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How Search Engines Index and Rank Content

When you are looking for something on the Internet, you probably go to your favorite search page (search engine) and type in a few keywords. Then you probably select the first Web site or page in the list (search engine listing) that looks as if it will give you the information you want. The position of each Web page in this list depends on its "ranking" by the search engine.

Most search engines index and rank a Web page based on the location and frequency on the page of the keywords that were typed in the search box. Search engines send little programs called spiders or web crawlers out across the Internet to index the content of the web sites they find.  The items that they pay special attention to are:

• Page Title meta tags.

• Description meta tags.

• Keyword meta tags.

• Heading tags in the body copy <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc.

• Keywords in your body copy.

• In-bound hyperlinks from other web sites.

Ranking is a mysterious, fiercely guarded, and secret proprietary process that search engines companies use to determine rank, and in addition to the things above also involves how frequently a returned listing is subsequently chosen by the searcher as a destination selection.   To some extent this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, more highly ranked pages are accessed more frequently, and then are more highly ranked because they are accessed more frequently.  using techniques to "trick" the search engines into giving you a higher rank usually backfire, and may cause your site to be blacklisted and removed from the index entirely.

Your In-bound Link Strategy

Getting in-bound links from other web sites is an important piece of the web marketing puzzle.  I recently performed an in-bound link search on Google, using WyzGuys, WyzHost, WyzCo as search terms and found 20 in-bound links to my web sites.  Five were from professional association web sites which I belong to.  Several are from web sites I have designed, a couple are from vendor sites, and others are from on-line directory web sites where I have signed up.

In bound links you want to get:

• Chamber of Commerce - if you join the local chamber, you will be listed on their site.

• Business Networking Groups - Groups like BNI and Grapevine are good for other marketing reasons.  A short list can be found at http://www.minnesotanetworking.com/orgs.html.

• Professional Associations - I belong to the Professional Sales Association (PSA), Professional Association of Computer Trainers (PACT), Twin Cities Linux Users Group TCLUG).  Join a few that make sense for you.

• On-line Directories - You have to pay to be in Dex On-line and Super Pages, but there are all sorts of industry specific directories that you can register with and receive an inbound link for free, or in exchange for a link back to them.

• Dealer Finders on manufacturer's web sites - If you carry and sell products for any manufacturer, see if they have a dealer finder feature on their site, and sign your business up on it.  If not, ask them why not.

• Community Web Sites - I am signed up on MyStillwater.com.  It seems like there are web sites like this for almost every community.  Go sign up on the one's that work for you.  Most of them are free, and include marketing opportunities like on-line coupons.

Register your Web site with a search engine

After you've added a title, description and keywords to your Web site, and maybe analyzed the meta tags to make sure that you've used them properly, you're ready for the final step: submitting your site to one or more search engines. Registering your site is easy, quick, and something that you can do on the Internet.

Read Registering your FrontPage-based Web site with search engines for information about how to register your site.

You can also use AddMe, Entireweb or  Submit It! Site Optimization & Search Engine Submissions, available on the Microsoft Small Business Center Web site, to register your URL with hundreds of search engines and directories and to review search engine tips.  AddMe has both free and paid for submission plans, Microsoft's plans start at $49 per year.  I have used AddMe for many years, and the free submission tool does seem to work, so I can recommend that you start here.  In exchange for the listing service, they require you to at this HTML link to your web site.

Add Me! - Search Engine Optimization

For more information about how to submit your site, use meta tags, and boost placement of your Web site, visit the Search Engine Watch or Entireweb web sites. You will also find search engine submission tips, news, search engine listings, and more at this site.

Ten of the Most Important Search Engine Optimization Design Tips

See the complete article on Entireweb

• Optimize every page on your website

• Pick appropriate keyword phrases

• Optimize your Page Titles

• Optimize your Page Content

• Create an inbound linking strategy

• Descriptively label your links and images (aka the anchor text)

• Make sure your site is spider-friendly

• Create Fresh Content

• Do not try to trick Search Engines

• Offer something unique

Curriculum developed by WyzGuys Computer Tutors

All Rights Reserved - updated 12/07/2006

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