strategies For Dummies.
4. Include a META DESCRIPTION tag, directly
after the TITLE tag. Include the most
important keyword phrase for the web page
as close to the beginning of the description
as possible.
For example:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> Mike's Marketing Software
Tools Reviews </TITLE>
<META NAME="description"
CONTENT="Mike's Marketing Tools is
the leading review site for the very best
internet marketing tools for web marketers
and webmasters.">
...
5. If you use a META REFRESH tag, make
sure it is set to refresh after 30 seconds.
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh"
CONTENT="30; URL=http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com">
Some search engines consider pages that
refreshes under 30 seconds as spam. I
recommend using a JavaScript redirect
tag, if you require a quicker page refresh.
For example:
Step 1 - Paste this code into the HEAD
section of your HTML document. Change
the 3000 to whatever number you like.
1000 represents 1 (one) second.
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function redirect () {setTimeout("change()",3000);}
function change () {window.location.href="http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com";}
//--> </SCRIPT>
Step 2 - Insert the onLoad event handler
into your BODY tag, so that the JavaScript
code is executed when the page loads.
<BODY onLoad="redirect()">
6. Remove all other meta tags (author,
date, etc.), unless you're sure they are
absolutely necessary. The only meta tags
I ever use are the META DESCRIPTION and
occasionally the META REFRESH tag.
7. Include a site map with links to all
your pages. This will help search engines
find and index all your pages.
Limit the number of links on a web page
to 50.
If you have more than 50 links, limit
your links to your most important pages.
Include text on the page as some search
engines, such as AltaVista, have been
known to kick out links only pages.
8. Use one or more header tags in your
main page body and include your most important
keyword phrase/s.
Use large header tags, such as <H1>
and <H2>.
Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to alter
the appearance of the header tags to fit
the look and feel of your site. For more
information read this CSS tutorial.
9. Check the first couple of lines of
the first paragraph to see if it's appropriate
to be used as a description of your page.
Many search engines utilize the first
couple of sentences of the body text as
the search results description, instead
of the contents of the META DESCRIPTION
tag.
10. Try to achieve an overall keyword
density of 1-2%. For more information
on keyword density read my article, "How
Keyword Density, Frequency, Prominence
And Proximity Affects Search Engine Rankings."
11. Try to achieve a minimum word count
of 300 and a maximum of 750 words on each
page.
12. Register a domain name with the exact
keyword phrase you wish to target, using
hyphens to separate the keywords.
For example, if the keyword phrase is
"search engine rankings," then
register:
search-engine-rankings.com
If the domain you want is unavailable,
either try a different extension, such
as .NET, .INFO, or .US, or add a keyword
to the end (preferential) or beginning
of the domain.
13. Name directories after your keyword
phrases, using hyphens or underscores
to separate the keywords.
For example, if an important keyword
phrases is, "search engine rankings,"
name your directory:
www.yoursite.com/search-engine-rankings/
or...
www.yoursite.com/search_engine_rankings/
14. Name web pages after your most important
keyword phrase. Separate the keywords
using hyphens or underscores.
For example, if the keyword phrase is
"search engine rankings," then
name the page:
search-engine-rankings.html or...
search_engine_rankings.html
15. Name your graphic files after keyword
phrases. Again, separate the keywords
using hyphens or underscores.
For example:
<IMG SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif">
16. Include an ALT (alternative text)
atrribute in image tags. Include the most
important keyword phrases.
For example:
<IMG SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif"
ALT="search engine rankings.">
17. If you use an image map, include
HTML links, as some search engines do
not follow image map links. Plus image
maps do not offer search engines any link
text to index. So, try to avoid the use
of image maps as they do not help with
your search engine optimization efforts.
18. Use the longer or plural version
of a keyword, where possible. Word stemming
is a concept used by some search engines
to return search results that include
keywords that extend beyond what you searched
for.
For example, a search with the keyword
"engine" might return results
for, "engines," "engineers,"
and "engineering." If someone
searches for the longer version of a word
and your page only uses the short version,
then your page will be excluded from the
list of possible results.
19. Sprinkle a few uncommon keywords
and synonyms in your main body text. Less
popular keywords have less competition
in the search engines. So your web page
is has a greater chance of being listed
amongst the top results.
20. Do not repeat keywords or keyword
phrases over and over again on a web page,
as this would be considered as spam by
search engines.
21. Keep your pages as close to the root
domain as possible. Do not set up more
than 3 directory levels.
For example:
www.yoursite.com/index.html (1st level
- excellent)
www.yoursite.com/html/index.html (2nd
level - Good)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/index.html
(3rd level - OK)
www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/search/index.html
(Too many levels down - search engines
will find it difficult to find and index
pages this far down)
22. If you have a persistent (on most
or all of your pages) navigation bar at
the side of each page, your table is almost
certainly set up in such a way that it
pushes your page's body text down the
HTML document. Search engines give prominence
to keywords nearer the beginning of a
HTML document. So, design your HTML table
so that the navigation bar is placed after
your main body text.
If you're unsure how to do this, check
out my Search Engine Optimization Strategies
ebook. You'll discover exactly how to
design such a table in my book.
23. Move Javascript code to a separate
file, or the end of the HTML document
after your closing BODY or HTML tag. Yes,
this technique actually works!
Follow these instructions to move the
JavaScript code to a separate file and
link to the file from the HTML document.
Then place the following code in between
the HEAD section:
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"
SRC="file-name.js"> </SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
This procedure also reduces your file
size, and therefore your download time.
In addition, it allows you to reuse the
code on other pages by simply link to
the JavaScript file. Both of these techniques
will move your important body text nearer
to the top of the HTML document.
24. Although not always practical, you
may like to try naming your cascading
style sheet tags after keywords.
For example:
.search {
color: #ff0000;
}
25. Use Robots.txt files instead of Robots
meta tags, as some search engine robots
do not recognize the tag. Visit The Web
Robots Pages for more information.
26. Do not use font size one (1) text
as the default text size. Many search
engines consider tiny text to be spam.
It's OK to use some font size one text.
27. Do not participate in link farms
or link exchange programs. Search engines
consider link farms and link exchange
programs as spam, as they have only one
purpose - to artificially inflate a site's
link popularity, by exchanging links with
other participants.
Do not confuse link farms and link exchange
programs with reciprocal linking. Reciprocal
linking is the exchange of links with
individual sites, and is certainly an
accepted technique for improving your
site's link popularity.
There you have it. My 27 quick search
engine optimization tips to improving
your search engine rankings. I hope you
found this report usful. For more indepth
tips, you may like to read my search engine
optimization guide.
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About the Author:
Michael Wong is a respected internet marketing
expert, and the author of a leading search
engine optimization guide, numerous marketing
tips, and reviews of marketing tools and
ecommerce software.
