2. In Part 1 of this article detailing the five best practices
for domination the search engines, we discussed
website design and the use of keywords. In this part we
will look at three more, one of which is related to search
engine optimization and the use of HTML tags, and the
other two are ways of improving your link popularity.
4. Some claim that search engines, especially Google, no
longer regard meta tags as being important. In fact
nobody really knows what Google thinks is important,
and there is evidence that some meta tags are still used
by spiders in the assessment of the relevance of your
website to specific search terms or keywords used by
search engine users. The meta tags that you should use
on every page of your site are the description and the
keyword meta tags.
5. Your description meta tag should provide a good
description of your website, and contain your main
keywords. This will likely not be seen by anybody, only
the search engines, but it might be used to assess the
relevance of your site in indexing with respect to specific
search terms being used.
6. The other meta tag that search engines still use is the
keyword meta tag. This should contain a list of
keywords used on the page. If you don't use it, don't
add it to the meta tag. Also, don't use the same word
too many times, since it will be regarded as keyword
stuffing. After meta tags, you should look at your titles
and how they are presented to search engines spiders.
7. Ideally, the title should be the keyword for each page.
Do not use the same title for every page. It is the title of
your web page that should be here, not your website.
This provides search engines with an indication of the
topic of your page. The title itself should be within H1
tags. This tells the search engine that these words are
the most important on the page. They should also be
the first text that the spiders come across on your page,
since Google also gives special emphasis to the first text
it finds.
8. Any secondary titles you might have on each page
should be contained within H2 tags. These titles should
also contain keywords that you are using on your page
and that are contained in your keyword meta tag.
10. The more links you have leading back to your web pages
from other websites, the more influential the search
engines will calculate your web pages to be for the
topics concerned. Many people use a reciprocal linking
strategy, whereby two websites agree to show each
other's links. This can be self defeating, since search
engines such as Google can regard a link away from your
site as weakening yours, and so cancels out the benefit
of the back link.
11. The crucial aspect of who benefits from this
arrangement comes for the relative page ranking. The
page rank of a web page can be found on the green bar
on the Google toolbar, This is an indication of the link
popularity of the page you are viewing. If you are linked
with a web page with a higher page rank than yours,
then you might get the benefit of the deal. However, in
general terms, the more links you have back to your site
the better.
12. If you carry out a Google search for keywords that relate
to yours, you should be able to find some websites with
high page ranking that are not direct competitors. Write
asking for a link to your site from theirs, explaining the
benefits to their customers/visitors of you doing so.
One of four things will happen. They will not reply, they
will refuse , they will agree or they will agree on
condition that you provide a similar link back to them.
13. The usual reply is the first or the last, but it costs you
nothing to try, and you can get a lot of good links back to
your website by doing this. If the page rank is high even
a reciprocal link will be of benefit to your site's page
rank and search engine listing.
14. Some website directories offer software on a free or a
subscription basis that automatically handles reciprocal
link requests. The paid versions generally set up a link
directory on your website then provide you with offers
of reciprocal links that you can either agree to or refuse.
If you agree they can automatically add the link to your
directory. With free versions you have to add the link
yourself. These are very useful if you are selective.
16. Links are much more valuable if they are one way,
without you reciprocating. This is where the benefits of
article marketing become huge. When you write articles
and submit them to article directories, you get a one
way link back from each directory your article is
published on. Not only that, but if readers deem your
article worthy of being copied to their website as
content, then your web page also gets a link back from
there. The link you get is to the page for which you
provided the URL in your 'bio' or 'author's resource
page'.
17. Although article marketing is a good way of achieving
back links, they are not targeted to specific websites
that could benefit you. What are really of benefit are
either sites that relate to yours, from which your links
could provide you with traffic focused on your niche, or
high page rank sites that will provide you with high
value links and that is where you have to resort to
personal requests.
18. If you apply all of the advice provided in these
recommended best practices for dominating the search
engines you should give your listing a big boost, and if
done properly you have a very good chance of achieving
a Page One position.