search

There are many Search Engine Optimization tactics that can be used to ensure your site is successfully crawled, indexed, and positioned in the major search engines. Even though SEO is constantly evolving, with the technologies used to render Web sites, certain fundamentals remain constant. Let's take a look at some of them.

* Are the keywords you're targeting relevant to site content?

* Do you use CSS (define) image replacement in graphical navigation on the site?

* Are targeted keywords popular phrases used in search engine queries?

Search engine registration is a request to a search engine to look at a URL and include it into their index. Search engine registration is the quickest method for getting your site listed on public engines. While manual registration is not difficult on most SEs most people use one of the free or for pay registration services/software as a quick way to submit multiple pages to multiple search engines.

Registration Tips

• Always read and follow a search engines rules and regulations before submitting.

Search engine ranking refers to where a page falls in the results returned by a SE for a given keyword phrase. Search engines use a scoring algorithm to rate results based on how often and where a keyword appears on a page. For example, if a keyword appears in the title tags it will rate higher then if the same keyword appears in the header tags which will rate higher then in normal body text. If the keyword appears in all three it will generally be rated higher then if it appeared in each one.

An Internal Search Engine allows searching within a site for pages containing certain keywords. Internal SEs are particularly useful on large sites as an alternative to hierarchical menus for site navigation. Many scripts/programs are available to add searching capability to your site.

Internal Search Engine Tips

• It has been estimated that over half of web users are search dominated versus hierarchy links dominate. As your site becomes larger it is important to offer both options.

A web site search directory indexes a web site based on an independent description of a site. While directories perform many of the same functions of a web page search engine, their indexing format is different. The main difference is that directories do not spider your site to gather information about it. Instead they rely on a few text entries, typically a site title, domain name, and description, to determine which keywords describe your site.

Search engine positioning refers to having web pages listed on public search engines with a focus on placing high for specific keywords. Search directory placement (directories are a special type of SE) refers to getting your site description listed on directory.

Achieving quality results with search engine positioning can significantly boost the traffic to your site. While it is relatively easy to place well for uncommon keyword phrases it can be very difficult to place high for popular phrases.

Steps To Positioning

• Keyword identification