 There's no doubt that search engines are vital to driving traffic to your
Web site. Today's online shoppers almost always go to their favourite search engine in order to find what they're looking for. That's why it's important for your Web site to be designed in such a way that it appears high in the search engine rankings.
Studies show that people, when searching online, don't go more than a few pages before they either change search parameters or move on to something else. Which means that if your site is on page four, it may as well be invisible.
So how do you go about making sure your Web site is search engine friendly and shows up high in the rankings?
Keyword Optimization
Keywords and phrases are what people type into their search engines to find what they're looking for. Search engines like Google and Yahoo scan the millions of Web sites to find these words and check other information -- like links from other sites -- to provide you a list of sites they think are a good match.
However, it's important to remember that your Web site should be designed primarily for your visitors, not the search engines. When keywords became important to search engine rankings, many site designers would load pages with hot keywords in the hopes of attracting the attention of the search engine spiders. These pages not only provided little in the way of usable information to the end user, but were also quickly tagged by search engines as 'doorway pages' and then ignored.
The key to keyword optimization is to create valuable content for your visitors while still maintaining a decent keyword density for the search engines. Remember, the search engines aren't your customers.
Generate Incoming Links
There's a famous line from the movie Field of Dreams where a farmer is convinced by a mysterious voice to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield. The voice tells him, "If you build it, they will come".
Too many people have applied that logic to their Web sites. They think that if they simply throw it out onto the web, people are going to show up. Not true.
With millions of Web sites lurking out in cyberspace you need some help standing out. As I previously stated, great content, with optimized keywords is a good way to start. But consider having links to your Web site on other high-traffic pages.
There are plenty of free web directories that are regularly checked by search engines that you can submit your site to. For example: if you sell baby products, submit to web directories in that category. Submitting your site to these directories is a good way to increase your chances of getting more traffic to your site and of course helps in building your incoming links, which is important to the search engines.
Can Your Site be Crawled?
Search engines like to be able to check out your entire site, not just the home page. Why? Because many people would create pages specifically designed to rank high and then direct the visitor someplace else. It's like the online version of bait and switch.
One effective way to ensure that the search engines can crawl the sub-pages of your site is to be careful with things like Java Script. Currently, Google finds it difficult to understand Java Script, which can pose a problem for your rankings if you have a lot of it on your site. The solution is to place the code on a separate page and then link to it within your site.
Also, if you have a large site, build a site map with text links to all the sections of your site. These text links should be keyword optimized, if possible, so that the search engines can scan those as well. Search engines usually find the other pages in your site through the site map so it’s a good idea to have a sitemap.
It's also important to check your title tags and make sure they're relevant to the content on each page. The title tag is one of the most important things that the search engines look at, so be sure you've got good, optimized keywords there.
Content, Content, Content
Good quality content can't be stressed enough when it comes to getting good page rankings. Sure, you could try to cheat, but Google and Yahoo are getting much smarter about recognizing underhanded ways of generating traffic, and they're getting harsher when it comes to penalizing those sites. Quite simply, it isn't worth it. You're much better off taking the time to write good keyword optimized content that readers desire, than trying to usurp the rules.
And while we're on the subject of content, I would stress that you keep it fresh. Updating your site's content on a regular basis not only benefits the search engines, but your visitors as well!
- Nina Menezes
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