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UPC Newsletters>
7 Sure Fire Ways To Optimize Your Web site!
April 30, 2005
7 Sure Fire Ways To Optimize Your Web site!
Why is optimizing so important? Let’s first define what it
means to optimize. Definition terms per Webster’s
Dictionary defines optimize as: "make optimal; get the most
out of; use best; optimize your resources.
UPC is dedicated to giving you the knowledge and tools for
your website in order for you to have a successful online
presence. Here are some recommended tips for optimizing
your website.
It is highly recommended using as much keyword-heavy text
as possible, in sentence form, on your page to provide the
relevant information required for effective search engine
placement. The more information your page provides to the
search engines, the better it will do.
Submitting a page to search engines is part of the ranking
process, but it is at the search engines' discretion on how
they choose to rank sites. It is a good idea to use the
optimization tools in order to ensure your page is
optimized for high ranking.
Content, title tags and metatags all play a role in search
engine submission. There are several meta tags, but the
most important for search engine indexing are the title,
description and keywords tags. The description tag provides
the engine a synopsis of your site. The keywords tag
provides terms for the search engine to associate with your
page.
Not all search engines solely use META tags for indexing
sites. The text and content of your Web page will play a
major role in how or if you will be ranked on a search
engine. Search engines often assign more weight to the text
located at the top of a page than to the text located in
the middle or at the bottom of a page. If your page has a
main graphic at the top, you should place some descriptive
text either underneath or beside the image. Adding a few
keywords to the title tag of your site, and adding your URL
as a keyword will help.
Some tips that are highly valuable:
1. Put the most relevant text "above the fold," or in the
top half of the page. This doesn't mean the top half as a
person viewing the page sees it. This means, put relevant
text in the top half. Search engines assume text that is
large and in the top half of the page is more relevant that
something at the bottom. And usually it is.
2. Don't use "hidden" text! This means, do not use text
that is the same color as the background. This is often an
automatic listing violation and will definitely not get
your site listed.
3. Use keywords as image names. Search engine spiders don't
see what images look like. All they see is the filename,
such as "header_topleft.gif" or the like. Use a relevant
keyword string as the filename instead, such as "1998
Chevrolet Camaro.gif" (if you were selling a 1998 Chevy
Camaro). This is another great place to "hide" relevant
text.
4. When selecting keywords, put yourself in the place of a
web user sitting at a search engine. What are they going to
type into the search box when they are looking for your
industry (remember, they aren't looking for you. They are
looking for a type of service or product)? These terms
should be your keywords, and should appear in the text of
your site.
5. Play up your uniquenesses. Your location can be a
uniqueness. So can a specific brand name. Give users a
reason to click on your URL over the hundreds of others in
the search.
6. Big text is ranked higher that small text. Use large
text (H1 or H2) for headers and titles. Make sure this text
includes keywords that are important to your site. Small
text on a site (smaller than the default size) is ranked
very low by search engine spiders. Don't think this means
you should put all of your text in huge flashing green
letters, however. Just make effective use of titles and
header tags.
7. The main thing to remember: If your site has relevant
and useful information, with meta tags to match, you will
have a much much easier time getting listed and being found
by searchers. Give your potential customers a way to find
you!
The "Catch 22" of search engine placement is sites with a
lot of traffic get better placement and you want better
placement to get a lot of traffic. Using paid search in
conjunction with traditional marketing techniques will help
generate traffic you deserve. The techniques listed above
will help with search engine placement. 
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