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[S524]Six Steps Of Scientific Method

by Navneet Gulati, Nav

Ever felt intimidated at the convoluted, jargon-ridden information about Internet marketing for small businesses available on the Net? Ever been horrified by the huge fees the experts charge, putting search engine optimization beyond your own means? Ever thought: What exactly is search engine optimization anyway, and can I do it myself?

The answer is: Yes, you can! The basics of search engine optimization in applied web marketing are simple. It's all to do with the keyword content of your text copy, and can be summarized in seven points.

1. Register a good domain name which reflects what your site is about. Rather, you want to register something like Best Widgets because that would inspire confidence in people looking for quality widgets who would not necessarily have heard of Fred Jones the widget-maker.

2. Name your page URLs based on reasons similar to the above for your web promotion, except now you can be more specific. Search engines like to know what your page is about. Name a page after a product (BigYellowWidgets.htm) or a service or action (Buy-Widgets-by-Post.htm) on one of the sales pages.

3. The text in the title tag is crucial in letting search engines know what each page is about. Put your important keywords in your title tags, using both the singular and plural versions (people will search for both) and make these tags different and specific for each page. For example, "Widgets and After Sales Widget Services". Whatever you do, don't call the home page "Index", but treat it almost as a mini-description.

4. The other tags (at the top of the html page) between the two "HEAD" tags are not as important as the title tag, but the description tag is still used by some search engines in displaying what you would like web users to see when they scroll down a page of search results. Some search engines don't use the description tag at all; others, like Google, sometimes use part of it together with part of the main body text surrounding prominent keywords on your page. So you may as well treat the description tag seriously; make it brief (about 25 to 30 words) and as comprehensive as possible in the short space allowed. Make sure you have your popular keywords included within your description tag. The ALT tag is used for a very short description of an image or graphic file, and is what is displayed if you allow your mouse pointer to hover above a graphic. These days it is not considered important for search engines. The COMMENT tag is never displayed on the body page, and is used by coders and designers as an instruction or reminder to themselves about what that section of html coding should be doing; in the past, some webmasters in their quest for website promotion and search engine ranking used to stuff keywords in the comments tags, but now it is generally acknowledged that the main search engines pay little or no attention to these.

5. Keyword density. Each search engine has its own preference as to how many times a keyword phrase appears on the page in order to signify the relevance of that keyword phrase (in other words, in order to help the search engine understand what the page is about). Around 5 to 8 per cent is a rough guide as to the optimal level. Don't overdo it, otherwise it will be seen as spam or keyword-stuffing. Also use your keywords in the headings tags H1 and H2. There is an H3 tag as well, but it is doubtful whether search engines bother with that, as it is perceived as less prominent on the page, therefore less relevant to what the page is about.

6. Don't forget good linking in your website marketing. Search engines will judge the importance of your web pages to some extent on the number and quality of incoming links from other sites. Ask other webmasters with sites on similar themes to yours for a link, in exchange for a link back. These sites should not be in competition with yours, but should be similarly themed. You may occasionally be asked by other webmasters if they can link to your site. If this is so then have a look at their site; make sure that their site is relevant, that it has at least some Page Rank, and that it just "feels" good, and has no nasty surprises like redirects or unexpected popups. You don't want to be associated with a "bad neighborhood"!

7. Make sure that important keywords are included in the anchor text within inbound links from other sites. This is crucial to search engines when they try to figure out the relevance and importance of your pages. The inbound link from the other site should take the form of something like this (I'm using normal brackets instead of angle brackets so as not to use compromising html): your important keywords included here(/A). You should definitely avoid something like click here(/A), which tells search engines nothing except that your site is about "click here". Be careful!
Ever wondered how to go about optimizing your own website without the expense of paying professional SEO fees? This article spells it out in 7 easy points, written by a professional practitioner who specialises in SEO and Internet marketing for small businesses.

Ask this question of most search engine experts and you'll probably get a very long answer. It isn't an exact science because we are all trying to guess what how Google ranks sites.

However there are six really simple steps that you can take that will improve your site for Google and help boost you up the rankings.

Step One: Are you using your Title tags properly?

These are the tags that you put at the start of your html code.

These tags are read by Google when it looks at your site and it uses this information to decide what each of your pages is about. You should make sure that you have a different title tag for every page and that it describes your page using the keywords for that page. Avoid titles like Home Page etc.

Step Two: Use Description meta tags.

As with the title tag, you should be using the description meta tag.

Search engines read this tag in the same way they read the title tag and they use the information to decide what you pages are about. So use a different one for each page and include the keywords to that page.

Also it's usually both the title tag and the description tag that are displayed when Google lists your page in its search results. So make sure they are also enticing to click on!

Step Three: Think about your internal linking.

Make sure you have a good linking structure within your site for the Google to follow as it crawls your site to index it.

Linking text within the main content of your web pages to other pages in your site is a good way to help Google. Don't just rely on your menus to help Google find its way around.

Check for broken links in your site. There are lots of programs, many free, that will check your site and report any broken links.

Step Four: Use different keywords for each of your pages.

Google indexes pages not web sites so you don't need to use the same keyword on every page to optimise for that keyword.

Target each page with a single keyword and make sure you use that through the page. I mentioned using it in title and description tags earlier. You should also try to use your keywords in some of the headings on your site. Make sure you are using the H1, H2 codes for headings.

You should also use the keyword for the page as the linking text from other pages back to the page.

Step Five: Less is not always good.

Make sure you have a content rich site. By that I mean lots of words!

Make sure your words are relevant for the topic of your web page. Don't forget that your web page needs to be readable by your human visitor not just Google.

Images are fine to break up a page and convey meaning to your human visitor, but Google doesn't see them. If you do use images, make sure you use the alt tag. Google will read these and use the words to help index the web page. However make sure the alt tag describes the picture. Don't just stuff it with keywords. Using the alt tag is important for addressing web site accessibility which is now a legal requirement in many countries.

Step Six: Play it straight.

Don't try to trick Google. Avoid techniques like cloaking, keyword stuffing, hidden text or any of the other tricks meant to fool Google because I can assure you they will not work.

They are unethical and frankly unnecessary. If you have a site with a good link structure, full of relevant content you will be rewarded by Google.

I hope you follow through on all of these steps. In themselves they won't get you top ranking but if you don't follow them you have no chance of a good ranking at all.

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Both Navneet Gulati & Vernon Riley are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Navneet Gulati has sinced written about articles on various topics from Writing, Internet Marketing and SEO Search Engine Optimization. . Navneet Gulati's top article generates over 2400 views. to your Favourites.

Vernon Riley has sinced written about articles on various topics from self improvement and motivation, Internet Marketing and Home Internet Business. Vernon Riley is a founder of KKSmarts. Their website contains many free guides and their popular free. Vernon Riley's top article generates over 40500 views. to your Favourites.