“Optimizing” your site means that you have designed it in a way so that people can find you by searching for relevant terms in the search engines. You do this through your Meta Tags, as well as through the content on that particular page.
For example, Queen of the Random Job’s meta tags for the home page are: “Queen of the Random Job, Queen Buzzy, Self-employment, WAHM, work-at-home, home-based business, work-at-home scams, self-employment advice, MLM, Direct Sales, Network Marketing” However, I don’t deal with these issues on EVERY single page. On my Mystery Shopping pages, I design the page, as well as the meta tags so that people who are looking for that information can find me.
Of course, because of the industries that I am in, have HUGE amounts of competition, so I know that it will take much time before I get listed within the first 3 pages of the search engines for “work at home” or “home based Business.” Be patient if your site is within a competitive industry. It takes about 6-12 weeks just to get listed, and even more time to move your way up the rankings! You can check to see how competitive your keywords are, at www.se-keywords.com
Just because you’ve build a website doesn’t mean that you’ll get high rankings in the search engines. You’ll need to submit your site and play the Search Engine Optimization game to constantly stay ahead of your competition. Now, keep in mind, the rules of this game are constantly changing, and the search engines will NEVER let you know what they are. It’s pretty much a guessing game, and frankly, I could write a whole book on SEO, but to keep matters simple, here are the basics:
The main search engines are Yahoo and Google. There are hundreds of companies that promise to submit your site to the 5000+ search engines out there, (for a fee of course) don’t do it. It would be a 24/7 job to keep your site at the top of the listings, there are other ways to increase traffic. Save your money. Since Yahoo and Google are the main sites, most of all those little search engines borrow their listings. So you don’t need to waste your time. What you may not know is that Yahoo and Google borrow their listings from DMOZ.
DMOZ is an open directory project run completely by volunteers who assess your site to see if its worthy of being in their directory. They are VERY strict about who they let in. So, the very first place you will submit your site to is DMOZ.
Now, don’t submit a shoddy site! You need to make sure that it’s readable in Explorer and Netscape. You need to make sure that ALL the links work, and go to the correct pages. To increase your rankings you should have links OUT of your site to other relevant sites. If you know people in your industry, that are not competition, ask to trade links. That way you’ll have links coming into your site as well. A good way to find out who is linking to you is at www.linkpopularity.com or using Google’s amazing analytics.
Once upon a time, it used to be a rule of SEO, that you needed a lot of links on your site to get a high ranking. Well, people began to take advantage of that, and just had link after link after link…the Search Engines didn’t like that, so they abolished that rule. Now, they want “relevant links.” And even better if you have a lot of people linking to you.
Search Engines don’t like sales sites. They just don’t. They are trying to create the best possible experience for their customer, and it doesn’t fly if every single site listed is just trying to sell something. You need to have CONTENT. Articles, advice, a message board, something to show the world that you’re just not trying to make a buck. The more content you have, the happier the Search engines are. However, don’t just write 20 articles and leave it at that. The Search Engines use “spiders” (just a fancy term for the program) to crawl the web for updates. If you have a site that is constantly changing and growing, you’ll get higher rankings.
Optimization is not an exact science. It never will be. Here are a few things that Search Engines give weight to:
- If links within your site have are your keywords (On QRJ I have links of “Self Employment Info” “Scam Info” and “Work at Home Jobs” all meta tag keywords.)
- Is the keyword used in your content? How often is it used? The Search Engines want to know the “Keyword density,” if it really is the best page for their viewers. Don’t overdo it though…too much could get you a lower ranking as well.
- Does the URL have the search term in it? “Queen of the Random Job” has the term: “Job” but not much else.
- Do the img (picture) files have the search term in the coding? If you’re going to have pictures, why not name them as your keywords? Make sure they’re relevant, though, because this is one way to make the Search engines mad.
It all adds up to give your site more credibility. But like I mentioned before, this game is constantly changing. As long as you provide good content, link to other relevant sites, and are fairly active, over time you’ll receive great rankings!
To submit your site to Yahoo, click here.
To submit your site to Google, click here
To submit your site to DMOZ, click here.
