Gary Goodman   Web Designer and Hosting
www.seo-submitter-pro.com

Search Engine Requirements
Guidelines for Higher Placement Chances

1.

Keep the important content near the top of your pages. The actual text on your website is very important. Search engines (spiders) read this to determine rankings. Some engines will place a higher rating of importance based on where they find the text in your page. Closer to the top is usually better. But having keywords throughout your page develops a "theme" and that too is important.

2.

Keep your site updated. Make sure that your site is up to date. No one likes to go to a page that never changes or that is very out of date. Make sure that the data in your page portrays the message that you want to send. Check the links on your site every now and again. Make sure the links are still active. Dead links are not only an inconvenience for the visitor, but can also negatively influence your rankings.

3.

Links to Other Pages. Links are very important for your ranking. Both from your page to other pages, and from other pages to yours.

4.

Create an effective title. Many search engines weigh the data in your title more heavily than other data in your page. Make sure that your title has keywords that represent your site effectively. For the most part the title should be short but always include your keyword(s).

5.

Don't use frames. Most search engines simply can not index a frames page. They get to your site and can't go anywhere. Consider frames like a big 'GO AWAY' sign. If your site does use frames, doorway pages are ideal for better rankings.

6.

Don't stuff the top of your pages with data the engines can't read. Something higher up in your page can be more important that something further down. Therefore, HTML formatting, images, scripts, etc. toward the top of your page can result in lower ratings.

7.

Website Content should be your #1 priority. Your quest for high placement must start with a good website. It is important to have a lot of text describing what you do. Use your keywords in the content, but don't repeat them over and over. Many search engines rate sites based on 'keyword density'. This is usually a formula that looks at META Keywords, words in your TITLE, words in paragraph text, words in links to other pages, and even words in the 'ALT' text on your images. They will even look at different forms of your keywords. For example, if an important keyword for you is 'FISH', the word 'FISHING' in the body of your document will raise the confidence in the word 'FISH' on some engines

8.

Don't place too many images. We have all seen pages that are almost all images. Usually they are the most beautiful sites. After all, your artist can make beautiful screens that display your content in the most eye-pleasing way. However, the search engines don't have eyes. They don't see the beautifully formatted text in your image. All they see is 'yourimage.jpg', and 'yourimage.jpg' doesn't go far in terms of content and relevancy.

9.

First consider links on your pages. When many search engines see them, they consider your site more 'real'. It also give the search engine spiders a place to go. Make your links meaningful. Make sure they relate to what you do (and keywords that are important to you). You can't have too many links on your pages.

10.

Links from others websites. Some search engines place a very heavy rating of importance on how many other sites in their index have links to your website. Think of it for a second. If you knew that a company was only linked to by one website, versus a company that was linked to by a thousand websites, which one would you consider more important? If you were a search engine, you would surely try to link the more important ones first.

www.seo-submitter-pro.com
Sep 15th 2007 18:03