Unfortunately,
the sheer volume of published material has greatly reduced the
efficiency and effectiveness of search engines. Even the
most specific search is likely to produce thousands of "hits" or
pages containing the references requested. The farther
down the list your page appears, the less likely anyone will
find it.
The
following basic points will greatly increase your chances of
your pages being seen:
ADVANCED SEARCH ENGINE INFORMATION...
Key words are the key...
Select approximately 15 words or phrases you believe are most
directly related to the contents of the page. These should
be words that someone searching for your material would be
likely to enter as search criteria.
The page description matters...
This should be a brief, informative sentence describing the
content of your page. Think of the page description as a
summary or abstract of the contents.
Page text is everything...
The search sites that matter use sophisticated software to
determine whether your page resembles what it claims to be.
In many cases, keywords not appearing in the text will be
disregarded.
For
best results, try planning a page specifically for registration
with the search engines. Unlike the other pages of your
site, this one should attempt to cover as much ground as
possible.
Unfortunately,
the things that will increase your chances of exposure will earn
you no points as a writer- some search engines are
impressed by the repetition of key words and phrases.
You will want
to repeat your key words and phrases early and often within
your text. The frequent repetition of key words and
phrases makes for awkward prose though. Repetition
is usually considered bad form. Key words and phrases
should be varied with synonyms for ideas and concepts that the
key words and phrases refer to, as well as variations on the
keynote wording and phraseology repeated frequently within
your text.
As you can see from
the preceding, this kind of thing can easily get out of hand.
Although you can take steps to decrease the likelihood of anyone
actually reading it, the old tricks of "redirect" pages and
invisible text no longer work. In fact, using some types
of "secret tips" can cause your pages not to be listed at all.
Page title has to work...
If you can work your keywords into a sensible page title of
approximately ten words, so much the better. The page
title generally functions as a one-line "teaser" to attract
attention and encourage click-through to your site.
Tags and meta-tags required...
For all this to pay off, your page needs meta-tags,
little snips of code inserted into the page's HTML.
They're needed to communicate effectively with search engines.
Meta-tags
aren't complicated. They basically look like this:
<meta name =
"keywords"
content = "word,word,word...">
<meta name = "description"
content = "brief description of the page...">
Meta-tags
go in the HTML HEAD section, just above the title tags.
A permanent location...
Your search page must be registered under a permanent URL-
someplace where it will not move or have its filename altered.
This is a prime reason for having your own domain.
Otherwise, moving your site to a better host service will entail
losing all your placements.
Registration where it counts...
Finally, submit your search page for listing by at least the
major search sites. Although there are literally thousands
of directories, these are by far the most important:
-
alta vista
-
aol
-
excite
-
hotbot
-
infoseek
-
lycos
-
snap
-
webcrawler
-
yahoo
Simplify the
procedure by using batch submission software to automate an
otherwise tedious procedure.
FREE BATCH SUBMISSION SERVICE...
It may take up to
several weeks for your site to appear in a search, and the
results can be disappointing. Search engine placement has
become a highly competitive field that has spawned its own
specialists. It will likely take a lot of time and effort
to achieve an effective listing.
Reciprocating
Links...
Finally, to help boost your rankings on some of the major
listings, you can participate in an arrangement known as
reciprocal linking.
Some of the major
search engines will award "extra points" to pages that have
incoming links from outside your domain. The theory is
that if one domain bothers to link to another, the second must
have something of value.
The recommended
practice is to seek out potential linking partners, contact
them, and see whether they're amenable to the idea.
It's important to
understand that the true purpose of such arrangements is
indirect- you will almost never get a click-through from your
listing on the other site. Indeed, most sites' reciprocal
link pages can be very hard to find- unless you're a search
engine robot.
We don't actively
pursue reciprocal linking arrangements, but if invited by a
source that looks legitimate, we'll participate. Want to
see our reciprocal links page? Click on the "greater than"
at right... >
It is some work to
include a link like this, so you want the linking site to be
"for real" and not just another link farm. It's important
that your incoming link originates from the site you're linking
to- otherwise, it's likely to be discounted by the robot.
Promoting with search engines...
Make the most of local
efforts...
Top of internet section...
