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What
Search Engines See When They Visit Your Web
Site
by Robin
Nobles
If
you have a Web site,
have you ever wondered what a search engine sees when it visits your
site to
add the site to its index? Do you know that it doesn’t see the
beautiful
graphics or the fancy Web design? Do you know that it only sees the
source
code, or the "skeleton" of your Web site?
Do
you realize that knowing
this little tidbit of information and doing something about it can make
a huge
difference in your search engine rankings and, ultimately, the success
of your
online business?
One
very important thing
that you need to remember is: the search engines like simplicity. The
simpler
your Web site is, the easier it is for the engines to determine what
your Web
site is about. And, if the search engines can determine exactly what
your Web
site is about, you have a better chance at top rankings under the
keyword
phrases that are important for your online business.
Let’s
look at this concept
in action with a page I recently created for one of my online
businesses:
Search Engine Workshops.
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/search-engine-seminars.html
As
you can see, it’s a very
plain, simple page that was not created to be the "main" or
"home" page of a Web site. Rather, it was created to pull in traffic
through the keyword phrase, "search engine seminars."
What
I really want you to
see is the source code of the page. So, when viewing the page, click on
View on
the top menu bar, then Source or Source Code.
The
most important part of
a Web page is what appears at the very top of the page.
So,
what appears in the <head> section of your Web page is
very important, because the <head> section is at the top of the page.
Let’s
look at the <head> section of the source code:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>search engine seminars--are you ready to have a successful
Website?</TITLE>
<META
NAME="keywords" CONTENT="search engine seminars, conferences,
workshops, CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, Conferences, Workshops">
<META
NAME="description" CONTENT="Consider attending a search engine
seminar to learn how to take a struggling Web site and bring it to the
top of
the rankings!">
</HEAD>
There
are only three tags
in the <head> section of this Web page: the title tag, the
keyword META tag, and the description META tag. Because the title tag is in the <head> section, and because of the
importance that most engines place on the tag, it is considered one of
the most
important tags on your page, so it should always be the first tag in
the <head> section.
Notice
that in the title
and keyword META tag, the important keyword phrase (search
engine seminars) appears as
the first words in the tag. In the description META tag, the keyword phrase is
still toward the beginning of the tag, as opposed to the end.
In
other words, where you
place your keyword phrase in the tags and content of your page is
important. If
you place your keyword phrase toward the beginning of all of your
important
tags and toward the beginning of the contents, you’re "proving" to
the engines that the page is really about that particular topic.
I’ve
mentioned one reason
why the title tag is important, but there’s another reason too. The
title tag
is important because it almost always appears as the title of the site
in the
search engine results. Your description META tag may appear in the
search engine results as well and is considered important by some of
the
engines. So, when you create your title and description tags, remember
two
things: put your keyword phrase toward the beginning of the tags, and
make the
tags captivating and designed to pull in traffic.
Think
of it this way. If
your site is #10 in the search engine rankings, but if the sites above
yours
haven’t gone to the trouble to create appealing titles and
descriptions, a
search engine user may skip over those sites to visit yours.
Now,
let’s go back to the
source code. Look for this tag, which isn’t far from the <body> tag:
<IMG
SRC="images/banner3.jpg" ALT="search engine seminars, search
engine conferences, search engine workshops" WIDTH="220"
HEIGHT="100">
This
is the image, or
graphics, tag for the Search Engine Workshops banner that appears at
the very
top of the page. Notice that the engine doesn’t "see" the graphic
itself. It sees the name of the graphic (banner3.jpg), and it sees the
ALT text
that describes the image. It sees the width and height of the graphic.
But, it
doesn’t see the graphic itself. So, the engine doesn’t know that the
graphic
says, "Search Engine Workshops."
Next,
look for this tag,
which directly follows the image tag:
<H1
ALIGN="center"><FONT FACE="Arial">Search Engine
Seminars</FONT></H1>
An
<H1> tag is a heading tag, and
heading tags are very important to a Web page. Try to put a heading tag
at the
very top of your page, if at all possible, and use your important
keyword
phrase in that heading tag. When you look back at my actual Web page,
do you
see the words "Search Engine Seminars" right under the graphic?
That’s the heading tag.
Now,
look for this tag in
the source code:
<P><FONT
FACE="Arial">Is your Web site
achieving the success that . . .
This
is where the contents
of the Web page begin. Look on the actual Web page and find the text:
"Is
your Web site achieving the success that..." Notice that the keyword
phrase (search engine seminars) appears in the first paragraph.
In
other words, with all of
these tags and the placement of our keyword phrase in the page’s
contents,
we’re proving to the engines that the page is really about "search
engine
seminars."
So,
let’s visit your site
on the Web. View the source code. What’s in the <head> section? Are your title and
description tags using the keyword phrase that’s important for that
particular
page? Are your title and description tags captivating and designed to
pull in
traffic? Each page of your site should have different title and
description
tags, and those tags should be based on the focus of that page... what
that
page is really about: in other words, its keyword phrase.
How
many graphics do you
have before the actual contents of your site? If you have a lot of
graphics,
navigation bars, or buttons before the contents of your page, the
engine has to
sort through all of that source code before it gets to the actual
keyword-containing content.
Does
your page contain
lengthy Javascript or other code that pushes the important contents
toward the
bottom of the page? If so, it could be hindering your chances at top
rankings.
Are
you using a heading tag
that contains your important keyword phrase toward the very top of your
page?
Is your keyword phrase used in the first paragraph of the page? Is it
used in
several places throughout the page?
Look
back at my page.
Notice that the keyword phrase, search engine seminars, is used as link
text to
describe several links. Are you using your keyword phrase to describe
links
that are leaving the page? If not, try to do so.
Study
your own site
carefully, and apply these guidelines to your pages.
Doing
whatever you can to
push your important keyword phrase toward the top of the page and
toward the
beginning of your tags is the first step toward having a successful Web
site
that’s ranked in the top of the search engine rankings.
In Summary:
Achieving
top rankings for
your Web site does not have to be an impossible goal as Robin Nobles
has
outlined above. The tips she's given will certainly help move you in
the right
direction.
Unfortunately,
most
keywords are competitive enough to require additional page refinements
in order
to break into the top 10 listings. Moving your page from position #936
to
position #48 may be a remarkable improvement, but unless you are in
those top
10 to 30 positions, you'll receive little to no search engine traffic.
Fortunately,
WebPosition
Gold 2 gives you the extra competitive edge required to push your
rankings to
the top. Its Page Critic module analyzes your page and gives you
specific
advice custom-tailored to your keyword, page, and targeted search
engine. It
eliminates the guess-work and the need to remember all the many
"rules" and "to do's" of search engine optimization.
Please
visit our web site
to learn more about WebPosition Gold.
Robin
Nobles is the
Director of Training of the Academy of Web Specialists, which teaches online
training in search engine marketing. She is also a trainer with Search
Engine
Workshops, which presents on location workshops in search engine
marketing at
various locations across the country. Please visit our site for more
information about online training and other resources.
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