by Elizabeth Kirwin, Sidhe Communications
& Mike Pires, 4yourwebsite.com

One question which should concern all internet marketers is — What are the search engines looking for? Search engines are based on computer logic, which sees information in text or numerical form, and has a hierarchical approach to font sizes, typefaces, and repetition of words or phrases. This article will give details about search engine preferences and explain how website content can be constructed to cater to these preferences to increase ranking on Google and other search engines.

Is Your Site a Template? Google Ranks these Sites Low

If your site is a template (mortgage, real estate, etc) and Google reads many sites repeated in the same format on the web, this picky search engine may kick your site from the top to the bottom of the list.

Repetition of Industry Keywords

Industry specific keywords can be harvested from website statistics programs or constructed from a strategic plan to draw the right traffic to a site. For example, a realtor would want to repeat the words retirement, relocation, and purchase a second home along with a geographic location to draw long distance homebuyers to their site. By repeating industry specific keywords, a company or organization may increase site ranking in Google. Article writing on a given topic is a very effective tool for placing repetitive keyword text on a home page.

Page Title, Headline, Subhead, Bolded Text

Choose your page titles very carefully and be sure that they include your most important keywords. Not only does this increase the relevance of your page to the search engines, but it also looks better in the search results. When your page title looks better in the search results more searchers will choose your page from the list of possibilities, the more searchers choose your page, the higher it will rank. Be sure to use your keywords liberally in a headline, in subheadings, in the first sentence of the page and in bolded text. This will help your page rank well, while at the same time reassuring the internet searcher that they have landed on a page that is pertinent to what they are looking for.

Graphic Name Tags and Keywords

If you were designing your web pages just for the search engine spiders you would not use graphics at all, but it is necessary to strike a balance between making a page that is pleasing to look at vs. one that will satisfy the search engines. Choose images for your page that also relate to your keywords and make sure that your keywords are in your image alt tag. Make your image alt text describes what the image actually is. Look at your page with the images turned off to be sure that all of your images have accurate, useful and keyword-rich descriptions.

Link Text

Link text is one of the most important ranking criteria. If you want to see how powerful link text is, try a Google search for “miserable failure”. You will find George Bush’s official bio and Michael Moore’s home page at the top of the list even though neither page contains the phrase or even one of these words!

Keywords in Menu Items and other Internal Links

Internal links within a website direct users to your other pages. Keywords in menu items and other internal links are critical because search engines read them as another link. Don’t waste links on text like “Click Here” or “This Page”, use your keywords instead. Think of the link text as a vote to the search engines for what your website is about. When you vote make sure to use your keywords, if you won’t vote for your own pages then who will?

Inbound Links

How many times is your website mentioned on the web? This is another way search engines rank sites. Each time your site is mentioned on the web, insert keywords to introduce the site instead of “for more information” or “click here”. Also, be aware that when inbound links are embedded on other sites, your site rises in ranking – any link will help, but a link with your keyword(s) is best. Article writing and syndication on the web ensures that inbound links to your site (contained in bios) are resident on many sites. Writing and disseminating national press releases on the web is another way to increase the number of inbound links. Links to the website are repeated in the press release.

Outbound Links

Placement of links with websites of prominence is most important. This creates traffic. However, a savvy internet marketer will choose placement of links on web pages selectively, to increase company profits or an organization’s visibility. Use outbound links that help an internet surfer find even more information about your target keywords and you will increase your website’s level of authority for your keywords.

Reciprocal Links

The general consensus seems to be that reciprocal links don’t really help your search engine ranking and, in fact, can actually hurt your page rank if you are not careful. Swap links with websites that are already ranked well for your keywords and/or sites that will use your keywords in their link text. This will generate quality traffic to your site even if it does not have an effect on your page rank. Don’t link to sites that have nothing to do with the subject of your keywords and especially do not link to sites that are nothing but a bunch of uncategorized links, links to these free-for-all link farms can do more harm than good.

Planting Invisible or Tiny Text Behind Home Page

Uploading massive amounts of invisible keyword writing on the home page was once a favored tool of web designers. It is no longer a good idea to mask keywords on the page in any way. Search engines may be fooled at first and your site may land on top of the list for a while, but once filters are run to detect this, search engines may semi-blacklist your site or remove it from results completely. Avoid trying to trick the search engines and stick to techniques that enhance your website’s usefulness and relevance to its target audience. The rankings, the traffic and the loyalty of your visitors will follow automatically.

This does not mean 10 years ago, or even 10 months ago – sometimes it can mean 10 minutes ago!

A Website owner that knows everything there is to know about today’s Internet technology, who doesn’t keep up with the constant changes for even a few months, will be working with an ever increasing proportion of obsolete expertise and knowledge. This constantly changing face of technology, and especially search engine protocol, requires that Website owners do much more than just stay abreast of today’s technology and search engine requirements.

Optimum Website posturing means more than just keeping pace with the present, it requires the predictive vision and ability to see the very root essence of technological and search engine evolution. It is an art that brings the searcher and the searched together in the most ethical and up-to-date orchestration of art, information and technology.

Mike Pires, co-owner of, www.4yourwebsite.com, located in Asheville, North Carolina, was a master of computer technology when computers were still in their infancy. While many of us know computers only as that convenient purchase package of communication hardware and software that we bought from our local Electronics or Office Supply store, Mike has been delving into the inner workings of bits and bytes for several decades. What was a daily reality for Mike was little more than an awe-filled possibility for many of his generation. This broad perspective in the field of computer technology, allows Mike to skillfully lead his team with a level of expertise and insight that is not often found in this highly competitive market of Internet web design, programming and marketing.

As a Website Designer and Marketer, Mike knows from years of education and experience, that the present state of computer technology and Website optimization is only a momentary pause in this ever unfolding field of communication and search engine mechanics. This understanding allows www.4yourwebsite.com a clear advantage over their competitors.

Mike and co-owner, Stephanie O’Guin, working with a team of specialists, pull together all necessary resources for their client’s best purpose. www.4yourwebsite.com researches and utilizes the most contemporary tools for today’s online advantage, while anticipating and preparing for up-and-coming trends that will give their clients a clear leading edge in tomorrow’s market.

Adding to their full range offering of services in the field of Website and Database Design as well as Custom Programming, Website Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Website Marketing, www.4yourwebsite.com also offers full Press Release and Copywriting services. Entire packages, both large and small, are all affordably priced, allowing almost any individual or business that Website they only dreamed was possible.

If you would like more information on how you can have a Website of your own, or improve the functionality or visibility of one that you already have, contact www.4yourwebsite.com.

This article is the second in a series of Spider Food / Search Engine Optimization / SEO articles. Your website should promote your business and your business should promote your website.

Have you heard the story of what Wal-Mart did to Rubbermaid? It is a very good illustration of why you should not put all of your eggs in one web basket. A few years ago, when Rubbermaid needed to raise prices because the cost of a a key raw material had gone up, Wal-Mart refused. Wal-Mart had the attitude that “You might be Rubbermaid, and you might have a great name, but you’re not going to tell us what to do, we’re not going to take your price increase, and we really don’t care what it does to you.” Since then, Rubbermaid has shut down many of its US facilities, and laid off more than 10,000 workers, there could be more than twice as many more laid off over the next few years as Rubbermaid is forced to move much of its production overseas in order to remain viable while satisfying Wal-Mart’s hunger for low prices.

I know that you want to jump right to all of the magic tricks that will put your website on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN; we will get down to that soon, but there are some other very important principles that you must learn first. These preliminary foundational principles are where the real website promotion magic is secretly hidden. Don’t try to skip over learning and applying these very important first steps, cheating and skipping many of these steps is what most everyone else does, and you are reading this because you want to do it better. If you learn and apply these principles fully, you will automatically have success in what you now see as that elusive pot of gold at the end of the SEO rainbow. If you learn and apply these very important first steps you will have success that is so far beyond those coveted first page rankings that, while they are important and very desirable, by the time you get there I promise you that you will no longer care about them as much as you do right now.

Try a search for any of the phrases that you want your website to be found by. How many pages show up for that search? For one of mine there are 319,000,000, I happen to have a top listing on many of these, but I don’t want to fight with 319,000,000 people to try and keep it! For just about any phrase that you come up with there will be thousands, or more likely millions, of other sites that are vying for that top ten position. Why devote all of your website promotion time and budget on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with those kinds of odds? If you think that is a good idea then I bet you play the lottery too, and actually expect to win someday soon. Let me clue you in on that one – the lottery is just a tax on people who are bad at statistics and math. Spending excessive amounts of time, money and energy on search engine optimization is for webmasters that are too dim-witted to realize that there are lots of other ways to get people to visit their websites. It is for people that do not know what you have already learned, and what you are about to learn.

Think beyond being listed on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN to WHY you want to be listed on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN. WHY do you even care about this? I can sum up why for you in one word – TRAFFIC! You want these top search engine positions because they will generate traffic to your website. What you really want is traffic, NOT a first page ranking for your website. It should be obvious to you that the success of any website is in direct proportion to the amount of visitors it receives. If success is about visitors, then why on earth would any reasonably intelligent human being devote 95% of their website promotion efforts to a single method of advertising their website? Here’s something even more obvious that you may not have thought of. Google is not the only way that your site can be found on the web. Google, Yahoo and MSN are not the only way to be found either, there are directories, there are banner exchanges, and there are hundreds of millions of other websites and even other search engines. How many of those list your site?

If you really want to build steady, long-term traffic to your website then advertise it in every legal way that you can think of. This will require time, effort and cash. You can spend a lot of time and effort and a little money, or you can spend a lot of money and a little time and effort. If it was easy and inexpensive then everybody, including you, would have already done it and you wouldn’t be reading this. If you are looking for the easy way to get visitors to your website then you bought the wrong book, if you want the best way then read on.

Here are some other web baskets for you to put your eggs in:

• List your site in at least fifty to a couple of hundred directories
• Exchange quality visible links with at least 100 (preferably 300 – 500) sites
• Exchange banners with other sites in your genre
• Start a small Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaign with Google, Yahoo and a couple of the smaller PPC engines
• Write some articles related to the genre of your site and have them posted to other sites or included in their newsletters
• Have your site reviewed by an independent review site; if you are lucky enough to win any kind of award, post it on your site
• Donate products or services to non-profit sites or to commercial site contests in return for advertising and exposure

Add your own ideas to this list and try them as well. Contact Us if you have any ideas that you think should be added to this list. This is advertising and promotion that will not be undone in the blink of an eye by a Google or Yahoo algorithm change. These ideas, and the ones mentioned in Spider Food (1), will provide a solid foundation for steady traffic to your website and to your business.

Later sections of Spider Food will get into how to increase traffic by having those top rankings, but these introductory, foundational principles will focus on traffic and success for your website WITH or WITHOUT all of those Googley Yahoos! The moral of this section is to diversify your website and business promotion beyond Google, beyond search engines and even beyond the internet. Don’t become dependent on any one source of traffic and leads, diversify, diversify, diversify… And remember, your website should promote your business and your business should promote your website.

This article is the first in a series of Spider Food / Search Engine Optimization / SEO articles. Your website should promote your business and your business should promote your website.

Before we get started with Search Engine Optimization, and learning to feed the Spiders, let’s take a much broader look at your business and website promotion. Any truly effective website promotion campaign will also include several offline website promotion strategies. Getting your website online is not enough; having a page one ranking in Google, Yahoo and MSN is really fantastic but it is not enough either; you need to promote your website, both online and offline. Think of your website as a new and valuable dimension to your existing business, think of your website as part of your business and not as a separate cost or, hopefully, profit center. Create your marketing campaigns with your website as an integral part of them.

Your website should be an integral part, not only of your marketing, but also of your business. In fact, instead of being a drain on your precious resources, did you know that your website can actually help you to manage your day-to-day business operations more effectively? Strategic database design can and will help you to manage your day-to-day business operations and can also be used to automatically update your website with key business information. A well designed database-driven website will help you to manage your business more effectively and will also work for you 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. This is what we mean by “Web Designs That Work”.

Online, your site needs to be promoted through search engine optimization, directory listings, strategic link exchanges, effective advertising, publicity through free and paid press releases and other promotional strategies that will vary with the nature of your business. These will be some of the subjects of upcoming Spider Food articles.

Offline you should always include your web site address anywhere that you place your business name. Don’t write, print, or even say your business name anywhere, or any time, without the website address being included. Here are some ideas:

• Answering Machine and/or Voice Mail Outgoing Message
• When you leave a message for someone
• Your email signature
• Checks
• Letterhead
• Return Address Labels
• Envelopes
• Business Cards (make some special website business cards also)
• Yellow Page Ads
• Newspaper Display Ads, Flyers or Inserts
• Classified Ads
• Invoices
• Sales Receipts
• Product Packaging Materials
• Direct Mailings
• Post Cards
• Press Releases
• Company Brochures and other Literature
• Radio and Television Ads
• Billboards
• Signs in Your Store
• Signs on Your Vehicles
• Your Shirts

Place signs with your website address on them in your physical location to generate more traffic to your website, and to remind your customers that you are a progressive company that uses technology effectively. Make business cards for your website and place them on or near the signs. Integrate, don’t isolate. Your offline and your online campaigns should really be ONE cohesive campaign. An integrated marketing approach is your most effective strategy.

Get the picture? Does it have your website address on it? I hope so. Any material that you produce for, or about, your business should always include your website address. The more you use your website address the more impact it will have. Using your website address in print, television or radio advertising allows you to effectively communicate the full breadth and depth of your business in a much smaller, or shorter (i.e. cheaper) ad. www.4yourwebsite.com tells you all that you need to know to find out all that you want to know about us. Do you have a www (World Wide Web) address that tells me all that I want to know about you? If not, Contact Us now. Your website will show your customers that you are interested in serving their needs in every possible way. For your younger customers, and some of your older ones too, your online presence verifies and legitimizes your very existence.

Now that I’ve got you thinking more effectively and globally than just search engine optimization (SEO), Spider Food (2) will get down to the business of getting your website found by those search engines, you will learn to feed the spiders. It’s all just a matter of learning what, when and how they like to eat. Remember, your website should promote your business and your business should promote your website.