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17 Highly Effective Strategies to Increase Search Engine Rankings
by Herman Drost ©Copyright 2002-2003

Search engines are still one of the most effective ways to drive
traffic to your web site. This is because it is highly targeted
traffic. A person searching for a particular phrase on a search
engine, gets taken to your web site. 

It makes sense then, to make your site as attractive as possible
to the search engines, so your rankings will improve, giving you
more visitors which leads to more sales - your ultimate goal. 

Here are 17 powerful strategies you should implement, to
substantially increase search engine traffic: 

1. Keyword Density - the ratio of keywords on your visible
page to non-keywords is called Keyword Density. i.e. if you 
have 100 words on your page and 3 of those words are "boat" or
"boats", then you will get a keyword density of 3% of your text
for the word "boat". 

Try to aim for a keyword density on your site from 3-20%. This
will give you a good range. You can analyze your keyword density
by using these online tools: 

http://www.keyworddensity.com 
http://www.keywordcount.com 

2. Keywords in your domain name - try to incorporate one of your
keywords or a keyword phrase in your domain name. i.e.
www.isitebuild.com (building web sites) or www.ihost-websites.com 
(hosting web sites). This may also help people to memorize your 
name when they are looking for this service. 

3. Page Title - write a short descriptive title of 5-8 words for
your web site, containing your primary keywords or keyword
phrase. The page title is the first thing that people see when
your site appears in the search engines. Begin your title with a
capital letter, then follow with lower-case letters. This makes
it easier to read than titles with all words capitalized. Place
your most important keyword phrase toward the beginning of your
title tag. 

4. Description Meta Tag - some search engines will include this
below your title. Choose 20 of your most important keywords and
write a 200-250 character sentence about your site. Don't repeat
your title description but write a different one with different
keywords. Some search engines will just take this description
meta tag, some will use both the title and description tags. 

5. Keywords Meta Tag - research 50-100 keywords people would
insert in the search engines to find your site. A great tool for
doing this is the keyword suggestion tool:
(http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion) or
Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com). Refine this list to 
your 20 best keywords or keyword phrases. 

Leave out the commas between your keywords, so the search engines 
can group the words into any phrases that seem appropriate. This 
positions your words for minimum space with maximum combinations. 

6. Header Tags - search engines tend to place emphasis on the
header tags so make sure you have your H1 tag at the top of your
web page. Use CSS (cascading style sheets) to avoid the problem
of your text appearing too large when just using html for
this tag. 

Use the other header tags (H2, H3, H4) throughout your web copy. 

7. Comment Tags - these are mostly used by web designers to
remind them of how to structure web pages. Write a sentence 
using some of your most important keywords, place it in a 
comment tag and insert the comment tag in your body copy. 

8. Use the ALT Tag for Images - some people surf the Web with
the graphics turned off. Placing ALT tags in the html code for 
your images enables them to see the description of that image. 

Incorporate keywords in the alt tag of your images. WARNING:
Make sure the words relate to the graphic, otherwise you could
get banned for "keyword stuffing". 

9. Image File Names - change your image file names to your
keywords. 

10. Page Link Names - place a primary keyword in your page link
names. Rather than using a link in your navigation bar like
"services", add a keyword to that page link. If you offer web
hosting services, it could be "webhostingservices.htm" 

Also use keywords in the page links throughout your copy.
Instead of writing a paragraph about your testimonials and
linking to a page labeled "testimonials", create a link to a
page called "marketing successes". 

11. Create a Site Map - create a site map that contains links to
all the sections of your site. Write a description for each
section. Place this site map on your homepage as some search
engines will only index the homepage and not deeper pages in
your site. 

12. Quality Content - provide web copy of 250 to 300 words
which are targeted for your web site visitors. Sprinkle your
most important keywords throughout your text, particularly in
the first paragraph. Be careful not to overstuff keywords in
your copy so that it sounds strange when you read it. Get some
others to review and edit your pages before you submit them for
the world to read. 

13. Repair Broken Links - most search engine directories will
not list your site if it has broken links. Also visitors get
frustrated when they reach a broken link page (404 error page)
and will click elsewhere. Make sure you do a link check before
your site goes live (http://www.anybrowser.com). 

14. Create a Contact Page - the search engine directory, Yahoo
will not index your page if you don't have a real address (don't
use a Post Office Address). 

15. Reciprocal Links - search engines (especially Google) place
high relevancy on links to your site in assigning a good ranking.
Create a links page that includes links to sites with similar
content. Make sure they don't compete with your site and that
they are quality links. Preferably, find sites that already have
a high search engine ranking. 

Ask sites that link to your competition to link to your site. To
find out which sites are linking to your competition, visit a
search engine and enter "link:" before your competitors URL. For
example: link:mysite.com or link:www.mysite.com 

16. Cross linking multiple sites - if you have multiple sites,
cross link all your sites and include a description on your web
site for each link. 

17. Keep your file size small - if you use dynamic html (i.e.
javascript, DHTML) it will often push your web copy (containing
your keywords) to the bottom of your page. Since search engines
read the text that is near the top of your page, that nice piece
of javascript you have placed before your web copy, will affect
your search engine rankings. 

You can keep your file size small by storing your JavaScript and
CSS code in an external file. 

Conclusion:
Create a simple, clean design for your web site that is easily 
navigable. Focus on good quality content with well-written, 
keyword rich copy, based on how it will benefit the visitor. 
Implement the powerful strategies outlined above and the traffic 
to your web site will increase dramatically.

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Herman Drost is a Certified Web Site Designer (CIW), owner 
and author of iSiteBuild.com  Affordable Hosting, Site Design 
and Promotion Packages (http://www.isitebuild.com) 

Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original
articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. Read more of his
in-depth articles at: www.isitebuild.com/articles 
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