Do you wonder how well your page is set up to rank high in search
engines?
When dealing with search engines we are first concerned with what
keyword you want to rank well for. What is a keyword? It is the
combination of words that an Internet user will search on to find
information. If you go to Yahoo and type "used cars" into
the search box, then "used cars" is the keyword you searched
on.
There are three things that makes it tricky to correctly optimize
your website for search engines:
- It is difficult to select a keyword that is both popular and
that several other people have not already highly optimized their
page for.
- Every search engine has a different algorithm for ranking pages.
- Search engines change the ranking algorithms on a frequent basis.
For these reasons, it is best to hire a search engine professional
(like Brilliance Web Design, Inc.) that has access to detailed information
on how each search engine works. However, it is a great exercise
for every website owner to do a "checkup" on their site
and to understand how well your page is currently set up to attract
search engines.
Here's how to do a search engine "checkup" on your site.
There are certain areas of your page that many search engines look
and see if you have keywords. You will need to check each of these
areas for the presence of the keyword you want to rank well for.
You may not always be able to use the keyword in all of these areas,
but the more you can use it, the more likely your page is to rank
high for that keyword.
Look for the keyword you want to rank well for in the following
areas:
Title Tag
The Title Tag defines the text that is displayed in the top bar
of your web browser. You can see an example of a Title in the following
screenshot.
http://www.brillianceweb.com/images/se_title.gif
The Title Tag of this page is "Christian Weddings: Unique Ideas
- Page 1 of 3". This would be a good page title for the keywords
"Christian weddings", "unique Christian weddings"
or "Christian wedding ideas".
The body text is all of the text that is displayed to the user via
HTML on your webpage. Text that has been made into a graphic is
not counted as body text by search engines. You can see an example
of the words "Christian" and "weddings" throughout
the body text in the following screenshot:
http://www.brillianceweb.com/images/se_bodytext.gif
In general, the more you are able to use your keyword or portions
of your keyword within the page, the higher you will rank in a search
engine for that keyword.
ALT tags are alternate text that can be defined for each graphic
on your web page. It is designed to tell browsers that do not read
graphics what image was there and to assist blind web-surfers in
reading the web page. You can see this alternate text by hovering
over your graphic with your mouse. A small box will popup with the
alternate text if it is defined on your page. You can see an example
of what ALT text looks like in the following screenshot.:
http://www.brillianceweb.com/images/se_alt.gif
The ALT tag of this graphic is "The Christian Wedding Planner"
-- which makes sense because it is the title of the book in the
graphic.
Many search engines look through the ALT tags for your keywords.
The presence of your keyword in your ALT text will show that this
page is relevant to someone's search.
There are four more areas of each page that you will want to check
to see your keywords. We will cover these in the next issue of Better
Web Design.
Just remember, the presence of keywords in these areas doesn't
do you any good if you don't pick the right keywords.
And, don't forget to check every page on your site -- not just
your home page. Every page on your site can be optimized for a different
keyword. For example, if you are selling chocolate, you may want
to optimize one page for "corporate chocolate gifts",
another page for "bulk chocolate candy", and yet another
page for "chocolate wedding favors".
For more information on which keywords are right for your website,
please contact Brilliance Business Solutions at 414-425-4069 or support@brillianceweb.com.