Behind every good website is a good
woman...er...wait...wrong saying.
I think the real saying is: Behind every good website is good source
code...yeah, that's it. Source code is the matrix we know as html and is
the driving force of getting noticed by spiders. Search
engine spiders 'crawl' the coding on your site and position you in a
ranking system based on numerous factors. One factor being Key Words
or 'Meta Tags'. Try this exercise: Right click on this page and
'view source'. You should see something like this: (the
highlighted portion colors the key words)
For your website, we need to come
up with about 30 (give or take) really good key words I will embed into your
source code. These words should be both broad and specific.
Put yourself in a searcher's shoes and try and get into their head.
What words would they type in a query string to find you?
Sometimes we can be oblivious to the obvious, so think outside the box. Your
key words are also built right into your first page, and
subsequently, every page is built off of the first, so it's really,
really important that I have the key words from the get go. Do
a search on your competitors then right click their pages and view
their source code. What kinds of key words are they using?
Another thing the spiders like are
text and text links.
Notice I didn't say images links? Unfortunately, gifs and jpgs
don't get picked up all that well by the search engines.
That's a shame too because that's where all your bells and whistles
are. The solution is that a good website developer (see
Square One)
will balance your page and give you both! Fun mouse-over
tricks as well as obligatory text links tucked away at the bottom, strategically placed with smaller font.
This is so common place anymore there is no redundancy. In
some cases, it's even handy to have links at the very bottom,
particularly if you have a long page to scroll through.
Page titles and a good url certainly
help as well. Ever been to a website and in the page title
section at the top of your screen you see something like Homepage?
Or, the url is
www.mtco.com/bobcoproducts/index.htm
This is just wrong on so many levels.
I title each and every page, which not
only helps your visitor know where they're at, but again, with the
spiders, it's another way to get noticed.
Prominent
title in the upper left corner blue section status bar
And how about that Favicon?
(That's
what you call those images in your address bar...in this case the
brown letter M.)
A url (see
Getting
Started) that is
descriptive to your business name is the best way to go. If your
first choice is not available, think about going with a .net instead
of changing your url wording. Keep your url forever and over
time (yes, lots and lots of time) you're a shoe-in with the search
engines. Seriously.
And last, but certainly not least,
is good old fashioned marketing. Put your web address on all
of your hardcopy materials and business cards, send out a mass
mailing to announce your site (I can help you with that...see
Launch
Pad
for more information) contact your local paper and see if you
qualify for a feature story. Get with community websites and inquire
about cross advertising with your site, or simply
hire a professional marketer. (Just ask and I can direct you
to some of the finest!)
Alrighty then, I think we're ready for.....
