Search Engine Optimization : SEO BOOK.
Chapter
2
Your One-Hour Search -Engine-Friendly
Web Site Makeover
A few small changes can make a big difference in your site's position
in the search engines. So rather than force you to read this entire
book before you can get anything done, this chapter helps you identify
problems with your site and shows you how to make a significant difference
quick fixes.
Is Your Site Indexed
It's important to find out if your site is actually in a search engine
or directory. Your site doesn't come up when someone searches at Google
for rodent racing? Can't find it in the Yahoo! Directory? Have you ever
thought that perhaps it simply isn't there? It is tried to explain how
to find out if your site is indexed in few different systems.
Google: Our starting will be with Google. Open your browser and load
a page at your site. For now, Start with your site's home page,although
you can seee this technique for any page, and then follow these steps.
· Click The I Icon on the Google Toolbar: If you are using internet
explorer download the google toolbar - available at toolbar.google.com
- to your computer. If u don't have the toolbar don't worry, I explain
a non-toolbar method in a moment.
· Select Cached Snapshot Of Page from the drop-down list that
appears : If you are lucky, Google loads a page showing you what it
has in its cache, so you know Google has indexed the page.
If you are unlucky, Google tells you that it has nothing in the cache
for that page. That doesn't necessarily mean Google hasn't
indexed the page, though .A cache is a temporary storage area in which
a copy of something is placed. In the context of the web,
a cache stores a Web page.
If you don't have the Google Toolbar,you can instead go
to Google site and type the following into the Google search box:
Cache:http://yourdomain.com/
Replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name. When
you click search, Google checks to see if it has the page in its cache.
What if Google doesn't have the page? Does that mean your page is not
in Google? No, not necessarily. Google may not have gotten
around to catching it. Sometimes Google grabs a little information from
a page but not the entire page.
Now try this. Search google for the following:
Site:yourdomain.com -pppppp
This tells Google to find all the pages on the yourdomain.com site
that don't have the text pppppp. The dash (-) before the text tells
Google to omit pages with this text. You can also replace pppppp with
any text that you are sure doesn't appear on you site.Google should
show you all the pages on your site that it knows about. For some reasons,
if you change the garbage text, Google will provide a different result;
site:yourdomain.com -pppppp is not same as site:yourdomain.com -oiuiyiy)
What if google doesn't return any search results? Try removing or adding
the www. bit; that is, if you searched for site: yourdomain.com -pppppp
then try site www.yourdomain.com -pppppp or vice versa. Sometimes Google
returns results one way but not the other. Also, make sure that you
didn't mistype the search string; try again to be sure. If nothing works,
then Google doesn't know about your website.
Yahoo! : At the time of writing, Yahoo! Search results are provided
by Google, so you don't need to check Yahoo! However, by the time you
read this, yahoo! May be providing its own search results. Here's how
to check. Go to Yahoo! And type any keyword into the search box and
clicksearch. When results page appears, go to the bottom of the page
and look for the text Search Technology provided by Google,or something
similar. If you don't see this message, Yahoo! may be using its own
index. If this is the case, use a technique similar to some of the others
to see if you can ind your site in the Yahoo! Index.
You must also check whether your site is listed in the Yahoo! Directory.
You have to pay to get a commercial site into the Yahoo! Directory,so
you may already know if you are listed there. If someone else may have
registed the site with Yahoo!, you may not whether it's there or not.
Here is how to find that.
· Point Your Browser To dir.yahoo.com. This takes you directly
to the Yahoo! Directory search page.
· Type your site's domain name into the Search text box All you
need is yourdomain.com, not http://www. or anything else.
· Make sure that the Directory option button is selected and
then click search If your site is in the Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Displays
that site's information on the results page.
The Others
To find out if your site is listed with the other search systems, simply
go to the search site, type the domain name, and click the Search button.
In the case of all the major systems, the result page will contain an
entry for the specialized domain if it's in the index. Other results
may be placed on the page, too, but the first entry is the specified
Website if the information is available.
What if You Are not Listed
First, if your site is not in Yahoo! Or the Open Directory Project,
you have to go to those systems and register your site. What if you
search for your site in the search engines and cant find it? Here are
two possible reasons why your site is not being indexed in the search
engines:
· The search engines haven't found your site yet. The solution
is relatively easy, though you won't get it done in an hour.
· The search engines,whether or not they have found your site,can't
index it.
How To Tell If Your Site Is Invisible
Some web sites are virtually invisible.a search engine might be able
to find the site,by following a link, But when it gets to the site,it
cant read it or can read only part of it. The question is how does a
website become invisible. In most cases,the problem is that the site
is dynamic - that is, a page is created on the fly when a browser requests
it. The data is pulled out of a database, pasted into a web page template,
and sent to the user's browser. Search engines often won't read such
pages.
How can you tell if this is a problem? Take a look at the URL in the
browser's location bar. Suppose that you see something like this.
http://www.yourdomain.edu/rodent - racing - scores/march/index.php
This address is okay. It's a simple URL path made up of a domain name,
two directory names, and a filename. Now look at this one:
http:www.yourdomain.edu/rodent - racing/scores. php? prg=1
The filename ends with ? prg=1. This parameter is being sent to the
server to let it know what information is needed for the web page. If
you have URLs like this, with just a single parameter, they are probably
okay, especially for Google; however a few search engines may not like
them. Here is another example:
http://yourdomain.com/products/index.html? & DID=18&CATID=13&ObjectGroup_ID=79
This one is real problem even for the google, which does a good job
of indexing dynamic pages. This URL has too much weird stuff after the
filename: ?&DID=18, CATID=13, and ObjectGroup_ID=79- which is too
many. This URL is similar to a URL from one of the clients'sites. Google
cannot or will not index this page.
Another problem is caused by session IDs - URLs that are different every
time the page is displayed. Look at this example.
http://yourdomain.com/buyAHome.do;jsessionid=07D3CCD4D9A6A9F3CF9CAD4F9A728F44
Each time someone visits this site, the server assigns a special ID
number to the visitor. That means the URL is never the same, so Google
won't index it. Google probably can get to databased pages, but chooses
not to.If google sees links to a page that appears to be dynamic, it
doesn't know whether the URL willchange between sessions or whether
many different URLs point to the same page. Google doesn't want to overload
the site's server and also doesn't want garbage in its index. If you
have a clean URL with no parameters, the search engines should be able
toget to it. If you have a single parameter in the URL, it may or may
not be okay. Two parameters also may or may not be a problem, although
they are more likely to be a problem than a single parameter. Three
parameters are almost certainly a problem.
Picking Good Keywords
Getting search engines to recognize and index your website can be a
problem, another huge problem is that many companies have no idea what
keywords they should be using. They try to guess the appropriate keywords,
without knowing what people are really using in the search engines.
Here is how to do a quick keyword analysis;
· Point your browser to www.overture.com
· Click the advertiser center link at the top right of the page.
· In the new page that appears,click the tools button.(It's a
small tab near the top of the page)
· In the new page that appears, click the Term Suggestion Tool
Link. ( A small window opens with a search box).
· In the search box, type a keyword that you think people may
be using to search for the sorts of products or services your site provides
and then press enter.
The tool returns a list of keywords, showing you how often
that term and related terms are used on the Overture advertising network.
You may find that the keyword you guessed is perfect . Or you may discover
better words or even if your guess was not good,find several other great
keywords.
Examining your Pages
Making your web pages "search engine friendly" was probably
not uppermost in your mind when you sat down to design your web site.
That means your web pages and the web pages of millions of others have
a problem in the search engine friendly category. These problem are
easy to spot but others are more troublesome.
Are you using Frames: In order to examine your pages for problems,
you need to be able to read the pages' source code; for that you would
need to be able to understand HTML! To see the source code, choose View
Source in your browser.
When u first peek at the source code for your site, you may discover
that your site is using frames. You may see something like this in the
page.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET ROWS="20%,80%">
<FRAME SRC="navbar.html">
<FRAME SRC="content.html">
</FRAMESET>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>
When you choose View source in internet explorer, you are viewing the
source of the frame definition,which is the document that tells the
browser how to set up the frames. In the preceding example, The browser
creates frame rows,one taking up the top 20% of the browser and the
other taking up the bottom 80%. In the top frame, the browser places
content taken from the navbar.html file; content from content.html goes
into the bottom frame.
Framed sites don't do search engines much good. Search engines generally
won't index the pages that are going to be placed into the frames, though
they will index the frame-definition document…. Which has keyword
rich indexable content.
Here are a few quick fixes:
· Add TITLE and DESCRIPTION tags between the <HEAD> and
</HEAD> tags.
· Add <NOFRAMES> and </NOFRAMES> tags between the
<BODY> and </BODY> tags, and place 200 to 300 words of keyword-rich
content between the tags. The NOFRAMES text is designed
to be played by browsers that can't work with frames,and search engines
will read this text,although they won't rate it as high as normal text.
· Include a number of links,in the text between the NOFRAMES
tags,to other pages in your site to help the search engines find their
way through.
Look at the Title Tags:
TITLE tags tell a browser what text to display in the browser's title
bar,and they are very important to search engines. Quite reasonably,
search engines figure that the TITLE tags may indicate the page's title
- and therefore its subject.
Open your site's home page and then choose View source to view the page
source. A text editor opens, showing you what the page's HTML looks
like.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your title text is here</TITLE>
Few problems may be there with TITLE tags.
· They're not there! Many pages don't have TITLE tags.If these
tags are not there, you are not giving the search engines one of the
most important pieces of information about the page's subject
matter.
· They're in the wrong position. Sometimes you find the TITLE
tags, but they are way down in the page. If they are too low in the
page,search engines may not find them.
· They're there, but they're poor. The TITLE tags don't have
the proper keywords in them.
Your TITLE tags should be immediately below the <HEAD>
tag and should contain useful keywords. Have around 40 to 60 characters
between the <TITLE> and </TITLE> tags and perhaps, repeat
the primary keywords once. If you are working on your Rodent
Racing Web site, you might have something like this.
<TITLE>Rodent Racing Info. Rats. Mice. Gerbils. Stoats. all kinds
of Rodent Racing </TITLE>
Examine The Description Tag
The DESCRIPTION Tag is important because search engines often index
it and in some cases,may use the DESCRIPTION tag to provide the site
description on the search results page. Google usually doesn't us the
DESCRIPTION tag to provide the description in the search results. Instead,
it finds the search words in the page, grabs a snippet of information
from around the words, and uses that as the description. If Google can't
find the keywords in the page , it may use the DESCRIPTION tag.
Assuming that you have the HTML of your home page laid bare for all
to see, you can take a quick look at the DESCRIPTION tag. It should
look something like this.
<META NAME = "description" CONTENT = "your description
goes here">
Since often have the same problems with DESCRIPTION tags as they do
with TITLE tags. The tags aren't there, or they are hidden away deep
down in the page orthey simply aren't very good.
Place the DESCRIPTION tag immediately below the TITLE tags and create
a keyworded description of upto 250 characters.e.g.
<META NAME="description" CONTENT ="Rodent Racing
- Scores,Schedules, everything Rodent Racing. Whether you're into mouse
racing,stoat racing,rats or gerbils, our site provides everything you'll
ever need to know about Rodent Racing and caring for your racers.">
While sometimes Web developers switch the attributes in the tag, putting
the CONTENT=first and then the NAME=like this:
<META CONTENT ="your description goes here"
NAME="description">
Make sure that your tags do not do this.
Can The Search Engines Get Through
Many sites have perfectly readable pages, with the exception that the
searchbots can't negotiate the site navigation. The searchbots can reach
the home page,index it and read it, but they can't go any further. If,
when you search google for your pages, you find only the home page,
this is likely the problem.
A few simple ways you can help search engines find their way around
your site, whether or not your navigation structure is hidden:
· Create more text links throughout the site: Many websites
have a main navigation structure and then duplicate the structure by
using simple text links at the bottom of the page.you should do the
same.
· Add a sitemap page to your site: This page contains links to
most or all of the pages on your web site.Of course,you also want to
link to the sitemap page from those little links at the bottom of the
page.
Do the pages have anything for search engines to read?
You don't necessarily have to pick through the HTML code for your web
page to evaluate how search engine friendly it is. It can be find out
by just looking at the weg page in the browser. Determine whether you
have any text on the page. Page content - text that the search engines
can read is essential, but many web sites don't have any page content
on the front page and often very less on interior pages. Here are some
problems :
· Having a flash intro on your site.
· Embedding much of the text on your site in to images, rather
than relying on readable text.
· Banking on flashy visuals to hide the fact that your site is
actually light on content.
· Using the wrong keywords in the text that you have
If you have these types of problems, they can often be time consuming.
The next several sections detail ways you might overcome the problems
in the preceding list.
Eliminate Flash:
Flash are the silly animations which are seen when you arrive at any
site, with a little skip intro link hidden away in the page. Words and
pictures appear and disappear, scroll across the pages and so on.You
create these animations with a product called Macromedia Flash. In most
cases these flashes are nothing but an irritation to the site visitors
and hardly serve any purpose. It is suggested to kill those flash intro
on your site.
Replace Images With Real Text:
If you have an image-heavy website, in which all or most of the text
is embedded onto images, you need to get rid of the images and replace
them with real text. If the search engine can't read the text, it can't
index it.
It may not be immediately clear whether text on the page is real text
or images. You can quickly figure it out a couple of ways:
· Try to select the text in the browser with your mouse. If it's
real text, you can select it character by character. If it's not real
text, you simply can't select it - you'll probably end up selecting
an image.
· Use your browser's view ? source command to look at the HTML
for the page and then see if you find the actual words in the text.
Use More Keywords:
The light-content issue can be a real problem. Some sites are designed
to be light on content, and sometimes this approach is perfectly valid
in terms of design and usability. However search engines have a bias
for content, for text they can read. The more text with keywords, the
better.
Use The Right Keyword In the Right Places:
Getting search engines to recognize and index your website can be a
problem, another huge problem is that many companies have no idea what
keywords they should be using. They try to guess the appropriate keywords,
without knowing what people are really using in the search engines.
Where keywords are placed and what they look like are also important.
Search engines use position and format as clues to importance. Here
are a few simple techniques you can use.
· Use particularly important keywords - Those that people are
using to search for your types of products and services - near the top
of the page.
· Place keywords into <H> (heading) tags.
· Use bold and italic keywords.
· Put keywords into bulleted lists.
· Use keywords multiple times on a page, but don't use a keyword
or keyword phrase too often.
Make sure that the links between pages within your site contain keywords.
Think about all the sites you have visited recently. How many use links
with no keywords in them? They use buttons, graphic navigation bars,
short little links that you have to guess at. Click here links, and
so on. Big mistakes. It is suggested if ever, use a link with only the
words click here in the link text, then keywords should be included
in the links.
Getting Your Site Indexed:
Now the pages are ready but the indexing problem is there. Pages are
to put in bluntly, just not in the search engine! How do you fix that
problem?
For Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project, you have to go to those
sites and register directly, but with Google and the other major search
engines, the process is a little more time consuming and complicated.
The best way to get into the search engines is to have them find the
pages by following links pointing to the site. You can ask or pay the
search engines to come to your site and pick up your pages, but you
face two main problems with this.
· If you ask search engines to index your site, they probably
won't do it. And if they do come and index your site, it may take weeks
or months .
· If you pay search engines to index your site, you have to pay
for every URL you submit. The problem with paying , of course is that
you have to pay.
You can get often indexed by some of the search engines very quickly.
Find another websites to link to it. Call several friends, colleagues
and relatives who own or control a web site, and ask them to link to
your site. You want sites that are already indexed by the search engines.
The searchbots have to follow the links to your site.
When you ask friends, colleagues and relatives to link to you, specify
what you want the links to say. No click here or company name links
for you. You want to place keywords into the link text. Something like
visit this site for all your rodent racing needs - mice ,rats ,stoats,
gerbils and all other kinds of rodent racing.
After the sites have links pointing to yours, it can take from a few
days to a few weeks to get into the search engines. With Google you
place the links right before Googlebot indexes one of the sites, you
may be in the index in a few days. But it may also take weeks to index
a site on Google. The best way to increase your chances of getting into
the search engines quickly is to get as many links as you can on as
many sites as possible. Google has an enormous index, currently around
3.3 billion pages. Most other indexes, with the exception of AlltheWeb,
are much smaller, so getting your pages indexed with them is more difficult.
Fewer pages in the index mean fewer pages to channel searchbots from
those search engines to your site. And there is less room in the index
to hold your pages. A small index doesn't hold many pages.
