Traderwebs: Search Engine Positioning

Search Engine Positioning

General Information

For beginners to web design the best advice is do not try to reinvent the wheel. Analyse your competitors' pages, and if they rank highly adopt their techniques. However do not copy their pages as you could be breaking copyright laws. Once you obtain more experience you can experiment with your own methods.

Before we can analyse other sites we first need to understand the factors which determine search engine ranking. These can be divided into two categories:

Page related

Concerned with keywords and their placement including titles, keyword frequency, weight, proximity and description.

Outside influences.

Are mainly related to the links from other web sites to your site.

Keywords, title, description, frequency of the words and body text.

Search engines check keywords and the frequency of the keywords. They analyse how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. The higher the frequency the more relevance the words have. They also check the body text of the web page for relevance to the keywords and some engines rank sites higher if the keywords are placed in the title.

However some search engines penalise web sites when words are repeated numerous times. This is known as spamming. Try not to spam but expand your keywords where appropriate eg. web design, web site design, web designing. This method is an acceptable reinforcement of your keywords.

Make sure your keywords appear often, place them in the first few paragraphs of text and make your keywords reflect the page's content. Always use descriptions as these are used by the search engines to draw a summary of the page.

Links from other web sites to your site

Search engines check other web sites for links to your site. They analyse both the number of links and the importance of the linking site. From this data they generate a ranking for your site. Generally speaking, the more good links to your site the higher you will be ranked.

Web Site Promotion

People think submitting your web site to hundreds of search engines will result in lots of new visitors. It may result in more visitors but you need to do a lot more than just submit a site.

As mentioned earlier, do not try to reinvent the wheel. Search for your intended keywords and look at the top sites the search engine returns. Examine those sites and learn from them. Look at the keywords used, these are the sites that the search engine ranks highest for the keywords you targeted. They are important as they could provide a means of linking to your site by some form of reciprocal link which will raise your search engine status and they are a means of attracting many visitors.

Trace the links to your competitors' sites and examine the contents. They too could be the source of a reciprocal link as they are likely to be within the same industry and if they are willing to link to your competitors then why not to you.

How to write effective web pages

Place yourself in the position of trying to find your company using a search engine. What words would you type in? These are your likely keywords.

Start with four or five keywords eg. web design, ranking, web site designing, e-commerce. These will form the basis of the meta keywords (keywords placed between tags that the search engines recognise).

Ensure keywords are place within the title. Draw a summary of your site into a short sentence with keywords placed within the sentence and place the sentence within the meta description tags.

Work the keywords as much as possible into a short sentence and place them as near the top of your page as possible. Repeat the use of keywords and extended keywords throughout your body text.

Count the number of times keywords appear within the keyword and description tags, title and within the body text of your page. Each search engine has different rules but generally you are looking for the following:

Heading	Characters
Title	20 to 65
Title keyword occurrence	2
Description	50 to 150
Description keyword occurrence	3
Body text length	1000 to 4000
Body text keyword occurrence	6
Keyword list length	40 to 500
Keyword repetition	3

You may need to refine your keywords. Look at your site logs for search engine referrals and analyse what keywords are being used to reach your site. Look at combinations of words and refine your list of keyword to match those being used and resubmit your page. Try to reach a high ranking by using many keyword words and not just one.

How to achieve links from other web sites

Getting an external link to your site accomplishes two things. First you get extra visitors directly from the link and secondly the link raises your standing with the search engines. This is especially true if the link is from a web site that the search engines regard highly and have placed high on their list.

To achieve more links to your site you will require the following information:-

Details of sites that could be willing to link to your site.
A page ranking system that can be used to classify the importance of the site to the search engines.

Details of prospective sites that could link to your site can be found by searching for your keywords and analysing the search engine results. The results may show a number of competitors who are unlikely to want to place links to your site on theirs. However the results could also show others such as trade associations and guilds that may well be willing to link to your site. You could also search for complimentary sites and ask the webmaster for reciprocal links.

Do not use link farms, these are web sites used solely for the purpose of linking to other sites. Search engines are now penalising sites who are linked to farm sites.

Regarding page ranking Google can help by placing its toolbar on your browser. You can look at site and Google will rank their importance by means of a green bar and associated number. The higher the number the higher Google rates the page. You can use this to extend your links to highly regarded pages whilst minimising the links to pages not so highly regarded.

Other tips for site promotion

You can no longer rely on search engines to visit and index your site. You must give them a hand by submitting your site to them.

Treat the Internet like any other marketing campaign. Insert your URL on all your marketing materials, invoices, letters etc.

Isn't it nice to receive a good testimonial telling you how good your product, service and customer care is?

If you were to receive one what would you do with it? I bet the answer is publish it. You can use this to your favour by writing glowing testimonials and inserting your url in them. A few will find their way onto sites and hey presto another link.

Monitor your promotions and advertisements. This can be accomplished by analysing your referral logs.

Regular communications with customers or prospective customers keeps your name and contact details at the forefront of their minds. You can also support your customers via the use of email.

Do not let your site stagnate and add new content on a regular basis.

When deciding which domain name to use try to incorporate a keyword into it as it makes a big difference to the search engines.

Search Engines Details:-

Listed below the major search engines. These search engines represent 90% of the total search engine queries.

All the web	AltaVista	AOL	Ask Jeeves
Excite	Google	Hotbot	Lycos
MSN	Open Directory	Yahoo

Below is a table that lists which search engines index your site.

Indexing	Yes	No
Body Text	All	n/a
Description	All but...	Google, Northern Light
Keywords	All but...	Excite, FAST, Google, Northern Light

Ranking	Yes	No
Keywords & Description Aids Higher Ranking	Inktomi	AltaVista, Excite, FAST, Google, Northern Light
Link Popularity Aids Higher Ranking	All	n/a

Below is a table that lists which factors figure prominently.

Search Engine	Title	Keywords & Description	Keyword Frequency and Body Text	Link popularity
All The Web (FAST)	Seems to make a difference.	Not important	Seems to make a small difference.	Important
AltaVista	Titles are very important. Make each page have a unique title. Max 300 characters	Only first two occurrences are indexed.	Best location is title and top of page. Needs 600 to 900 words for maximum impact	Important
DMOZ Open Directory	Not important	Not important	No	Not important for DMOZ, but is Important for its partners.
Excite	Seems to make a difference	Uses description if keywords are present on body text	Slightly higher ranking for keyword frequency
Google	Seems to make a difference. Max 90 characters.	Not important	Keywords near each other and type and size of font, 50 to 600 words	Very important,
HotBot	Very important. Max 105 characters.	Very important	Frequency very important, should be about 5%. 100 to 250 words	Important
Lycos	Seems to make a difference. Max 1000 characters.	Not mentioned	Requires keywords in the body text, preferably at the top of the page. 100 to 250 words	Important
MSN	Important and should contain keywords	Important Description max 250 characters Keywords max 1017 characters	Important	Important
Yahoo	Not very important	Not very important	No	Very important, uses Google

All The Web

Link popularity is important and boosts rankings.
Slightly higher ranking is given to a site where keyword or phrase appearing in title.

Altavista

Higher ranking given to sites where keyword or phrase appearing in title.
More priority given to keywords placed near the top of the page.
Slightly higher ranking if the keywords are within close proximity.
Gives a slightly higher ranking for keywords appearing frequently.
Likes page length to be approximately 6000 words.
Indexes description and keywords and if not present it indexes the first 30 - 40 body text words.
Link popularity boosts rankings.
More emphasis placed on keywords if they are in bold, italic or part of link text.
Keywords are case sensitive.

DMOZ Open Directory

Link popularity important; used by DMOZ partners to and boosts rankings.
Indexed as determined by DMOZ staff.

Excite

More priority given to short sentences with keywords placed near the top of the page.
Attempts to read full sentences to determine the site theme.
Will use description if some of the keywords are present on the body text page.
Looks at the most relevant full sentences to summarise the site.
Higher ranking given to site where keyword or phrase appearing in title.
Higher ranking given to sites with short urls.
Gives a slightly higher ranking for keywords appearing frequently.

Google

Link popularity is very important (do not use link farms).
High ranking given to domain based searches eg www.search.com.
Slightly higher ranking given to site where keyword appears in title (max 90 characters).
More emphasis placed on keywords if they are in headers, large, bold or italic.
Likes page length to be short, less than 600 words.

Hotbot

Higher ranking given to site where keyword or phrase appearing in title. Max 105 characters.
Indexes description and keywords.
Gives a higher ranking for keywords appearing frequently. 5% of keywords to body text.
Likes page length to be between 100 and 250 words.

Lycos

Higher ranking given to site where keyword or phrase appearing in title.
More priority given to keywords placed near the top of the page.
Slightly higher ranking if the keywords are within close proximity.
Indexes description and keywords.
Link popularity boosts rankings.

MSN

Higher ranking given to site where keyword or phrase appearing in title.
Indexes description and keywords. Max description 250 characters and keywords 1000 characters.
Link popularity boosts rankings.
Slightly higher ranking if the keywords appear frequently and in body text.

Yahoo

Lists web sites instead of pages.

Uses the Google search engine.

Indexed as determined by Yahoo staff.

Link popularity is very important (do not use link farms).
High ranking given to domain based searches eg. www.search.com .

Slingshot makes it Easy

The procedures I have mentioned above may seem complicated and under normal circumstances they would be but within Slingshot you have a wealth of tools that make such tasks easy.

Below we list a few of the features that are incorporated into the Slingshot package that will help your site get to the top of the search engine results.

Generates search engine friendly web pages that rank near the top of the search results.
Analyses your existing title, keywords, descriptions and body text and gives advice on how to improve them.
Allows easy uploading of new and changed pages.
Automatically submits your site to the major search engines.
Provides visitor statistics including how many pages each visitor viewed and which pages were popular.
Measures the impact of advertising campaigns by reporting on referrer sites.
Reports your ranking on each major search engine for each keyword you are targeting.
Provides a reference of visitors to your site, where they came from, and what keywords they used to find you.
Allows you to compare your site with that of your competition and drill down to find links to your competitors. These links can then be used in future marketing campaigns.

Glossary

Indexing

The recording and filing of data so it can be retrieved later.

Body Text

The main textual content of a page, as opposed to hidden "tags".

Description

A short summary of a web page embedded invisibly in the page. Many search engines display the description as part of their search results.

Keywords

A list of words or phrases used to describe a page.

Ranking

The position that a web page is displayed in a search engine query result. The higher you are on the page the higher your ranking.

Keywords & Description

Most search engines use the frequency and location of keywords as the basis of ranking in response to a query. Some search engines that support description and keywords may also give a higher ranking if the search terms appear in these areas.

Link Popularity

Search engines judge the popularity of a page by analysing which other web sites link to it. Most search engines give pages with many links from important web sites a higher ranking.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

Is the address for a site eg. www.anysite.com.