So search engines basically have a clue how to process your site and rank it.
You can have the most profitable keywords picked out, the most beautiful graphic designs, the fastest web-hosting money can buy, plus the top-end in streaming video, scintillating graphics, beautiful flash animations, and all the bells and whistles anyone ever heard of.
Where search engines can’t “read” your site or make sense of it – they won’t know how to rank it. If they don’t rank it, potential customers and clients won’t be able to find it. And so there are no leads or sales if people never heard of your company.
The good news is that solving this isn’t a hard thing to do. Google gave out the instructions on what they are looking for in 2008 and haven’t changed them since. (http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf) There are some anecdotal reports that they have made some shifts in their algorithms, as far as how they find sites and value what they find, but that was bound to happen. The bulk of what they look for on a given page hasn’t changed, however.
Now let’s look at just what they want to see:
1. The Browser Page Title – this is at the top of that browser window as you look at it – and is what Google uses to rank your site by the keywords it contains.
2. Description – what Google looks for next – a paragraphic summary of your site. If this contains the keywords matching the search, they’ll use it. Otherwise, they’ll take the an excerpt from the first section, or wherever that keyword first shows up.
3. Page Title. This is the first sentence or phrase on the page, and is usually given an “H1” value, which means the most important headline.
4. Phrases in Italics or Bold type. These are emphasized as important text – and so search engines also consider them important, like you do.
5. Images have alternative descriptions in words which tell what that image is saying. Also, all links have alternative phrases to describe them.
Those are the 5 points Google looks for first, in general.
6. And finally, use related terms to the keyword(s) you’re wanting to rank for in the body of that text. If you talk about a certain product, then you want to mention related terms to show you know what you’re talking about. Terms such as “dog collars” will have related terms such as “pet”, “puppy”, “canine”, “pet supplies”, “leads”, “leash”, “accessories” and so on in the neighboring text.
And beyond these points, there really isn’t anything. To avoid doing anything looking like spam on your pages, simply apply this test: Is your page content really valuable and something you would like to find if you searched for that term? Pages with no value might rank for a little while, but only once.
The more of the 6 points above which are present on your page will determine how “search engine optimized” it is. If you look at the page source (click “view” in the browser menu, then “source”) you’ll be able to tell if your web designer has used these to build your page.
It’s also a quiz for your web designer – if they can’t answer your question or rattle off these points by memory, then perhaps you need a search engine optimization service.
It’s like this: if you have a beautiful site which doesn’t rank, you might as well have a beautiful store in some remote location with no way to find it. No customers means no sales.
And that’s the reason to optimize your site.
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Author: Robert C. Worstell (BS, M.Msc, MBA, PhD) is an independent researcher and the author of numerous practical books, articles, videos, and whitepapers on the Internet and Marketing, as well as several specific articles on best website designs. His most recent book in this area of how to do a website is titled An Online Sunshine Plan and is specifically written so that anyone can take a small web business online quickly, simply, and profitably.
Other new and latest releases of his best self help books are available through Lulu.com and many online distributors as well as larger bookstores.
This article is free for reproduction as long as by-line remains intact.
The Home Business by Design 