1. 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 the page labeled “testimonials”, create a link to a page called “marketing successes”.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 (www.anybrowser.com).
5. 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).
6. Reciprocal Links – search engines (especially Goggle) place high relevancy on links to your site to get 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 link:www.mysite.com
7. 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.
8. 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.
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com. Affordable
Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his
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