Before registering your site with
multiple search engines, we encourage you to maximize your results by
applying the following three "tricks of the trade".
Trick #1:
Insert keywords in the <TITLE> tag of your index.htm file.
Example:
<TITLE>European
Travel Specialists</TITLE>
Specific and descriptive <TITLE>
tags should be used for each page. These tags are particularly important
as the text between them is what a browser displays in its title bar
when that page is visited. It is also what your site will be called when
that page is listed in a search engine. The <TITLE> should not be
a list of keywords, but an actual title. Tip: Refrain from
statements such as "Welcome to our Home Page", or "Our
Products". Use descriptive words people would search for.
Trick #2: Insert <META> tags in
your index.htm file.
Not all search engines use <META>
tags, but by adding them, your page will be more accessible by those that
do. All <META> tags must be placed between the
<HEAD></HEAD> tag at the beginning of your document. We
highly recommend using the following:
<META> Description tag.
Example:
<META
name="description" content="American travel agency
specializing in European vacations">
Your description <META> tag should be
brief, contain keywords, and form a natural sentence or phrase. The text
between them will appear as a description after your title in an index
listing.
<META> Keywords tag.
Example:
<META name="keywords"
content="travel, European vacations, Europe, air fare, Paris,
France, London">
When determining your keywords, think about
Keyword tips:
- Keep each tag on a single line of your HTML code, without line
breaks.
- Again, don’t repeat the same keyword more than 5 times. Three
times is recommended to avoid penalties.
- Don’t list your repeated keywords next to each other.
- Use plurals. When you've completed your keywords lists, add the
letter 's' to the end of every word (or add the plural of the word to
the list in the case of words like cactus/cacti). Many people search
for 'games' or 'hotels' and if your keywords are in the singular your
page won't be listed and your efforts will have been wasted. By using
plurals, your page will also still be found in a search for the
singular (e.g. a search for 'hotel' will find your keyword 'hotels').
- Don't make your keywords tag as "long as your arms", but
use different words for different pages within your site.
- A search for "Television set" will yield different results
than "television set". Write lower case for common words.
Trick #3: Use Descriptive
Page Text
Search engines assign greater relevancy to
text located at the top of a page than to text located in the middle or at
the bottom of the page. If your page has a main graphic at the top, you
should place some descriptive text either underneath, beside it, and/or in
the <IMAGE> text tag. The search engines will index this text and
assign it a high level of relevancy.
Of course these are just the basics. There
are many other techniques that can increase your chance of a rating. We
encourage you to spend some time researching and learning about web
promotion, or hiring us for the more advanced work!
