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Creating
a Website
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General
Information
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It's Up To You
Writing a web page is neither easy nor fast. However, it
does not take a rocket scientist to get a high
listings...only good information and the proper application
thereof. If you do not wish to spend time learning how
search engines robots work, how to manipulate the source
document and spend time experimenting, you should look
elsewhere if you want to establish a web presence.
If you do indeed spend the time to do all of these
things, then high listings ARE in your grasp. I have never
built a rocket nor have I ever designed a rocket engine.
What I have done is get high web site listings following
these guidelines. You can do the same.
What You Need To
Do
html & page
design
- Keep HTML as simple as possible - DO
NOT USE FRAMES - CSS ( cascading style sheets) is
fine
- Keep the most important textual information, along
with you imporatnt keywords
at the top of the html
- For users - so they don't have to scroll
- For Search Engines - include keyword
phrases which are in the meta
tags
- Using tables etc can mean text is further down the
Source Documnet than the user sees on screen
- Consider using a layers based design - you
can use CSS to position the layers with textual
content at the top of the html even if they're further
down the visible page
- If keywords are also links -
increases their efficacy
- Use keywords in your <h1 - h6>
heading and subheading tags
- Each page should have lots of keyword
rich content for its topic and corresponding
meta tags
- Include textual hyper links to important areas
of the site from the home page
- Call files / folders / domain
(and subdomain) names something descriptive
- directories like this (acts as another
keyword)
- Include a site map, linked to from the home
page
- Means the search engine will be able to
index the whole site quickly and
easily
- Put all JavaScript & CSS in
seperate files
- Include a robots.txt in the root of the
site directory detailing js and css files to be
excluded from indexing
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meta
tags
- The meta tags
(in the <head> tag of the Source Document of each
page) for title, keywords and
description should be utilised to their full
value, and match keywords that appear in the
body the page
- Don't use the same meta
tags across the site - each page should
have its own
- Optimise your meta tag information
- View source on sites of the same genre as
yours that come up highly on search engines and
directories and see what keywords they
use
- You WordTracker to see which keywords are searched
for and how many webpages are using them
- Use a counter,
so you can check see which words and phrases your
users are searching for
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submitting
- Submit manually to each search
engine/directory once
- Usually submit your home page (and any
other key pages from your site on some search engines
- they each have limits)
- Be careful (i.e. don't spam) about the
ones which use each other's databases:
- Excite, Magellan, City.net and Webcrawler use
the same database
- AOL Search, AltaVista, AltaVista UK,
Dictionary.com, DogPile, Go2Net, Google, HotBot,
Infospace, Lycos, Netscape Search all use Open
Directory
- If your site hasn't appeared after 4-6 weeks -
repeat submission
- Submit to the correct category in
directories
- Some search engines base their listings on link
popularity - how many other sites link to yours? -
are there any sites which may be willing to link to
yours?
- Referring sites have to be of good quality
and/or similar subject area
- Use the "final comments" box where they have one -
last chance to make an impression
- Read all the Search Engines/Directories "How to
submit your site" sections before submitting (most
have them)
- Consider "buying your way in" - Yahoo,
LookSmart etc have the option to pay to have your site
reviewed within a few days
- Doesn't guarantee listing, just that your
site will get reviewed quickly
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Do Not
- Re-direct any page (you want listed) using
JavaScript
- Probably includes the js to get out of
frames some people put in their <body>
tag
- Definitely includes the JavaScript
re-direct to detect browsers for plug-ins
- Have no real HTML content on the home
page
- This is especially true for graphics-heavy "splash
pages" and Flash enabled sites
- Include a "hidden" paragraph in a small font
size or the same colour as the background - some search
engines/directories (e.g. Yahoo) will actually penalise
for this - considered spam
- Especially if this hidden content is also
just a list of keywords
- Put insufficient text links on the page, so
there's nowhere for the search engine to spider
- Put all navigational links in
layers/javascript - the search engines can't always
spider through
- This can include rollover images as links
- Use frames - search engines can't spider them
- In the search engine results, the site will be
seperated into the individual frames
- If you MUST use frames - make sure there are
navigational links in each frame used
- And always use the <no frames> tag
- Use spamming techniques - it will get you barred from
search engines and directories
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improving the
listing
- Analyse site stats using one of the free counters
found here
- Which keywords people are searching for -
change meta tags and
content accordingly
- Which search engines/directories are/are
not putting traffic to the site
- Click-through rate improves site listing
- See if / where users are clicking "Back"
button - negative effect on listing
- How long users stay on site / pages - can
improve listing
- Ensure the page design is not detrimental to
search engines spidering your site
- Possibly have information rich pages
- About things users would be interested in
- Updated frequently - visitors return for
updates
- Possibly moreover.com newsfeeds?
- Link these info rich pages from site map
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useful
tools
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