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Affiliate Programs
Cookies
Javascripts
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If your web site is not positioned across the first page of major search
engines and directories, to most internet users your site doesn't exist.
Search engines currently account for a large proportion of direct business
income for websites who are placed in their listings. The higher your site
in the rankings, the more visibility it has and the more likely you are to
attract visitors and turn them in to customers.
Many large web site promotion companies will tell you that it's hard work
to get you listed in the top 10 position for any particular search word, or
they will tell you that they know the secrets to all the search engines and
can promise you a certain position. The fact is, they cannot promise
any such thing and their little secret for which they have 100 years of
experience boils down to one word, "WORDS". The fact is, no
web site can achieve good placement if the web site was not designed for
search engines. Let's look at the big secret they use.
You need WORDS on your web pages!!! When designing a web site, keep
these in mind.
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Title to a page -
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Out of everything that is needed to get your web site promoted, we feel
that the title to a page is about 50% of everything that is needed.
A good title to a page can make all the difference in how you are
listed. See Meta Tags for
more information on a title for your web page.
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Meta Tags
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See Meta Tags for more
information on the use and creation of these tags.
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Content
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Words, words, and more words. Today, with high speed Internet
access and programs like Macromedia Flash, web designers are starting to
create web sites that look great using a movie file or what you might know
as a Flash Movie or a Shockwave movie. For the visitor to your web
site that has High Speed Internet access, this
might be what is considered a cool web site. Fun, entertaining, and wow
effect. However, if the whole web site is a movie, the file is
fairly large and that can keep the average person from even getting in to
your web site. Keep in mind, about 80 percent of the Internet users
are still using a dial up modems with very slow connections. Enough
said about your visitors and a movie file, but what about a search
engine? A search engine does not look at a page like me and you, but
instead it looks at the code of a web page. Here's the code of a web
site that only displays a movie file and this is what the search engine
robot will see.
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<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" height="100%">
<tr>
<td valign="top">
<div align="center"><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/......
width="820" height="700">
<param name=movie value="base_2.swf">
<param name=quality value=high>
<embed src="base_2.swf" quality=high pluginspage="http://www.ma........... type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="820" height="700">
</embed>
</object></div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
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After looking over this code, and this is the only code on the whole
web site, do you see anything that is helpful in describing the contents
of the web site to a search engine? If no one can find you, does it
make a difference if you spent $10,000 to have a beautiful web site
designed? Some of the more popular web sites are nothing more than
words and very few graphics. The more text you use, the faster your
web site loads up for your visitors, and, the better your web site will be
listed with the search engines. When writing a paragraph for your
page, be sure to use as many of your keywords as possible and use them
toward the top of the page. Avoid placing these words in a table
that is embedded in a table that is also embedded in another table.
Search engines tend to only go down one level in a table in their search
for the contents of a page.
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Multi page web site
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The more pages, the more chances you have of having the right
combination of words listed on a page that will be the same words someone
is using in their search on a search engine. The closer the match,
and the frequency of use, means a higher listing for your web site in the
search results.
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Picture Tags
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Only a few of the search engines look at your picture tags but they
also send you potential customers. Take advantage of them and
utilize picture tags. Besides, using picture tags allows a visitor
to know what the picture is if for some reason the graphics didn't come
through when the page was pulled up.
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After your web site is Search Engine
Friendly
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Getting listed with a search engine
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If you have taken the time to create a well written web site, then the
hard work is done. Since you probably only have this one web site,
you more than likely do not have a program that submits to hundreds of
search engines and directories in a matter of a few hours. However,
you can do the same thing a program does just by visiting each search
engine and submitting your web site to them manually. Start by
listing with DMOZ (see search
engines) since many get their information from this one source.
Note that DMOZ is human edited, so whatever you do, don't try snowballing
them with your write up; they may ban you. Yes, these editors
volunteer their services, and they even visit your web site and look it
over. After listing your web site with them, see our list of the top
50 search engines, and visit each to get your web site listed with them. Click
here for the list
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Getting listed with different directories
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Being listed in a search engine is great and is a must if you want
traffic to your web site, but also just as important is being listed in
local directories, or directories that are dedicated to your type of
business. Town-Mall for example is focused on the Dallas Fort Worth
area and attracts more than 150,000 unique visitors a month with nearly 1
million page views, and more than 1,500 robot searches performed each
month. So you might ask, what does that do for me and my
website? Two things actually. First, the visitors to our web
site are looking for a business in the DFW Metroplex. Secondly, with
1,500 robot searches performed each month, your web site will more than
likely get listed with the different search engines just my having your
URL listed in our Directory.
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Popularity
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Web site popularity is when there are a lot of people that think you
have a great web site, so they place links on their web site pointing back
to yours. The more links you have pointing back to your web site,
the better. With a lot of links referring to yours, you should
receive better placement with the major search engines simply because the
search engines think your web site is important.
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Things to think about
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- When a search engine robot comes to visit your web site,
it will visit your homepage first. For example, with Google, we
cannot submit this page to them, but instead can only submit our domain
name or a URL of http://www.town-mall.net
For this page to be indexed with Google, there must be links (text) to
follow to get to this page.
- Does a doorway or entrance page to your web site help
you or hurt you?
- Did you know search engines can not read Java, a Flash
movie, or even look at a picture file? If my browser cannot
understand Java, do your java links work? Do you have text links
for old browsers to follow along with the search engines to follow or
did you create your web site just for sex appeal?
- Why do you have a web site? To promote your
business, product, service, or for Internet Entertainment?
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