Getting to the Top of the Pile

Every client I deal with ends each initial meeting wanting to be at the top of the search engine listings. This is what I run through with them when I face that situation and I thought I would share it with you.

How Long it Takes to Get Listed

Every search engine is different. In order to be found in the search engines you need to be listed, and they do this by indexing your site. Indexing consists of the search engine crawling your site looking at all of the content on it. They do not see images, only text and links. The search engines then stores that data for quick reference and classifies your site based on the content it finds. They go further to apply complex algorithms to grade your site. In order to be found you must have relevant content to the search performed and have a grade that results in a ranking high on the list.

Typically you will not get indexed with a search engine for at least 30 days. However it can take up to 6 months to get listed in their indexes. However, this does not mean you will be found.

How to Find Out if You are Listed

Go to www.google.com and type in “site:” followed by your complete website address (include the www) and click on Google Search. The result will be a listing of only those pages Google has indexed.

Go to www.yahoo.com and in the search box type in “site:http://” followed by your complete website address (include the www) and click search. The result will be the list of pages Yahoo! has indexed. Next to the number of pages on the left hand side you will also see Inlinks. This is Yahoo!’s term for Back Links discussed below.

How to Optimize your Site for Search Engine Traffic

Internal Links

When creating links inside your site, be sure to use phrases that describe the destination. Do not use the words “Click Here”, but focus on phrases like “ATV Accessories”. This enhances usability because the customer now knows where they are going. In addition, these words are granted greater importance by the search engines as keywords.

Text Content

Write for your customers and not computers. Focus on concise well written messages you need to deliver to your customers. Try and keep everything short and scanable. If you feel a particular phrase is important, bold it or make it a link to more details. The average customer spends 5 minutes on a website. In that time they do not want to spend it reading War and Peace. Try to keep ideas to one paragraph.

Content Ratios

Any keywords used in your Meta Tags, need to be used in your website text content. Ideally the ratio should be no more than 7% of the total text content should be your keywords, but they should be used at least 3 times. If you use 8 words in your meta tags, then they should be used 24 times in your body text. The total word count for your body text should be 343.

Any more than this or writing the keywords in long continuous strings that are not reader friendly is picked up by the search engines and penalized.

Meta Tags

While keywords are important to have, don’t let anyone convince you they are the end all be all for search engine placement. They can break you more than make you. If you use something in your keywords and not in the site, you will be penalized. While there is no limit on how many you can have, can you imagine writing enough text and to make sure you don’t exceed the 7% level for the keywords you do use? Would your customers read that text if it was there?

The best advice here is to pick up to 8 keywords or phrases to include. Then narrow the focus of your text to emphasize your expertise in those keywords. It will be easier on your customers and more effective in the search engine.

More important that the keywords Meta Tag is the description Meta Tag. This is your chance to shine out from the pack. The description content is the sentence or two you see under the link when doing a search on Yahoo or MSN (Google takes actual text from the page). Here you can deliver why someone should buy from you before they even arrive on your site. Find 1-2 sentences (14-20 words) that are extremely concise and descriptive to input here. Remember this is your first chance to hook the customer.

How to Draw More Search Engine Traffic

So you have worked on optimizing your text, written quality (not quantity) unique text, and have been indexed by the search engines. What do you do next to get to the top of the list? There are two solutions, one organic and one not.

Back Links

Back links are the organic solution. Of all the variables in the programs used to calculate who should be listed first, the most reliable one that can be leveraged has to do with people telling the search engines you are an expert on what you do. This happens by them linking to you, hopefully with a phrase you want to be found under.

You can find out how many sites link to your site by going to Google and typing in “links:” followed by your complete web address. If there are no listings, then you need to get the word out. The fastest way to get the word out is having unique content that others need. Having short articles that answer questions or provide insight and interest is the fastest route, but how do you let people know you have this data? Browse through social websites, forums, blogs, or news sites relevant to your products and industry. Find people asking questions and answer those questions. Provide a link on the other site to yours with more answers if they desire.

Do not just post a link to your site. The search engines and community around that site will view it as spam. Try to use a user name that is not related to your site and make it sound like you have nothing to do with your site. Otherwise the community will view it as spam. The more sites of importance you have linking to you the faster you will raise in the search engine results.

Do not pay for, ask for, or participate in any scenario that has someone else’s site linking to yours in return for a link to theirs. This is called link farming and will get you black-listed from the search engines. Once black-listed you can never get re-listed with that URL again.