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Search Engine Marketing 101:
What Search Engines See When They Visit Your Web Site
By Robin Nobles
If you have a Web site, have you ever wondered what a search engine sees when it visits your site to add the site
to its index? Do you know that it doesn't see the beautiful graphics or the fancy Web design? Do you know that it
only sees the source code, or the "skeleton" of your Web site?
Do you realize that knowing this little tidbit of information and doing something about it can make a huge
difference in your search engine rankings and, ultimately, the success of your online business?
One very important thing that you need to remember is: search engines like simplicity. The simpler your Web site
is, the easier it is for the engine to determine what your Web site is about. And, if the search engine can
determine exactly what your Web site is about, you have a better chance at top rankings under the keyword
phrases that are important for your online business.
Let's look at this concept in action with a page I recently created for one of my online businesses: Search Engine
Workshops.
As you can see, it's a very plain, simple page that was not created to be the "main" or "home" page of a Web site.
Rather, it was created to pull in traffic through the keyword phrase, "search engine seminars."
What I really want you to see is the source code of the page. So, when viewing the page, click on View on the top
menu bar, then Source or Source Code.
The most important part of a Web page is what appears at the very top of the page. Why? Because a search
engine starts at the top of the page and begins moving down as it indexes.
So, what appears in the <head> section of your Web page is very important, because the
<head> section is at the top of the page.
Let's look at the <head> section of the source code:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Search Engine Seminars--your path to success on the Web!</TITLE>
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="search engine seminars,
conferences, workshops, CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, Conferences,
Workshops">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Have you considered attending
a search engine seminar to learn how to take a struggling Web
site and bring it to the top of the rankings?">
</HEAD>
There are only three tags in the <head> section of this Web page: the title tag, the keyword META tag, and the
description META tag. Because the title tag is in the <head> section, and because of the importance that
most engines place on the tag, it is considered one of the most important tags on your page, so it should always
be the first tag in the <head> section.
Notice that in the title and keyword META tag, the important keyword phrase (search engine seminars) appears
as the first words in the tag. In the description META tag, the keyword phrase is still toward the beginning of the
tag, as opposed to the end.
In other words, where you place your keyword phrase in the tags and content of your page is important. If you
place your keyword phrase toward the beginning of all of your important tags and toward the beginning of the
contents, you're "proving" to the engines that the page is really about that particular topic.
I've mentioned one reason why the title tag is important, but there's another reason too. The title tag is important
because it almost always appears as the title of the site in the search engine results. Your description META tag
may appear in the search engine results as well and is considered important by some of the engines. So, when
you create your title and description tags, remember two things: put your keyword phrase toward the beginning of
the tags, and make the tags captivating and designed to pull in traffic.
Think of it this way. If your site is #10 in the search engine rankings, but if the sites above yours haven't gone to
the trouble to create appealing titles and descriptions, a search engine user may skip over those sites to visit
yours.
Now, let's go back to the source code. Look for this tag, which isn't far from the <body> tag:
<IMG SRC="images/banner3.jpg" ALT="search engine seminars, search
engine conferences, search engine workshops" WIDTH="220"
HEIGHT="100">
This is the image, or graphics, tag for the Search Engine Workshops banner that appears at the very top of the
page. Notice that the engine doesn't "see" the graphic itself. It sees the name of the graphic (banner3.jpg), and it
sees the ALT text that describes the image. It sees the width and height of the graphic. But, it doesn't see the
graphic itself. So, the engine doesn't know that the graphic says, "Search Engine Workshops."
Next, look for this tag, which directly follows the image tag:
<H1 ALIGN="center"><FONT FACE="Arial">Search Engine
Seminars</FONT></H1>
An <H1> tag is a heading tag, and heading tags are very important to a Web page. Try to put a heading tag at
the very top of your page, if at all possible, and use your important keyword phrase in that heading tag. When you
look back at my actual Web page, do you see the words "Search Engine Seminars" right under the
graphic? That's the heading tag.
About The Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web
Specialists, has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing training programs.
Visit the Academy's training site to learn more. She also
teaches 3-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with
Search Engine Workshops. Copyright 2002 Robin
Nobles. All rights reserved.
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