Use Highly Targeted Key Words and
Phrases
The vast amount of information on the web now requires
users to use highly specific search terms to capture
useful results. This is a actually a very good thing
for companies that understand the importance of using
search terms that specifically target their target
audience.
Your choice of keywords is critical; a common error
is too general of key marketing words placed in the
body of your content. If you are in the refrigerated
transport business and you use the key marketing word
“trucking”, you will get people searching
your site for trucking news, trucking jobs, trucking
events, etc. When what you wanted were shippers needing
to send refrigerated cargo from Florida to Seattle.
Marketing generic words will attract the wrong visitors
and real prospects will pass you by.
Carefully select search terms and phrases that are
highly targeted to your precise business and location.
Use a tool such as Wordtracker,
Google
or the Overture
Suggestion Tool to find what phrases web searchers
are using in the search engines to find goods and
services similar to yours, and then concentrate on
improving your ranking for those terms. The whole
purpose of SEO is to get qualified people to your
pages that are ready to buy a service or product.
Remember to Also Optimize Body Text
You can have the best and most sought after keywords,
a great title tag that is relevant and reads well
and still a lousy ranking on the search engines. The
most common error made is lack of content on the page
you are attempting to optimize, particularly the home
page. You hear it time and time again...search engines
don't read graphics. Flash is great if used properly,
but a massive flash file or a spectacular grouping
of images, with little or no text will destroy your
efforts.
Images are important to keep the readers interest
from a design perspective, but text is the reason
the reader is there. Your page should have at least
300 relevant readable words on it that provoke the
reader to buy your product or services.The search
engines are looking for the invisible content but
they are also looking for the visible content...that
which is written on your pages.
If your key marketing word is “refrigerated
freight” then be certain to use it at least
3 times throughout your page content. The search engines
are getting "smarter" all the time, they
want to deliver relevant results to users. If you
want a web site to rank well in the search engines,
you need to give them what they want to see and that
is content and more content.
Submitting to 1,000 Search Engines
This is so ridiculous as to almost not be worthy
of comment.
Companies that advertise submission to thousands
of search engines are usually including in that list
minor engines or directories that utilize the databases
of the major engines regardless (so don’t require
submission) or a large number of Free For All (FFA)
sites. FFA sites can be link farms that can result
in getting your site banned from reputable search
engines or directories. Why even take the chance of
diminishing your sites reputation. If you are targeting
specific geographic markets, you might like to submit
your site to the most popular regional search engines
in those countries, but the fact is that most people
worldwide continue to use search engines/directories/portals
such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN despite the fact that
there are local versions available. Get your site
listed on the 10 most popular search engines and directories
and you will have the major worldwide traffic sources
covered.
Resubmitting Too Soon and Too Often
It takes time to have your site spidered by the search
engines you have submitted to. It is easy to be impatient
and think it is time to re-submit your pages. If you
are using a submission tool, most will generally let
you know the average time it takes for an engine to
see your pages after submission. It can be up to 12
weeks before your page gets spidered, so be patient
and wait it out. If after the time that it should
take has been passed, look again at your page and
see why it has not been accepted by the particular
engine. If it didn't meet up to the engines relevancy
algorithm re-submitting it will have no effect.
Once you’re in a search engine’s database,
there is no need to re-submit your site. There is
no benefit, as the search engines robot is scheduled
to revisit and re-index all sites in the database
on a regular basis. Continual re-submitting can get
your URL permanently banned from a search engine for
“spamming them”. Another point is if a
page is indexed and in a good position, why send it
in again!
The only time you need to resubmit your site to
a search engine is if your URL changes or if your
domain suddenly drops out of their database entirely.
If your ranking drops make changes to the page to
better portray what the engine needs to see and wait
for the next robot spider to occur. If the domain
is actually nowhere to be found on the search engine
(this can happen from time to time as the search engines
clean out their databases) then is a good time to
re-submit! Read our guide on daily, weekly and monthly
checklists.
