KEYWORDS PLAY A KEY ROLE IN SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT
By Rozey Gean
Search engines are used 24/7 by Internet enthusiasts and researchers around the world to locate everything they need from A to Z. When someone is looking for the very thing that you sell, whose web site does the search engine direct them to - yours? - or your competitor's?
Search engine submission is gaining growing popularity with each passing day, as site owners compete for top ranking. What exactly lands you on top? The answer to this question is not simple, as gaining exposure through search engines and directories is more complex and time consuming than one article will allow me to explain. But there are several interesting concepts that merit some experimentation.
SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT
Many of the engines determine placement by keywords and phrases planted throughout your site pages. This suggests that your site should be rich in words and phrases that relate to the products and services you wish to market.
This concept would work best by actually deciding on which keywords and phrases you want to implement prior to actually composing the text. I'm sure you are asking about now, "Isn't that backwards?" Normally, it would be. But when we are speaking about search engines and how they work, this is an exception to the rule.
IMPLEMENTING KEYWORDS & PHRASES
By choosing your keywords and phrases first, building your meta tags rich with keywords in the order of importance, and then designing your pages filled with your chosen keywords and phrases, you are going to substantially increase your potential for gaining a higher ranking on the search engines.
As you are compiling your list of keywords and phrases, think about which words your potential clients might be likely to provide in their inquiry to the search engine. Try to put yourself in the chair of the surfer. A short list of powerful, targeted words will probably obtain you higher placement, but will also limit the number of keywords in which a surfer can input to find you. A longer list will rank you lower, but you will have a broader range of words that would be compatible to the surfer's words and phrases.
There are many ways you can determine what keywords and phrases to use. Let's explore the following:
1. Go to any search engine and test your potential keywords by typing in a word and see where it leads you. Check out the top ranked web sites on several search engines by utilizing different keywords and phrases from your list and even add to your list the keywords and phrases they are using.
2. Use the plural form of the word. For example, instead of typing "cat," type "cats." In doing so, the search engine will pick up both forms of the word.
3. Key phrases are encouraged and should be used as an entire group of words with each phrase itself being separated by commas. Follow the example provided in this tag: (cats, black cats, wild black cats, house cats).
NOTE: commas also separate the phrases containing more than one word just as they are when we use the single words.
4. Create gateway, or splash, pages to your site that serve as a doorway for your visitors to pass through and optimize your site for higher placement. The pages must be compelling enough for your visitors to want to see more, but they must also be very short with minimal load time at two to three seconds.
Create different meta tag descriptions that will stand out from those of your competitors. These pages are highly important to your search engine placement and serve to attract a larger audience of visitors to your site. Conduct your own search on creating gateway or splash pages - and see what you turn up!
Maximize your potential ranking by incorporating effective keywords and phrases, as well as splash or gateway, pages throughout your web site. From your title, right down to your page content, keywords and phrases will make all the difference in the world for your search engine rankings.
Copyright 2000, Rozey Gean, All Rights Reserved
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Rozey Gean is the founder of the Marketing-Seek.com website
where ezine publishers and writers are brought together in an
easy-to-use, friendly interface.
http://www.marketing-seek.com
Email - mailto:rozey@marketing-seek.com ____________________________________________________________