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By Donald Nelson
Almost all webmasters or website owners are looking for ways
to
get better results from their websites. They wish to improve
their site’s standing and get better rankings in search
engines. This quest for improved results, known as search
engine positioning, can be satisfied by following a few basic
procedures.
Before you even begin, you have to realize that you are
competing against hundreds, and in some categories, thousands
of websites offering similar products and services. In the
case
of affiliate marketing, many of the competing websites may
even
be identical! If you want to get the edge over these
competitors and improve your search engine positioning you
have
to fine-tune your website and actively work to make it better.
1. Make Sure that your design is search engine friendly:
Your design may look good to your eyes, but it may also be the
cause of you present difficulties and poor search engine
positioning. How is that possible? Look at your web page using
a text editor or the html view of popular editors such as
Dreamweaver and Frontpage. On what line does your first line
of
copy begin? If your actual copy is pushed far down the page,
it
is more difficult for search engines to pick up the crucial
information that would have helped you to improve your web
page
ranking.
If you have this difficulty, first take out all unnecessary
spaces in the html code. If there are long strings of java
script, put these in external files. Similarly, put style
information in external Cascading Style Sheet files.
Simplifying your table structure may also help. If this starts
getting too complicated for you, then consult with a
professional search engine positioning specialist or your web
designer.
2. Make sure your keywords are strategically placed in your
copy:
It is not possible to improve web page ranking if the readable
copy on your web page does not contain the words you wish to
be
found by. Many people erroneously think that just putting your
important keywords in meta tags is enough. This is not true,
some search engines hardly use the meta tags and look more to
the copy on the page. Make sure that your important copy is in
the first paragraph of text, in headlines (using headers such
as H1, H2, H3) and in the active or clickable portions of link
text on your page.
3. Use a site map and text link navigation on your pages:
If you want to improve your search engine positioning for all
the pages of your website then you have to be sure that these
pages actually get indexed or included in the search engines.
You can help this process along by making a site map, a web
page that has text links to all the sub pages of your site.
Another good practice is to include a text link navigation
system on your web pages, even if you already have a graphics
based navigation bar elsewhere on these same pages. Remember,
search engines follow text links more easily. A robot that
lands on your main page or site map page will follow the text
links and then visit and index your lower level pages.
4. Increase the quantity and quality of inbound links:
In fiercely competitive categories it will be difficult to
improve web page ranking without obtaining a good number of
links to your page from other websites. If you have very good
and valuable copy, other sites may link to you because you are
a valuable resource. However, if you want to speed this
process
along you will have to actively request links from other
websites, either by trading links or by getting your content
(with a link back to your site) placed on other websites.
When it comes to links you should keep in mind one important
principle: it is not the quantity of links that is important,
but the quality. One good link from an authority site such as
CNN or Wikipedia is worth more than dozens of links from other
sites. To get these quality links, there is no short cut. You
will have to earn it by having a site that provides a lot of
useful information.
5. Keep up with Search Engine Developments:
The challenge of improving your web page ranking and search
engine positioning is dynamic. Search engines are not static.
Most of the big search engines of yesterday have disappeared
or
are only minor players today. You should keep up with changes
in
the world of search engines by taking part in online forums or
subscribing to newsletters which deal with topics such as
search engine optimization, web ranking, and general webmaster
related issues.
For years I have been getting great information from the Led
Digest, a subscription list which is sent out several times a
week. You can see samples online at www.led-digest.com
If you do not have the expertise or the time to tackle these
matters by yourself then you should take advantage of skilled
professionals who can help you to improve your site's
performance in search engines. Whether you rely on
professionals or are able to do it yourself, these five tips
can provide a good point of reference for starting the work.
About The Author: Donald Nelson is a web developer and the
proprietor of A1-Optimization, www.a1-optimization.com
.
His firm offers affordable website copywriting, search engine
optimization, and linking services. He is also the editor of
the A1-Article Directory, www.a1-articledirectory.com ,
a source for free reprint articles.
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