Search Engine Optimization

The concept of SEO is very simple. Number one: you want the search engines to find your site and index it so that it shows up on the Internet. Number two: you want to have your site show up at the beginning of the search returns, not the end. The big question is “How do I do this?” I will be posting some tips and tricks to improve your web site placement.

To begin. There are only 5 search directories that you need to submit your website to. Some cost money and others are free. The five directories are:

Google.com – it also feeds Yahoo and AOL

Yahoo.com – it’s worth paying the money for Yahoo if you can. Even though Google supplies Yahoo, it’s like putting your store in 2 categories instead of one. There is a link however for free submission to Yahoo as well.

MSN.com – It creates it’s own index.

Ask.com – This is a much smaller directory but it supplies info to sites like Ask Jeeves.

Open Directory Project – This is the meta directory of all the directories. It feeds all the other directories. Follow their instructions to the letter. You may or may not get indexed, but it’s worth trying.

Links

Google: www.google.com/addurl.html

Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

MSN: http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

ODP: www.dmoz.org

How to Tell if You’ve Been Indexed

I’ll give the instructions on how to do this without the Google toolbar.
It’s very easy. Go to Google.com and type in site:domain.com. You just put your domain name after site. You do not use the www for this. It will show you immediately if you’ve been indexed and how many pages that have been indexed. You can use the same format for MSN and Yahoo. You don’t have to worry about Ask.com because it’s fed from Google.

Tips

Search-bots, the tools used to examine the website, cannot see or read javascript. They cannot read or crawl pictures and they don’t like flash. They only read content.

To get the search-bots to crawl all your web site pages and index them you can do a couple of simple things.

One – Create more text links throughout the site. Many web sites 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. Example: Find lots of mystery, fiction, non-fiction and romance books at BlueRidge Meadows. This should appear at the bottom of your description on all your pages in your wagglepop store. If you have your own website you can insert this at the bottom of every page.

Two – Add a sitemap page to your site. This page contains the links to most or all of your pages on your website. Of course you want to link to the sitemap page from those little links at the bottom of your homepage. Check back here to learn about adding a sitemap to your site.

Picking good Keywords

Getting search engines to recognize and index your website can be a problem. You need to know what search terms or keywords people are using. Go to this site and type in a keyword you think people might be using. http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/. The tool returns a list of keywords, showing you how often that term and related terms are used by people searching on Yahoo! and partner sites. There will be more on Keywords later.

Find books, toys, clothing, jewelry, beads, pottery and collectibles at the Circle of Stores.