I've been asked here to sum up what everyone
should
know about search engine positioning. First,
two
caveats: 1) Search Engine Positioning is only
a tiny
part of the big Internet Marketing picture.
It
takes time and there are other things that will
pay
off far more in the long run. 2) This is
a gross
simplification of the whole process.
With that said, let's dive in.
1. This discussion will focus on spider
engines.
That is, an engine that goes to your site and
indexes you based on what it finds. Directories
are a whole 'nother ball game (which we will
address
in another article). Good examples of spiders
are:
Infoseek, Excite, and AltaVista.
2. Every search engine is different.
You need to
learn the "algorithm" (set of rules) used by
each
engine to rank pages. An algorithm is a
set of
rules.
3. These algorithms change constantly.
This is
why tips like "put 3 % of your target keyword
in
your title tag" are probably worthless by the
time
you hear them.
4. The only reliable way to learn a sites
algorithm
is to analyze actual results of a search on that
engine. This must be done using a reliable
keyword
density analyzer. This tool will show you
the weight
of particular keywords in high ranking documents.
You
then simply reproduce this weight in your document
to
attempt to reproduce the results. Any advice
you find
that did not come from an actual analysis is
probably
smoke and mirrors. This method is very reliable.
There are a few other factors that will affect
rank
that can not be measured this way (link popularity,
spam filtering etc.), but keyword density is
the
easiest to measure and most reliable factor.
Here
is the only keyword density analyzer I use:
5. You should not only be concerned with
the rank
of your listing, but with the way it appears
in the
engine as well. If your listing is #1,
but looks
like a bunch of junk (try a search right now
and
you'll see what I mean), it will be a waste of
your
time. The appearance of your listing depends
on
two of three things:
a) your title tag e.g. title
here
b) your description tag
content="description here
like this"> (applies
to some engines - all others
use the following)
c) the first 250 words (or
so) of visible text
on your site on your site
"A" above is what the engine links to your page.
B or C are used as descriptive text for your
link.
You must balance your work on these tags.
That is,
sometimes what gets you a high rank will not
make
for an enticing listing. Remember
that your title
is most important. Think of it as a headline
for an
ad.
6. No software in itself is going to get
you a high
position on a search engine. Period.
There are many
software products claiming to get you a higher
position
on the web. For the most part, save
your money.
There are really only two programs you need (and
you
may not even need them):
a) A keyword density analyzer.
You don't really
need this if you have some
other tool that will
allow you to analyze the relative
mathematical
composition of any text.
If what I just said flew
over your head, a keyword
density analyzer is for
you.
Again,
here is the only one I use
b) A site submitter. You don't really need one of
these, either, if you are
strictly focusing on a
high position in the spider
engines. You can
probably submit these pages
one by one just as
easily since the process of
gaining a high rank
is a surgical one. However,
if you need to submit
many pages at once (if you
do it will save time),
or you want to submit to other
types of sites (most
submitters submit to over
900 sites and spider
engines account for about
12 of those), then it is
a good idea to get some software
that will automate
this task for you. We've
developed a powerful
multi-use tool that will spider
all of your pages
and submit each of them to
all known spider engines
(it has about 20 other functions
as well - all of
them key). You
can check that out here:
There is, of course, much more to it than I have
listed
here, but this information will get you started
on the
right track.
Article by Mark Joyner, of 1001 Killer Internet
Marketing Tactics. Mark is also the CEO
of Aesop
Marketing Corporation. 1001 KIMT is an absolute
*must have* for anyone serious about Internet
marketing. No other course out there even comes
close. It will dramatically boost the results
of
any campaign in a very real and measurable way.
They are offering a special right now where it
comes
with a bonus database of over 6,000 media contacts
(including email and FAX numbers).CLICK
HERE
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