~~~High Search Engine Rankings~~~
From: Sarah Ooka
I am hoping you will address the best way for smaller companies to
manage the daunting task of registering a site with the search
engines. We use an outside vendor to host our site, the only service
they provide is a weekly distribution of our meta tags to HotBot,
webcrawler, Lycos, AltaVista, and excite. Other than that, they told
me I should be registering our site with as many engines possible, as
frequently as possible. This doesn't seem like a realistic approach.
Any suggestions for how smaller companies can realistically and
proactively optimize their placements?
Sarah
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Hi Sarah, thanks for your question!
First of all, in light of this question (and other similar ones we've
received recently), I think it's important to clarify something for
many of you out there:
Nobody submits Meta tags, and nobody submits keywords to the search
engines.
Your hosting company is absolutely NOT providing a ”weekly
distribution of your Meta tags to Hotbot, Webcrawler, Lycos, AltaVista
and Excite." Nor are they submitting your keyphrases to any engines.
Keyphrases don't get submitted anywhere (except maybe to Pay Per Click
engines). If they're doing anything at all, they are simply
submitting your URL (aka your Web site address). But the bigger
question is why are they even submitting your URL on a weekly basis?
There's absolutely no value in doing that (unless your content is
changing weekly). In fact, not only is there no value in it, it could
possibly hurt your chances of high rankings in the engines. If your
content is fairly static (which is how you want it to be for the
search engines) and your URL is already in the search engines'
databases, no amount of submitting is going to snag you a higher
ranking. In fact, it just may make the search engines mad at you.
Think about the load on their servers if everyone with a Web site
submitted their URL to them each and every week. It's bad form, and
it's unnecessary. Don't do it, and tell your hosting company to stop
doing it immediately.
You also mention that your hosting company told you that you should be
registering with as many engines as possible, as frequently as
possible. Again, this is bad advice. It sounds like they're trying
to tell you that you should sign up with one of those companies that
offer to submit your site to 1000 "search engines." Well, guess what?
There are only about 6 search engines and 4 major directories worth
submitting your URL to right now. The other 994 supposed search
engines are usually just Free For All (FFA) sites. These are
worthless sites used by spammers to collect email addresses. Do not
submit to them. They will not bring you traffic, nor will they bring
you link popularity.
So what's my advice for how smaller companies can realistically and
proactively optimize their placements? The same way any company would
go about it. The following is a really quick overview of nearly
everything Heather and I do when optimizing a site for high rankings:
First, figure out the best, most relevant, most searched-upon
keyphrases for each page of your site. Choose one phrase for each
page (two or three if you’re more experienced). Create great,
visible, well-written content based around your phrase or phrases.
Small companies can do this just as well as big companies can. For
tips on how to do it right, read all of Heather's articles on the
subject in the articles section of the Rank Write Web site:
http://www.rankwrite.com/articles.htm.
Once you've gotten your great text written (and not before...don't
cheat!), then go ahead and create a great Title tag based on your
keyphrase or phrases. Make sure it utilizes the keyphrases and is not
simply a company name. Avoid using company names at all in this tag,
if possible. If you must use it because the boss or owner makes you,
then for goodness sakes, put it at the end of the tag! See my
article,
"All About Title Tags" for more info.
After your Title tag is created, you're ready to work on your Meta
description tag. Don't forget, the purpose of this tag is twofold:
1. It should be a great marketing statement. The information in this
tag is often the words that appear in the results page of the engines,
under your title. It's important that it entices people to click on
your link. Make it one or two easy-to-read sentences.
2. It should utilize your most important keyphrases. The engines that
read this tag do seem to give some weight to it, so be sure and put
your keyphrases in it, preferably near the beginning.
See
"Get It in Your <Head>: The Meta Description Tag" for more information.
After the Description tag, if you feel like it, add a Meta keyword
tag. This tag is not crucial, but it won't hurt to snatch your most
important keyphrases and throw them into this tag. Don't worry about
whether or not you separate words with a comma or a space. It really
doesn't matter. Besides, this tag is given so little weight with the
engines that it's not worth spending too much time on it. It's most
definitely not worth losing any sleep over it.
See "The Meta Keyword Tag"
for more information.
Along with the above things, be sure you've used some keyphrases in
your image Alt tags, and of course, be sure that your design is search
engine friendly. Your copy should be actual text, not graphics or
Flash, and you shouldn't use too many nested tables. Keep all fancy
stuff to a minimum and you should be fine. Don't forget to be sure
you have links to the major pages of your site, on each and every
page. This way the search engine spiders can easily find and index
your pages.
When everything is ready, go ahead and submit to the search engines!
Only submit the main page at first, and then sit back and wait. Check
for the new page to appear in the search results (when typing in your
URL in the search box). If after a month it's not found, go ahead and
resubmit. If it is found, leave it alone! (I have a new article on
this subject coming out in a few weeks.) In three to six months, you
should find your newly optimized pages in all of the search engine
databases. If you did everything correctly, you should also be seeing
many high rankings for your targeted phrases. Now sit back and enjoy
the traffic and resulting sales!
Wow...I just summed up nearly all of my articles in one answer! For
much more detailed information on all of the above, please take a look
at the related articles using the links above.
Jill
~~~Send Us Your Questions~~~
If you have questions about online copywriting or search engine optimization (or both!), just zip us an email to questions@rankwrite.com. We've had some folks ask if their question
was "too basic" to be printed - and you don't have to worry about
that! There are no "stupid" search engine optimization or copywriting
questions, so ask away!
