----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I am sooooo NOT a person who knows search engine stuff, and really need some advise. I know about all the meta keyword stuff, and putting keywords in your alt tags etc... but what else can a person do to obtain better search engine placement? Any secrets that you folks may have would be very very appreciated. My boss has left me the dasterdly duty of improving his sites ranking, and I am at a loss. ----------------------------
A few links I have bookmarked: Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/index.html (more for you if you cough up!) Desiging for Search Engines http://www.digital-web.com/tutorials/tutorial_2001-4.shtml Search Engine Optimisation http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/23/index1a.html?tw=e-business Google for webmasters http://www.google.com/webmasters/ Creating and Submitting Seatch Engine Friendly Websites http://www.selfpromotion.com/ Watch out, though. I subscribed to Search Engine Watch a while ago and managed to get our company page in the top 5 Google rankings pretty easily. However, from what I gather these days, META keywords are less and less important - sometimes not used at all by the larger engines. Looks like most of the "secrets" from back then are free-to-the-public stuff now. I think subscribers get *real* detailed info on individual search engines, kind of behind-the-scenes stuff. DO have a good META description, though. As this has no bearing on ranking, it can't be abused META spammers, and it's therefore usually used for the summary in search results - can affect things as people scan results. One absolute top tip: make the TITLE tag good. Not toooooooo long, but get the main keywords in. If getting people to the site is top priority, you have to forget that little voice that reminds you how irritating it is when you go to a site with a looonnnngggg title, and when you bookmark it you have to edit the title. It may irritate some people, but cynically put, if you've got them to the stage of bookmarking your site, it doesn't matter :-| (note: this still grates against my web sensibilities!) Also, use "Blah blah blah and blah from Yadda Inc." rather than "Yadda Inc: Blah blah blah and blah". Make sure the first paragraph contains major keywords, and the the para isn't too far down the page (i.e. the header's not too complex) and it's not nested inside too many table cells. Preferably none at all. CSS to the rescue... Apparently submitting all the time does next to nothing as well. Google say, "Submission is not necessary and does not guarantee inclusion in our index." And: "You can submit your site as often as you like, but multiple submissions will not improve the likelihood of your site being added or accelerate the process." And naturally: "The best way to ensure a high listing on Google is for your page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites." Avoid Flash and frames, I guess ;-) I gather there are ways around these, but why bother? HTH & good luck! - Gyrus ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - [EMAIL PROTECTED] work: http://www.tengai.co.uk play: http://www.norlonto.net - PGP key available ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ______________________________________________________________________ This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
