A Down and Dirty Guide to Search Engine Positioning

By Mark Joyner

I've been asked here to sum up what everyone should
know about search engine positioning.  First, two
caveats: 1) Search Engine Positioning is only a tiny
part of the big Internet Marketing picture.  It
takes time and there are other things that will pay
off far more in the long run.  2) This is a gross
simplification of the whole process.

With that said, let's dive in. 

1.  This discussion will focus on spider engines.
That is, an engine that goes to your site and
indexes you based on what it finds.  Directories
are a whole 'nother ball game (which we will address
in another article).  Good examples of spiders are:
Infoseek, Excite, and AltaVista.

2.  Every search engine is different.  You need to
learn the "algorithm" (set of rules) used by each
engine to rank pages.  An algorithm is a set of
rules.

3.  These algorithms change constantly.  This is
why tips like "put 3 % of your target keyword in
your title tag" are probably worthless by the time
you hear them.

4.  The only reliable way to learn a sites algorithm
is to analyze actual results of a search on that
engine.  This must be done using a reliable keyword
density analyzer.  This tool will show you the weight
of particular keywords in high ranking documents.  You
then simply reproduce this weight in your document to
attempt to reproduce the results.  Any advice you find
that did not come from an actual analysis is probably
smoke and mirrors. This method is very reliable.
There are a few other factors that will affect rank
that can not be measured this way (link popularity,
spam filtering etc.), but keyword density is the
easiest to measure and most reliable factor.

Here is the only keyword density analyzer I use:
http://www.roibot.com/r_kda.cgi?R22577_wmtarttext2
 

5.  You should not only be concerned with the rank
of your listing, but with the way it appears in the
engine as well.  If your listing is #1, but looks
like a bunch of junk (try a search right now and
you'll see what I mean), it will be a waste of your
time.  The appearance of your listing depends on
two of three things: 

    a) your title tag e.g. <title>title here</title> 

    b) your description tag <meta name="description"
    content="description here like this"> (applies
    to some engines - all others use the following)

    c) the first 250 words (or so) of visible text
    on your site on your site

"A" above is what the engine links to your page.
B or C are used as descriptive text for your link.
You must balance your work on these tags.  That is,
sometimes what gets you a high rank will not make
for an enticing listing.   Remember that your title
is most important.  Think of it as a headline for an
ad.  

6.  No software in itself is going to get you a high
position on a search engine.  Period.  There are many
software products claiming to get you a higher position
on the web.  For the  most part, save your money.
There are really only two programs you need (and you
may not even need them):   

    a) A keyword density analyzer.  You don't really
    need this if you have some other tool that will
    allow you to analyze the relative mathematical
    composition of any text.   If what I just said flew
    over your head, a keyword density analyzer is for
    you.   Again, here is the only one I use
    http://www.roibot.com/r_kda.cgi?R22577_wmtarttext2

    b) A site submitter.  You don't really need one of
    these, either, if you are strictly focusing on a
    high position in the spider engines.  You can
    probably submit these pages one by one just as
    easily since the process of gaining a high rank
    is a surgical one.  However, if you need to submit
    many pages at once (if you do it will save time),
    or you want to submit to other types of sites (most
    submitters submit to over 900 sites and spider
    engines account for about 12 of those), then it is
    a good idea to get some software that will automate
    this task for you.  We've developed a powerful
    multi-use tool that will spider all of your pages
    and submit each of them to all known spider engines
    (it has about 20 other functions as well - all of
    them key).  You can check that out here:
    http://www.roibot.com/r_s.cgi?R22577_wmtarttext2

There is, of course, much more to it than I have listed
here, but this information will get you started on the
right track.

Article by Mark Joyner, CEO of Aesop Marketing
Corporation and creator of 1001 Killer Internet
Marketing Tactics - a *must have* tool for
anyone serious about doing business on the
Internet. Do yourself a favor and check this
one out today:
http://www.roibot.com/r_kt.cgi?R22577_wmtarttext2
 

>> Back to Home Business Classifieds  Starting your own Business? Read this. Learn about different
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