Search Engine Optimization Basics
By Gary Knuckles
The Crazy Web Guy
I recently received an in-depth course called "Stomping The
Search Engines" and since I have a bunch of sites I decided to
try out a few of the SEO basics described in the course on
some of my sites not doing well in the search engines.
I wanted to try some of the techniques on a couple of my sites
first before devoting a lot of time to all of the techniques on all of my sites if I didn't see any results.
Not to mention some of my sites have some good search engine
placements as well and I didn't want to run tests with them.
:-)
Well after about three weeks I'm already starting to see some
results from just using a few of the basic techniques for
optimizing a web page. Hopefully if I start applying all of
the techniques then I should see some very promising results.
One of my test sites was PromoteFree.com which I'm revamping
at this time and I decided to see what I could do with the
term "fr-e-e ezine promotion" and "fr-e-e web promotion".
Before applying just a few of the basic techniques my site
didn't turn up at all in Google or at least not in the first 5
or 6 pages for the term.
Amazingly it's now at #1 in Google for the term "fr-e-e ezine
promotion" after 3 weeks. Bear in mind that's as of just now
while writing this article.
Tomorrow could be a different story...grin... we know how that
can be with Google or any search engine.
"Here today, gone tomorrow."
Also that is for 245,000 competing pages in Google not 2 or 3
million pages.
The other term I added is "fr-e-e web promotion", and I'm now
21st in Google for that term at the above site. That is with 6
million competing pages and I wasn't in the first 100 sites
either a few weeks ago.
Bear in mind too, this site is in dire need of updating the
content and revamping the look which I'm currently doing, so
it made for a good site to test with since I haven't posted
any of the new revamped pages yet with a totally new look. I'm
almost afraid to change it now...big smile...
However another site I did a test on has moved up to 66th in
Google and wasn't even in the top 400 sites three weeks ago.
(I'll tell you about a fr-e-e online tool to quickly find your
Google or Yahoo position later in this article.)
This site is competing with 9,500,000 pages in Google, so not
bad for just a few basic tweaks. The site is
InternetInformationManger.com and the term was "Internet
Information Manager" that I wanted to improve on.
So quickly let me review a couple of the basic changes I made
and have been experimenting with that you might try on your
sites plus a couple of "no-charge" tools to make tracking the
changes or results easier.
Understand that these are suggestions that anyone with a
website should consider following. They are not some big
secret unknown to the world, but good sound principles that in
most cases should be put to use on most websites anyway.
Will you get a number one ranking in Google? Certainly I'm
making no promises...grin... so read on...
Maybe or maybe not, that depends on the key words, number of
competing pages, page rank, links coming to your site and oh
so many other factors and variables.
But just following a few basic steps certainly can't hurt, at
least as my results have shown for me anyway.
So onward we go:
1. Put your search term or key word in your title meta tag.
Please note the title meta tag does not display on your
website (nor do other meta tags), but Google may grab part of
this tag and include it in their listing for your site. At
least currently they do.
Include what your site is targeting. An example is my
PromoteFree site. I added the terms I mentioned earlier to my
title meta tag saying:
PromoteFree.com - Free Web Promotion, Free Ezine
Promotion, Many free links and resources to promote your site
with and advertise free..
It use to say:
"PromoteFree.com - Many free links and resources to promote
your site with and advertise free."
Remember these are only quick examples from my tests, after
all complete books are written on this subject, so results can
vary.
2. Place your keywords in your description meta tag. Do it in
a natural way so it fits the theme of your site and it tells
about your site or product. I don't suggest just copying your
title tag since it will probably be shorter than your
description meta tag.
Here is an example from my Internet Information Manager site:
Internet Information Manager Affiliate Software
The description tag can and may also be displayed in the
search engine's listing for your site. Each search engine
varies. Some grab words from the Title and Description tags,
plus parts of your web page content as well.
3. When placing keywords in your title and description tags
you need to experiment with how many times to use the keywords
in these tags.
This is called keyword density. Keyword density also plays a
part in the content on your web page as well and how it might
rank.
There is a lot debate about how much keyword density should be
percentage wise in relation to the other words on your site
and in your tags. I'm not going to be a part of that
debate...grin...
I say you have to experiment with the density to see what gets
the best results. It's hard believe there is a hard set
percentage that will get you better rankings.
In my tests above, I have added and deleted words to the title
and description tags to increase and decrease the density and
seen both sites move in the rankings up and down. So it just
depends on your site and all the other many variables that
affect search engine optimization. This can also vary from
search engine to search engine.
I have also deleted the description tag and the title tag and
had my ranking change (obviously). In fact my PromoteFree site
has the description tag deleted and it's doing very well with
just the title tag.
Go figure...grin...
In other words you have to experiment, do some research, check
what other sites are doing in your given area, and test, test
and test to see what works best.
The above are just some samples from my testing and of course
your results can vary, and I do not claim to be a search
engine expert, quite the opposite.
:-)
But I have learned a lot from the Stomping The Search Engines
Course. It's a very in-depth course and I highly recommend it.
If you are really into search engine techniques or
interested in learning much more about improving your
search engine optimization methods then check out this
course on the topic. Very in-depth and covers the basics
as well as advance techniques. (Yes this is my affiliate
link...grin...)
http://www.1automationwiz.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=169139
Ok, last but not least;
Here are a couple of sites to help you with finding your
search engine position, density, page rank, incoming links and
more:
---------------------------------
PRSearch.net
Just click the Google tab, enter your search term and your
site URL then choose how many positions to look down in such
as the first 100, etc.
http://www.prsearch.net/ranking.php
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URLinfo
This site has all kinds of useful tools. Each TAB menu item
opens another set of options for that specific menu item. The
tab style interface has 85+ tools.
For instance, go to the MISC Tab and you can find your page
rank, popular words on your page, text analyzer and much more.
Use the LINKS Tab to find: sites linking to your site from
Yahoo, Google, Gigablast, and even from popular blogs and much
more.
Use the DEVELP Tab to check your HTML code, spelling, keyword
density, speed and more.
http://www.faganfinder.com/urlinfo
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Well I hope you found the tests I have been running helpful.
Again, test, test, and more testing, keep track of your
changes and the results you get.
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Copyright 2004 Gary Knuckles
The Crazy Web Guy
http://www.crazywebguy.com
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