Web Concepts

Archive for January, 2008

To humans they look great but to Search engines Macromedia Flash, frames and JavaScript are meaningless. In fact, some of the robots and spiders stop completely when they encounter script on a page. But look at the source of the majority of Web pages and where do you find the JavaScript? If you construct your header to impart the maximum of information then spider will have found enough useful material ahead of the script to give you a meaningful entry.

So you now have your header, but still if your body text does not reinforce your header it is very likely that your page may still be ignored.

One way the spiders can tell how closely your page matches the needs of the searcher is to examine how many times your page contains the keyword or keyword phrase entered by the searcher. Great, so we just put in lots of repetition and the job's finished isn't it? No, but your search engine listings may be.

Spiders love to find lots of text, so give them plenty of reading material. the key to a good keyword listing is how many times the page contains the phrase in relation to the total number of words on the page. keyword packing is most definitely not the answer as having too high a keyword density can be as damaging as too low, and each search engine works differently.

The biggest problem is that getting keyword density often makes a page unattractive to humans, so there's a delicate balance to be achived.

Take a look at the tags at the top of this page:

Add symbols <> before and after each tag:
html
head

meta name="description" content="advice on search engine positioning, being positioned on the wrong keywords is a bad as being not positioned at all."
meta name="keywords" content="search engine positioning, site optimizing, web site optimising, site optimizing"
meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"
/head

Remember that most search engines give more weight to words found in the TITLE, especially if those words are also found in the body of the text. The TITLE is much more informative and likely to generate more solid keywords in the search engines, especially if the keywords appear in the body of the page.

However, we know that some search engines do not read META.

Now the search engines know what to say about the site, but we still want to tell them what keywords we would like to be found under. Only use relevant keywords, do not put keywords in here just to get traffic. Think what you're hoping to achive from your site, be it sales, enquiries or whatever. Measure your success by those results, not by head counting the visitors you con into arriving here.

You'll hear conflicting opinions on the importance of Meta tags - contained in the heading of an HTML page. While meta tags aren't the answer to why your site isn't being listed, they are an essential part of a well-designed web site promotion programme. Remember that search engine operators are trying to offer relevant hits. It's easy to insert hidden text in Meta tags that has no relevance to the actual page content, and thus attempt to fool the search engine. But how does the spider know what's important on the page? One significant clue would be to read the Meta Tags and then look for corresponding visible text on the page; if the same words occur in both then there's a very good chance that the tag is for real and worthy of a high relevancy score.

The key is to use a carefully judged mix of the Meta tags and title.

Most searh engines give additional weight to words found in the Title tag if those words are also found in the body text. In many cases, the Meta description is the text that is presented by the search engine following the site's listing. It describes your site to the people reading the search results. It's your opportunity to persuade them that the search is relevant and that they should click on your site - not the one above or below.

The "Header Tag" is situated at the top of the source code in a webpage. The header tag is usually made up of three components the "Title tag", the "Description tag" and the "Meta tag(s)".

Modern browsers are very tolerant of your internal page layout, so if you miss out tags like , and , along with their associated cloding tags, you're unlikely to see a problem with the layout of your page.

So why bother putting them the header tags in? Different spiders read different parts of the Header tags, currently we know that Google give a high priority to the "Title" and "Description" tags. Whilst Yahoo also gives additionsl consideration to the "Meta" tags.

The first item in the toolbox is a Search Term Suggestion Tool. It helps you to choose search phrases that are actually being used. One of your favourites for non-specialists is Overture, a great free tool that deserves the exposure we're giving it here. So the URL where you can find specific keywords is:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Once you have the keyword or phrase you want, go to Google, Yahoo or MSN and search for the term. Somewhere on the page usually at the top there will be a piece of text that says "results out of...". This does not signify how many companies are competing with you, what it does signify is how many pages the search engine understands to have some relevancy to the search term. As a general rule the higher the number the more difficult top placing will be.

Having familiarised yourself with the two tools above, it's critical that you now use them to identify the keywords that are going to generate the best traffic, not necessary the most traffic.

Using a spread sheet program like Excel, tabulate your findings number of searches against the number of competitive pages. This should be enough information for you to be able to make a decision on which keywords are likely to be successful, along with the chances of gaining a good position compared with the competition.

There will be search terms that have a reasonable number of searches each month but some will have a much lower competition, making them a far easier option for early success in search engine positioning.

Judgin your keywords correctly is a major hurdle. Time spent getting them right will do more for your ultimate success than just about any other element of the optimisation process.

Without the right keywords, nothing else matters. The trick with keyword selection is not what most people think, which is to use the most popular words in your category. Instead you want your keywords and keyword phrases to be focused on the exact words your prospective customers are most likely to use.

Here's an example to illustrate the point:

Words like cars and vehicles are just popular to pursue. Typing these into a search at Lycos produses results something like this: a search for cars gave me more than 6 million pages...and for vehicles more than 5 millions. It would be difficult to get to the top using these keywords, although given time, not impossible.

But it's better to be smart than ambitious. You're much better off going after a less popular, more specific keyword phrase such as "used car price". This would attract people looking for a specific keyword, which is more closely related to your actual product or service. So when someone finds you with one of these highly specific keywords, they're much more likely to buy form you.

Choosing the wrong keyword - say "car buying advice", whilst catching the small number that do use it as a search keyword, would reduce the number of potential hits dramatically. In this case "car buying guide" and "car loan" have every little competition but quite a lot of searches.

Another point to be aware of can be demonstrated by looking at a recent example. A client sold Siemens Domestic Appliances, in his innocence they were insisting of being optimised for "Siemens". Whilst the word "Siemens" is a vary popular word, the fact that most "Siemens" searches are mobile phone related only goes to confirm the need to research properly. If indeed the site had been optimised for the word "Siemens" not only would have the project have been significantly more expensive, but it would not have fulfilled the user experience resulting in the next click being on the back button.

At this point you will no doubt have an idea as what keywords are appropriate to your site. But before you adopt these keywords it would be preferable to ensure the words are actually used in searches, and then assess how achievable they are.