Search Engine Positioning...More Than Just Submitting
By Judy Camp
Though many things have changed on the web, most website traffic still comes from search engines today. So, while your affiliate programs, ezines, viral marketing efforts, reciprocal links and autoresponders are important, search engine optimization continues to play a vital role in getting traffic.
Most people are familiar with meta tags, which include the page title, description, and keywords. But many people don't realize it is vital you have your keywords within the pages themselves.
I have one client in particular who is especially problematic. The company is huge, very corporate, and very protective of the text that goes on each page, which must be approved by several people internally. We at the ad agency have little say in regard to the text, which is unusual.
But this same company expects us to be able to get them top listings in search engines for key words that aren't even on the page! I'm beginning to turn blue from the repetition of saying, "We have to add the keywords to the page." Luckily, they are beginning to get it, and even recently put my own suggested paragraph, laden with keywords, on a page. Sigh.
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Remember, you can't just put a list of keywords on the page, or hide them against a similar background. Put your keywords within headlines and paragraphs on the page. Here are a few more tips for getting good listings in search engines:
1. Find out what key phrases people are actually using. Start by using the free keyword suggestion tool by Wordtracker: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ or Google's free keyword tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
In using either site, put in the most basic word, such as "books". A list will appear, showing how many people searched that word in the past month, combined with other words. If you sell books, you might choose to carry cook books, for example, since "cook book" was searched 47,000 times. You may decide to create a new web page for another type of book that rates high on the list, to draw in existing traffic. This will help you identify the popularity of various keywords, which you can assume is similar in other search engines.
2. Once you have your best keywords in mind, put your most profitable ones in a page's title, within a short phrase.
3. Find ways to get quality links TO your site. Google is currently the top search engine, which I discussed in a prior article, "New Trends in Search Engine Positioning", Tailor your efforts to what Google wants.
One of Google's top listing factors is how many incoming links you have. Sure, reciprocal links are good, but Google gives less points for every other link on whatever page points to you. Come up with creative ways to get individual links. You could offer something free, and invite visitors to place a link on their site, allowing their visitors to access it free as well.
Another great way to get individual links is by submitting articles to article directories.
Try to provide your own text for incoming links, and put your most important keywords in the part that is underlined as the link, another Google factor.
4. Submit manually at least once a quarter. Every six weeks is best. Usually only the home page is necessary, but sometimes I rotate with my biggest money-making web pages. Provide links to your other pages, especially on your home page, so the spiders can find all the pages.
For easy manual submissions, you can use this page, http://www.ourbusinessoffice.com/searchenginesubmit.html. You might want to place a link to the page on your own web site, so you can find it again later.
These tips should help with your search engine positioning, giving you an edge over competing sites which are also vying for your most profitable keywords.
About the author:
Judy Camp has been a writer and marketing manager for more than twenty years, and has focused on web marketing for the past ten years. Her web site http://www.ourbusinessoffice.com provides resources for web businesses.
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