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Search Engine Optimization Tips

Written by: Danny Hoffman

Article Overview: The "top 10" tips for search engine success. Design a search engine friendly web site.

Search Engine Optimization Tips

General Web Positioning Tips

1. Top search engine positioning requires text! Search engine "spiders" ignore graphics, Flash, etc. and read text. For them, text = content. Engines favor straightforward pages: text oriented and without frames. Do not make pages that contain just graphics and Flash. Try to avoid lots of Javascript in the page code (see below). Search engines give high rankings to pages that most designers would consider plain.

Your pages don't have to be plain, but they need to contain text with your important keyword phrases. "Good copywriting is important." Well written pages that also include your keywords will do well in search engines. Good copywriting is both customer and "search engine friendly": It helps your site acheive good rankings and then convert those rankings into sales.

2. Search engines spiders like “newspaper style” pages - pages with “headlines” (headings) containing keyword phrases and “articles” (text).
Search engine rankings depend on body text containing the keyword phrases we are interested in positioning, placed near the beginning (top) of the text. Link text and bold text containing the desired keyword phrases can also aid positioning.

3. Engines give preference to pages that have keyword text near the top of the page (especially the first 100 words or so); therefore, include keywords in your body text as close to the top of the page as possible. If extensive JavaScript and navigation instructions run at the top of the page above the body text, this may reduce the effectiveness of the keywords.

4. A heading tag containing keyword phrases can be highly effective in obtaining good rankings if placed at the top of the page.

5. Meta tags (such as keyword and description tags) help rankings with some search engines, but are not “magic” and must be used properly and not abused.

6. Tricks that were once useful in “fooling” search engines, such as “keyword stuffing” and the use of Meta refresh tags are now frowned upon. They can result in a page being penalized in rankings or even banned from the listings on some engines.

7. Frames: In general, search engines spiders skip frames or will read only one of the frames on a page and ignore other frames. This can lead to loss of positioning, or searchers being directed to a URL which is a page fragment, and not the entire page.

8. It is important for the pages on your site to be linked to one another, especially the home page. This ensures that the spider “sees” every page.
A site map containing keyword based text links is an excellent way to ensure that the engine spiders and indexes every page of the site.

9. Incoming links from reputable sites will boost both rankings from search engines and traffic from other types of sites.

10. Provide your site visitors with reasons to explore your site and link to it: Include information such as background articles about your site and its products that isn't sales oriented: "How to"; "All about"; and FAQ pages are easy ways to do this. Including "objective" information increases the credibility of your site and results in both more visitors and more sales.

For more information, contact us: feedback@totalsearchmarketing.com

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Article Tags: seo, web positioning



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Re: Search Engine Tips and Ideas - Share Yours - Hi there, I answer this post, to start off. I am still learning a lot on all these subjects. Moreover, we have a wonderful tool to find out from previous posts. On the top right corner, use 'Advanced Search' and write 'Search Engine Tips'. It brings up all the previous posts with that information. Check it out. You will be surprised all the inherent information stored.
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