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A Down and Dirty Guide to Search Engine Positioning
by Mark Joyner
I've been asked here to sum up what everyone should know about search
engine positioning. First, two caveats: 1) Search Engine Positioning is
only a tiny part of the big Internet Marketing picture. It takes time and
there are other things that will pay off far more in the long run. 2) This
is a gross simplification of the whole process.
With that said, let's dive in.
1. This discussion will focus on spider engines. That is, an engine
that goes to your site and indexes you based on what it finds. Directories
are a whole 'nother ball game (which we will address in another article).
Good examples of spiders are: Infoseek, Excite, and AltaVista.
2. Every search engine is different. You need to learn the "algorithm"
(set of rules) used by each engine to rank pages. An algorithm is a set of
rules.
3. These algorithms change constantly. This is why tips like "put 3 %
of your target keyword in your title tag" are probably worthless by the
time you hear them.
4. The only reliable way to learn a sites algorithm is to analyze
actual results of a search on that engine. This must be done using a
reliable keyword density analyzer. This tool will show you the weight of
particular keywords in high-ranking documents. You then simply reproduce
this weight in your document to attempt to reproduce the results. Any
advice you find that did not come from an actual analysis is probably
smoke and mirrors. This method is very reliable. There are a few other
factors that will affect rank that can not be measured this way (link
popularity, spam filtering etc.), but keyword density is the easiest to
measure and most reliable factor.
Here is the only keyword density analyzer I use:
http://foreverweb.com/cgi-foreverweb/kda.cgi?IM6502
5. You should not only be concerned with the rank of your listing, but
with the way it appears in the engine as well. If your listing is #1, but
looks like a bunch of junk (try a search right now and you'll see what I
mean), it will be a waste of your time. The appearance of your listing
depends on two of three things:
a) your title tag e.g. <title>title here</title>
b) your description tag <meta name="description"
content="description here like this"> (applies to some engines - all
others use the following)
c) the first 250 words (or so) of visible text on your site on your
site
"A" above is what the engine links to your page. B or C are used as
descriptive text for your link.
You must balance your work on these tags. That is, sometimes what gets
you a high rank will not make for an enticing listing. Remember that your
title is most important. Think of it as a headline for an ad.
6. No software in itself is going to get you a high position on a
search engine. Period. There are many software products claiming to get
you a higher position on the web. For the most part, save your money.
There are really only two programs you need (and you may not even need
them):
a) A keyword density analyzer. You don't really need this if you have
some other tool that will allow you to analyze the relative mathematical
composition of any text. If what I just said flew over your head, a
keyword density analyzer is for you. Again, here is the only one I use
http://foreverweb.com/cgi-foreverweb/kda.cgi?IM6502
b) A site submitter. You don't really need one of these, either, if you
are strictly focusing on a high position in the spider engines. You can
probably submit these pages one by one just as easily since the process of
gaining a high rank is a surgical one. However, if you need to submit many
pages at once (if you do it will save time), or you want to submit to
other types of sites (most submitters submit to over 900 sites and spider
engines account for about 12 of those), then it is a good idea to get some
software that will automate this task for you. We've developed a powerful
multi-use tool that will spider all of your pages and submit each of them
to all known spider engines (it has about 20 other functions as well - all
of them key). You can check that out here:
http://foreverweb.com/cgi-foreverweb/swa.cgi?IM6502
There is, of course, much more to it than I have listed here, but this
information will get you started on the right track.
Article by Mark Joyner, of 1001 Killer Internet Marketing Tactics. Mark
is also the CEO of Aesop Marketing Corporation. 1001 KIMT is an absolute
*must have* for anyone serious about Internet marketing. No other course
out there even comes close. It will dramatically boost the results of any
campaign in a very real and measurable way. They are offering a special
right now where it comes with a bonus database of over 6,000 media
contacts (including email and FAX numbers).
http://foreverweb.com/cgi-foreverweb/kt.cgi?IM6502 |