Search Engine
Marketing 101: What Search Engines See When They Visit Your
Web Site
If you have a Web site, have you ever wondered
what a search engine sees when it visits your site to add the
site to its index? Do you know that it doesn’t see the beautiful
graphics or the fancy Web design? Do you know that it only sees
the source code, or the “skeleton” of your Web site?
Do you realize that knowing this little tidbit of information
and doing something about it can make a huge difference in your
search engine rankings and, ultimately, the success of your
online business?
One very important thing that you need to remember is: the search
engines like simplicity. The simpler your Web site is, the easier
it is for the engine to determine what your Web site is about.
And, if the search engine can determine exactly what your Web
site is about, you have a better chance at top rankings under
the keyword phrases that are important for your online business.
Let’s look at this concept in action with a page I recently
created for one of my online businesses: Search
Engine Workshops.
As you can see, it’s a very plain, simple page that was not
created to be the “main” or “home” page of a Web site. Rather,
it was created to pull in traffic through the keyword phrase,
“search engine seminars.”
What I really want you to see is the source code of the page.
So, when viewing the page, click on View on the top menu bar,
then Source or Source Code.
The most important part of a Web page is what appears at the
very top of the page. Why? Because a search engine starts at
the top of the page and begins moving down as it indexes.
So, what appears in the<head> section of your Web page
is very important, because the <head> section is at the
top of the page.
Let’s look at the <head> section of the source code:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Search Engine Seminars--your
path to success on the Web!</TITLE>
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="search engine
seminars, conferences, workshops, CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, Conferences,
Workshops">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Have you
considered attending a search engine seminar to learn how to
take a struggling Web site and bring it to the top of the rankings?">
</HEAD>
There are only three tags in the <head>
section of this Web page: the title tag, the keyword META tag,
and the description META tag. Because the title tag is in the
<head> section, and because of the importance that most
engines place on the tag, it is considered one of the most important
tags on your page, so it should always be the first tag in the
<head> section.
Notice that in the title and keyword META
tag, the important keyword phrase (search engine seminars) appears
as the first words in the tag. In the description META tag,
the keyword phrase is still toward the beginning of the tag,
as opposed to the end.
In other words, where you place your keyword phrase in the tags
and content of your page is important. If you place your keyword
phrase toward the beginning of all of your important tags and
toward the beginning of the contents, you’re “proving” to the
engines that the page is really about that particular topic.
I’ve mentioned one reason why the title tag is important, but
there’s another reason too. The title tag is important because
it almost always appears as the title of the site in the search
engine results. Your description META tag may appear in the
search engine results as well and is considered important by
the some of the engines. So, when you create your title and
description tags, remember two things: put your keyword phrase
toward the beginning of the tags, and make the tags captivating
and designed to pull in traffic.
Think of it this way. If your site is #10 in the search engine
rankings, but if the sites above yours haven’t gone to the trouble
to create appealing titles and descriptions, a search engine
user may skip over those sites to visit yours.
Now, let’s go back to the source code. Look for this tag, which
isn’t far from the <body> tag:
<IMG SRC="images/banner3.jpg" ALT="search
engine seminars, search engine conferences, search engine workshops"
WIDTH="220" HEIGHT="100">
This is the image, or graphics, tag for the Search Engine Workshops
banner that appears at the very top of the page. Notice that
the engine doesn’t “see” the graphic itself. It sees the name
of the graphic (banner3.jpg), and it sees the ALT text that
describes the image. It sees the width and height of the graphic.
But, it doesn’t see the graphic itself. So, the engine doesn’t
know that the graphic says, “Search Engine Workshops.”
Next, look for this tag, which directly follows the image tag:
<H1 ALIGN="center"><FONT FACE="Arial">Search
Engine Seminars</FONT></H1>
An <H1> tag is a heading tag, and heading tags are very
important to a Web page. Try to put a heading tag at the very
top of your page, if at all possible, and use your important
keyword phrase in that heading tag. When you look back at my
actual Web page, do you see the words “Search Engine Seminars”
right under the graphic? That’s the heading tag.
Now, look for this tag in the source code:
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Is
your Web site achieving the success that . . .
This is where the contents of the
Web page begin. Look on the actual Web page and find the text:
“Is your Web site achieving the success that . . .” Notice
that the keyword phrase (search engine seminars) appears in
the first paragraph.
In other words, with all of these tags and the placement of
our keyword phrase in the page’s contents, we’re proving to
the engines that the page is really about “search engine seminars.”
So, let’s visit your site on the Web. View the source code.
What’s in the <head> section? Are your title and description
tags using the keyword phrase that’s important for that particular
page? Are your title and description tags captivating and
designed to pull in traffic? Each page of your site should
have different title and description tags, and those tags
should be based on the focus of that page – what that page
is really about: in other words, its keyword phrase.
How many graphics do you have before the actual contents of
your site? If you have a lot of graphics, navigation bars,
or buttons before the contents of your page, the engine has
to sort through all of that source code before it gets to
the actual keyword-containing content.
Does your page contain lengthy JavaScript
or other code that pushes the important contents toward the
bottom of the page? If so, it could be hindering your chances
at top rankings.
Are you using a heading tag that contains your important keyword
phrase toward the very top of your page? Is your keyword phrase
used in the first paragraph of the page? Is it used in several
places throughout the page?
Look back at my page. Notice that the keyword phrase, search
engine seminars, is used as link text to describe several
links. Are you using your keyword phrase to describe links
that are leaving the page? If not, try to do so.
Study your own site carefully, and apply these guidelines
to your pages.
Doing whatever you can to push your important keyword phrase
toward the top of the page and toward the beginning of your
tags is the first step toward having a successful Web site
that’s ranked in the top of the search engine rankings.
If you would like to learn more about how to achieve top search
engine rankings, visit: acws.com
Or, sign up for online training at: www.onlinewebtraining.com
or 3-day search engine marketing workshops at: www.searchengineworkshops.com.
by
Robin Nobles
Robin Nobles is the Director of Training
for the Academy of Web Specialists .
Over the past several years, she's taught several thousand
people in online and onsite search engine marketing courses
and is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars across
the country. She also teaches onsite search engine marketing
workshops around the globe with John Alexander through Search
Engine Workshops. Robin
has written three books that can be ordered through Amazon
and other bookstores.
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