~~~Writing for the Search Engines~~~
From: Alan Andrews
I am just about to start up a web site that deals with business
advertising and classifieds in the Buffalo NY area. I have most pages
already defined, but need some basic simple advice how to get my site
in the search engines.
My specifics are:
I only need the one main page tracked by the search engines.
I want to get on the major search engines when people look for
specifically anything related to Buffalo NY. I am not looking to
appeal to customers outside Buffalo as much.
So to get my site showing up I would want this from basic searches
such as
Buffalo NY
Buffalo Jobs
Buffalo Business
etc ...
I am an IT professional but not web related per say as much. I
understand that things like META tags help. Each time I read about
this subject it's a daunting task to understand it all. Would a basic
page with all such Meta data get people to the link for my web site?
What is the easiest way to accomplish this?
My main page is a Frames page, I hear conflicting opinions about
frames and search engines.
I just need a simple effective method for when people search anything
Buffalo related.
Can you advise.
Many many thanks for your time and effort
Kind regards
Alan Andrews
http://www.buffaloretail.com
~~~Heather's Response~~~
Hey, Alan!
These are all good questions!
My first question would be - why do you only care about your home
page? What about your inner pages? Sure, you can get good
rankings from your main page, but focusing on just the home page
doesn't allow you to benefit from more than two to three keyphrases
at a time. This will be a big problem for you - especially since you
want to rank high for a number of keyphrases.
Having keyphrase-rich home page copy that converts traffic is
incredibly important. However, it's impossible to "stuff" all your
keyphrases in your main page and expect to see great benefits. Your
home page should immediately tell prospects who you are, what you
offer, and what's in it for them. It's a general overview of your
site - and typically doesn't provide many specifics (that's what your
inner pages are for!). If you rely on your home page to be the be
all, end all for ALL your keyphrases, you're hobbling your SEO success
and probably making your copy impossible to read.
If it's important to rank high for phrases like "Buffalo jobs" (which
I'm sure is a competitive keyphrase, btw), it's best to have a
separate page where you focus exclusively on that keyphrase. I would
also do a Word Tracker report (or use your
research tool of choice) to double check your keyphrases and see if
you can find other variations that may be useful. That is, the
phrase, "jobs in Buffalo" may also be a good, high-traffic term you
could use for a targeted inner page.
I would also reconsider some of your keyphrases. The key is to make
your keyphrase choices as specific as possible. Why? You'll have a
better chance of a high ranking, you'll receive extremely targeted
traffic, and you'll increase your conversion rates.
For instance, if you are focused on Buffalo-area classified ads and
advertising, the general keyphrase "Buffalo NY" won't help you. You
want to choose keyphrases that *specifically relate to your site *
(like Buffalo NY classified ads). After all, think of all the people
who search for "Buffalo, NY" when what they really want is tourism
information - or weather information - or demographic information.
Chances are, these same people will learn to narrow their search using
another keyphrase (like "Buffalo NY demographics), and skip your site
all together. Or worse - visit your site and leave because you don't
offer what they need.
It's the same with "Buffalo business." Can you tweak that phrase to
make it more targeted? After all, if you offer "Buffalo NY business
classifieds," that's a whole different animal than the general phrase
"Buffalo business" - and using the more specific phrase will result in
motivated, targeted traffic.
You are VERY right, btw, that you should be using the locator term
"Buffalo NY" in your keyphrases. This way, you will be getting
qualified traffic that is interested in your Buffalo-area services,
and you're showing that you have a location "niche." Good job!
Thanks for your question! Keep 'em coming!
Heather
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Hey Alan,
First let me mention that we had a similar business directory type of
site that we optimized recently, which I just so happened to write an
article on. It's called, "Making Keyphrases Work for Your Site and the Search Engines".
On to the rest of your questions!
Yes, meta tags can help but only if you've selected the right
keyphrases and are using them on your page in the copy. The most
important tag to help with your high rankings is your Title tag (which
incidentally, isn't technically a "meta" tag). You'll want to make
sure that each optimized page of your site has a Title tag that is
utilizing your 2 or 3 keyphrases within it. Make sure not to say
things like "XYZ Company" in this tag unless people know who you are
and will be looking for you by name. As I've mentioned before, the
Title tag should be thought of more as a Title keyword tag because
it's rarely going to be an actual "title" where search engine
optimization is concerned. The search engines differ in the number of
characters they'll display of the Title tag. It can vary from a
maximum of 60 characters all the way to 150 characters. If you don't
want any of your Title getting cut off in the results pages, keep it
to under 60 characters in length. Please read my article "All About Title Tags" for
more information on how to best use this tag.
The other important tag to use is your Meta description tag. This tag
needs to be a sentence or two that describes exactly what the
particular page is about and also utilizes the important keyphrases.
Remember, this tag is often the description that shows up in the
search engine results page (SERP), so it's important that it be
well-written and entice people to click to your site. The search
engines will allow anywhere from 150 to 250 characters in this tag and
will chop your description when it hits their allowable limit. You
can read more on the ins and outs of the Meta description tag in my
article, "The Meta Description Tag".
As to our friend the Meta keyword tag, I want to say to simply not
worry about it, but I know that this will disturb some of you. How
many of you still have it in your heads that your Meta keyword tag
will be the ticket to high rankings? If you're raising your hands, I
just shot you with a BB gun! Your Meta keyword tag is there to
support your copy and other tags. Most of the search engines don't
even read this tag, so it's not something to worry about. You might
as well use it, because it's not going to hurt you, but only put
keyphrases that you already have been using in your copy and in your
other tags. As to the comma, no comma debate, it's one of personal
preference. It appears that most engines that even read this tag seem
to ignore the commas and treat them like a space. If this is true,
then it absolutely won't matter either way. I personally like to
separate my phrases with commas in this tag. But I truly don't think
a whole heck of a lot about it, because it's not going to make or
break your rankings. The length or number of words in this tag is not
very important as no humans see this tag. A basic rule of thumb
is not to repeat any instance of any particular word more than three
times. This way you'll be sure to not inadvertantly spam the engines.
Another good rule is not to use any words or phrases that are not
already on that particular page of your site. If you want to use a
few words that are on other pages of your site, it probably
would be okay, but I've been trying to get away from doing that
lately. You can read more on this tag in my article, "The Meta Keyword Tag".
Lastly, you asked about framed pages. Framed pages are usually pretty
ugly, and most users don't care much for them. However, they can make
a huge site more manageable because you can change your navigational
links structure without having to change every single page, so many
Webmasters find framed pages helpful for this purpose. As far as the
search engines are concerned, most search engines cannot follow the
inner pages of the Frameset, and therefore there is usually no
information for the search engine spiders to read, other than what you
put in your Title and Meta tags. Don't let this stop you from using
frames, though, because there is a perfectly legitimate workaround.
There's a tag called the "noframes" tag that was created for older
browsers that didn't have the capabilities of reading the framed
information. As it turns out, search engine spiders have the same
capabilities as older browsers, and therefore they read the
information in the noframes tag. So what I like to do is take my
search engine friendly marketing copy which I wrote for the inner
framed page, and place that also into the noframes section of the html
code. You also have to make sure you put navigational links to the
rest of the site's pages, so that the spiders can crawl through the
site. Don't forget to make sure that your inner framed pages all have
links back to the home page (and hopefully the other main pages of the
site) so that when they are inevitably found by a user from the search
engines, they're not "orphaned" pages with no links to the rest of the
site. For more information on designing a search engine friendly
framed site, please see my article, "Getting Framed Sites Listed With Search Engines".
Whew! I do think that's about it!
Jill
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