I have been operating web sites for the last couple of years. I have developed a proven method of getting the sites I run into the search engines quickly. I then use that same method to help get them to rank well for a small number of keywords, allowing the buoyancy effect to come into play for the rest of the site when one or two keywords ranks very high. In case you were not aware, when one or two keywords rank well within a given site, many secondary keywords enjoy a buoyancy effect and are lifted because of the nice rankings of the main keywords.



I like to review a handful of concepts with the design team before we launch a new site. I like to start by checking for H1 and H2 tags being used throughout the main pages of the web site. Search engine spiders are quick to notice and crawl text in these tags, so they are important in helping the spiders to understand the theme of the site. With good content and the right tags to support them, the site will quickly be crawled by the spiders, the theme will be correctly derived and the search engines can start sending traffic to the site when people request information using the keywords.

I look for anchor text being used in the text on the home page. I have helped many website owners to achieve better rankings by having them remove images where the important message of the site, what it is all about, is embedded in the image. The simple fact is that, while it may look more attractive to the user, the search engines cannot read images and pull text away from the image, so it is not worthwhile to put the important message of the site in the image. I recommend using a smaller image and having the text be in a prominent position so that the user can click and go instantly to the point of interest.

For each main keyword in the site I like to have a unique page that highlights it. Search engines give intrinsic value to pages that contain the keyword in the name and title of the page, right in the html name. For example, a page written for diamond rings should contain anchor text for diamond rings in the home page and be named the same as the anchor text. When this naming and anchor text convention is used the search engines will instantly award the right theme and indexing for the keyword.

I then move my efforts to looking for dashes and underscores in naming conventions. There are many solid examples of pages indexing better using dashes and not underscores in their name. I have no clue as to why this is but it has been proven so we should all follow the rule. If all else is equal, two pages named search-engine.htm and search_engine.htm will not rank the same. There have been lots of studies done to support this theory so I always remove the underscores from all file and page names.

Do you want to know what the search engines think the theme of your site is? The absolute best way to do review this information is to use the Google Keyword Tool (type that phrase into a search engine). You will be treated with what the search engine believes your site is about when you look at the terms it returns. Many clients of mine are surprised to learn that the search engines do not think the site is even remotely close to what they intended and we go through a process of fixing the view from the search engine's perspective. We do that mostly by putting simple no follow terms into the links and by highlighting keywords with H1 and H2 tags. The situation can quickly be turned around so please do not worry if your site is not what you think.