There are billions of web pages on the Internet. It’s obvious that not all of them can be listed in the top 10 results on search engines. Search engines only list web sites that they find relevant to a special topic. You must make sure that your web site is such a site.
If search engines cannot find out that your web site is about fishing equipment, they cannot give your web site high rankings for that keyword. The process of optimizing your web pages so that search engines find them relevant is called search engine optimization (SEO).
Only a few web surfers look further than the first or second result page of a search engine
75% of searchers never look further than page one (Source: Georgia Institute of Technology). Most search engines display ten results on the first page; and very few searchers click the links to look at the second page. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen points out: “Users almost never look beyond the second page of search results.” Danny Sullivan, ClickZ Search Engine Marketing Columnist, puts it out this way: “Being listed 11 or beyond means that many people may miss your web site.”
For that reason, search engine optimization is crucial if you want to be successful with your web site. If you want to get targeted visitors from search engines, you must optimize your web pages for search engines. It’s not enough to submit your web site to search engines. In this manual, you’ll learn how to optimize your pages as efficiently as possible.
How do search engines rank web pages?
Search engines use mathematical formulas to determine the rank of a web page. These mathematical formulas are called ranking algorithms. Although search engines don’t reveal the exact algorithms. All major search engines use the same principle to rank web sites. The exact ranking algorithms differ from search engine to search engine but the principle is the same.
Google as an example.
How does Google rank your web pages?
Google explains the ranking algorithm on their company pages:
“Traditional search engines rely heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. Google uses PageRank™ to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important.
It then conducts hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, Google is able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.”
PageRank and hypertext-matching analysis?
Google uses PageRank (which is a mathematical formula and not the green bar in the Google toolbar) and hypertext-matching analysis to rank your web pages. To get good results for the PageRank factor, you need good links from related pages that point to your site. It’s a simple principle: if page a links to page b then it is a recommendation from page a to page b. The more links point to your web site, the better your rankings.
The quality of the links is also important. A link that contains the keyword for which you want to have high rankings in the link text is better than five links with the text Click here. A link from a web site that has a related topic is much better than links from unrelated sites or link lists.
While the linking concept is easy to understand, the hypertext-matching analysis factor is a bit more complicated. Google explains hypertext-matching analysis as follows:
“Hypertext-Matching Analysis: Google’s search engine also analyzes page content. However, instead of simply scanning for page-based text (which can be manipulated by site publishers through meta-tags), Google’s technology analyzes the full content of a page and factors in fonts,subdivisions and the precise location of each word. Google also analyzes the content of neighboring web pages to ensure the results returned are the most relevant to a user’s query.”
How to optimize your web pages for Google’s hypertext-matching analysis
As Google analyzes the full content of your pages you also have to optimize the full content of your web pages. It is not enough to edit your meta tags. You have to optimize all factors that can influence your search engine rankings.
The problem is that many webmasters don’t know which page factors can be important.
One page is not enough
As mentioned in the explanation of Google’s hypertext-matching analysis, Google also analyzes the content of other web pages on your site to ensure that your web page is really relevant. That means that you should optimize different pages of your web site for different but related search terms. The more web pages of your web site are optimized for keywords about a special topic, the more likely it is that you’ll get high rankings for a special keyword that is related to that topic.
Your web site must have both optimized content and incoming links.
Are there thousands of search engines?
Some people promise to submit your web site to 50,000 or more search engines. There aren’t thousands of search engines on the Internet. The majority of these 50,000 so called “search engines” are free for all (FFA) link pages or special interest web pages. Submitting your web page to thousands of FFA sites means that you’ll end up with thousands of spam email messages. In addition, you won’t receive a single visitor when you submit your web site about office equipment to
a directory of poets in Poland.
There are four major players
There’s only a handful of search engines that can really bring visitors to your web site. As always, it’s quality that matters, not quantity. For this reason, you should concentrate on the important search engines when you submit your web site to search engines.
Currently, there are only four major players: Google, Yahoo, MSN Search and Ask.com. They are responsible for the bigger part of the search engine traffic you can get because they also power other search engines, for example the search engine on AOL.com displays Google results.
In addition, there are country specific search engines. If you have a German web site, you should also submit to the popular German search engines. In general, there aren’t more than three or four relevant search engines in a country. The majority of the web surfers uses the same search engines.
Internet directories can be a good addition
Internet directories are different from search engines because all web site submissions are reviewed by humans. There are several directories where your web site should be listed. One of the more important directories is The Open Directory Project at www.dmoz.org.
You should also submit to topic specific search engines. If your web site sells garden equipment, you should submit your web site to specific garden directories. Even if they send you only a few visitors, they could improve the link popularity of your web site which helps your ranking in other search engines.
Definition: Search engines and Internet directories
Search engines use indexing software programs, called robots or spiders. These software programs are programmed to constantly crawl the web in search of new or updated pages. They will go from URL to URL until they have visited every web site on the Internet. When visiting a web site, a search engine spider will record the full text of every page found (including sub-pages).
After that, it will continue to visit all external links. The URL of a web page is the address of a web page, for example “http://www.ebooktops.com“. By following external links that point to your web site, search engines are able to find your site. The search engine spiders will then revisit your site periodically to refresh the recorded information. Search engines rank your web pages based on mathematical formulas.
Search engines and Internet directories are not the same. Internet directories don’t use indexing software programs. If you submit your web site to an Internet directory, your web site will be indexed by real people who decide whether to include your web site or not.
Directories are usually subdivided into categories, and you have to submit your URL under the most appropriate heading. If you don’t, it is very likely that your web site won’t be listed.(Wait for next post)
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Wonderfull seo.