Tag Archives: iProspect.com Inc.

About 4739 days ago E-Commerce

Attracting Search Engines: What Not to Do

Intentionally launching a Web site that could not be found in any of the major search engines would be a lot like opening a mail-order business and not publishing your phone number. On the Internet, the major search engines such as Yahoo, AltaVista, and Snap are the equivalent of the yellow pages. No matter how pretty and interactive your new Web site, if it can’t be found in one or more of the major search engines, you’re the proud owner of a billboard in the woods. A good friend of mine, a professional copywriter, just launched a great-looking Web site — AKBWriting.com. She spent months preparing the right words to describe her service offering. She solicited testimonials from her satisfied clients – I’m one of them. She sent out a broadcast e-mail to everyone whom she had ever come into contact with. There was just one problem. Her site is practically invisible to search engines. Because of the way it’s designed, the Yahoos and AltaVistas of the virtual world — not to mention potential customers — will ignore it. To give you a better understanding of search engines, we’ve done a little constructive criticism of AKBWriting.com, looking at how it uses graphics, frames, and keywords to attract search engines. Site Assessment: AKBWriting.com Problem 1: Content on main page is in a graphic Copy on the main page is created as a graphic, not HTML text. The first page of the Web site describes the service offering and lists contact information. Unfortunately, the Web site designer chose a graphical representation of this message. Search engines cannot read text contained in graphics; they can only read HTML text. If the Web site design does not include text, the search engine has no content to index. The Web designer sought to overcome this problem by including copy in a NO FRAMES tag, a useful tactic, but not as valuable as making text readily available to feed to the search engines. Problem 2: Frames are used The remainder of AKBWriting.com uses frames, meaning the site is displayed in a split screen. Most sites use frames to keep important links, navigation, and contact information static on the left side of the screen as visitors scroll through. But search engines have problems with frames. First, only about half of the search engines can traverse split screens to index all of the site’s real content displayed on the many pages on the right-side frame. Second, frames prevent people from setting a bookmark in their browser to a particular page within the site. For the same reason, major search engines are often unable to link to internal pages. While several search engines now claim to support framed pages, most search engine positioning professionals tend to agree: “Don’t use frames in your Web design unless you absolutely have to use them.” If you insist on having a framed Web site, the NO FRAMES tag is your best hope for getting listed. For a lengthy discourse on how best to implement a NO FRAMES strategy, check out this article at Search Engine Watch. Problem 3: Not trapping “404 Not Found” errors Web pages change. People add pages to their Web site and remove pages they’ve changed. However, if an internal page of Web site attains a high ranking but is taken down at some later date, what happens to that ranking? Well, it remains, and anyone who visits that page from the search engine is served a “404 NOT FOUND” error. Sooner or later the search engine’s automated agent revisits the page to see if it still exists. When it sees it doesn’t, it instantly drops the page listing and ranking from its index. However, a little-known switch can be flipped on most servers that will cause the server to present a predetermined page instead of any 404 NOT FOUND error. For example, go to the following URL: http://www.inc.com/badabingbadaboom You get a message from inc.com that the page was not found. But inc.com navigation appears at the top, so there is still hope for finding the page you are looking for. However, try the same experiment on the AKB Writing site: http://www.akbwriting.com/badabingbadaboom A 404 NOT FOUND error is displayed — a dead end in cyberspace. Problem 4: Poor keyword selections in the keyword metatag and commas separating keywords in this tag. The keyword metatag on AKBwriting.com is shown below: meta name=”keywords” content=”copywriting, writing, content, marketing, communications, freelance copywriter, web copy, Alexandria Brown, Ali Brown, AKB, newsletters, brochures, e-newsletters” The words included in the keyword metatag are good, but separating them with commas is not the best strategy. That makes search engines consider them individually, but most people do not search on single-word phrases anymore. (Just think of how many sites pop up when you search on “business,” for example.) If the commas are left out of the keyword metatag, the search engine will consider several possible combinations of keywords. That could generate additional unanticipated traffic. So, AKBWriting.com would likely get more mileage out of the following: meta name=”keywords” content=”copywriting writing content marketing communications freelance copywriter web copy Alexandria Brown Ali AKB newsletters brochures e-newsletters” Stay tuned for the next three parts of this series, from Frederick Marckini of iProspect.com. II: Final Keyword Target Universe III: Site Remediation and Optimization III: Search Engine and Directory Submission Copyright © 2000 iProspect.com

About 4800 days ago Search Engine Optimization

Types of Search Engines

Key to improving your Web site’s rank in the different search engines is to understand the basic criteria by which search engines index and then retrieve documents. There are two primary kinds of search services: 1. Search engines: These rely on “software spiders” to index Web sites. You submit your page to a search engine, and the spider will index your entire site. Theoretically, these spiders might find your site by accident, but odds are they won’t unless you go to them and tell them about your site by filling out their “Submit” page. Examples of search engines are AltaVista, Excite, and Lycos. 2. Directories: These rely on submissions from users and Web site owners to populate their indexes. Most directories add your site to their index, but generally they link only to your home page rather than indexing the full text of each page on your site. Examples of directories are Yahoo! and Open Directory. Search Service Type of Service AltaVista search engine AOL Search directory Excite search engine HotBot search engine Go.com search engine Google search engine Lycos directory MSN.com directory Snap.com directory Web Crawler search engine Yahoo! directory These 11 search services are the most popular on the Internet. They are where you should spend your time working to achieve top rankings. Copyright © 2000 iProspect.com

About 4800 days ago E-Commerce

Where to Put Keywords on Your Site

Search engines list sites based on keywords that you can embed in your HTML code. Below is a list of different places in your site where the placement of keywords can improve your rank in search engines. Keywords in the < TITLE > tag(s.) Sometimes you gain an advantage by including more than one < TITLE > tag on a single page. Keywords in the < META NAME="DESCRIPTION" > tag Keywords in the < META NAME="KEYWORD" > tag Keywords in < H1 > to < H6 > headline tags Keywords in the links on your site. For example, < A HREF="http://www.verio.com" > your keyword phrase here < /A >. To better clarify, why make the words “click here” the activated link unless you want to attain a high ranking on “click” or “here”? Keywords in the body copy and content of your site Keywords in ALT tags — Web designers use this tag to describe the contents of a picture that hasn’t finished loading or to describe a picture that you would be looking at if you had not opted to turn the graphics off on your Web browser. A recent study showed that a surprising number of people, perhaps as high as 25%, still browse the Web with the graphics off because of slow connections or slow computers. Keywords contained in the URL or page file name, for example, http://www.keyword.com/keywordkeyword.htm Copyright © 2000 iProspect.com

About 4800 days ago E-Commerce

What Is a Software Spider?

A “software spider” is an unmanned program operated by a search engine that surfs the Web just like you would. As it visits each Web site, it records (saves to its hard drive) all the words on each site and notes each link to other sites. It then “clicks” on a link, and off it goes to read, index, and store another Web site. The software spider often reads and then indexes the entire text of each Web site it visits into the main database of the search engine it is working for. Recently many engines such as AltaVista have begun indexing only up to a certain number of pages of a site, often about 500 total, and then stopping. Apparently, this is because the Web has become so large that it’s unfeasible to index everything. How many pages the spider will index is not entirely predictable. Therefore, it’s a good idea to specifically submit each important page in your site that you want to be indexed, such as those that contain important keywords. A software spider is like an electronic librarian who cuts out the table of contents of each book in every library in the world, sorts them into a gigantic master index, and then builds an electronic bibliography that stores information on which texts reference which other texts. Some software spiders can index more than a million documents a day! It is important to understand that search engines’ spiders do just two things: They index text. They follow links. At a recent Search Engine Strategies conference put on by SearchEngineWatch.com, one of the guest speakers, Shari Thurow of Grantastic Designs, made this point and repeated it several times to illustrate its significance: “Search engines index text and follow links. They index text, and they follow links. That’s all they do.” Her point is important and central to understanding the nature of search engines’ spiders. If the text of your Web site is contained within a graphic, the search engines cannot index it. If all of your important keywords for which you hope to attain rankings are included in the graphics, not in the HTML text, your site will not attain rankings. Remember, search engines do not index pictures or read pictures, they index text and follow links. That’s all. If you have no text on your viewable page, no amount of keywords in your keyword metatag will help you to attain rankings. What the spider sees on your site will determine how your site is listed in its index. Search engines determine a site’s relevancy based on a complex scoring system that the search engines try to keep secret. This system adds or subtracts points based on such things as how many times the keyword appeared on the page, where on the page it appeared, and how many total words were found. The pages that achieve the most points are returned at the top of the search results; the rest are buried at the bottom, never to be found. As a software spider visits your site, it notes any links on your page to other sites. In any search engine’s vast database are recorded all the links between sites. The search engine knows which sites you linked to, and more important, which ones linked to you. Many engines will even use the number of links to your site as an indication of popularity, and will then boost your ranking based on this factor. Copyright © 2000 iProspect.com

About 4860 days ago Search Engine Optimization

The Golden Rule of Search Engine Marketing

If there is one rule that should be referred back to as the refrain in search engine positioning, it is this: The best way to move up the search result list is to learn what kinds of things affect your rankings, and then to analyze the pages that ranked higher than yours for real clues on how you can achieve a higher ranking. Search engines change their ranking algorithms from time to time. A page in your Web site that earned a top ranking last week might drop in the rankings a few months later. Then, left untouched, that same page could climb right back into its old search position a while later, although this is unlikely to happen by chance. The trick to always being on top is to learn the variables that you can make adjustments for, and analyze the contents of the top Web sites to see what they’re doing better than you. Literally, click on the listings for sites that place ahead of yours. When you visit a site, select the “View” pull-down menu in Netscape and then the “Document Source” selection on that menu. You can do the same in Internet Explorer. This allows you to view the actual HTML code that makes up the page. Ask yourself, “Is a particular keyword more prominent or used more frequently in the title tag than in mine?” “Is a particular keyword more prominent or used more frequently in the keyword meta tag?” You should also consider whether a keyword is repeated more often in the site’s description META tag, the first 25 words of the viewable page. This can be in a headline (ffiH1?to ffiH6? tag) or in the actual body copy that makes up the page. Count the total number of occurrences on the competing page, note where the keyword is placed, note the total words, and rework your Web page to emulate the page’s keyword concentrations and placement. Perhaps the page uses the keyword in the heading tags, or maybe keywords appear in hyperlinks to other internal pages or some other way that you had not considered. Do not copy the page. Copying your competitor’s HTML code or language could constitute plagiarism and possible copyright violation. This is the proven way to isolate the variables and climb ahead of other sites in search engines. Copyright © 2000 iProspect.com

About 4860 days ago E-Commerce

META Tags and How to Use Them

META tags are the information that you place in the ffiHEAD? section of your Web site which does not display in the browser window. META tags allow the developer to communicate certain information to the search engines, other automated services and other Web developers about the site. The term meta tags comes from the term “meta data” which is simply data that describes data. In a sense, a book’s table of contents could be considered meta data. An abstract or short summary of a longer article could be considered meta data. Meta data, therefore, is simply a short cut to classifying the contents of a document. In that way, a meta tag is a short cut for the search engines to quickly classify and index your Web page.Think of the META tag as food for a search engine’s spiders. META tags let you tell a search engine’s spider: The name of your site A description of your site that you would like the search engine to use The keywords that you would like your site to be found under META tags provide Web site developers with control over how your site is listed in a spider-based search engine. If you don’t include them in your document, the spider will likely take the first 25 words on your Web site and include them as the name and description of the site. Have you ever seen a Web site listed in a search engine as follows? (COMPANY) (INFORMATION) (PRODUCTS) (SERVICES) (OVERVIEW) Hi, and thanks for taking the time to visit our company page. We hope you’ll find… http://www.gizmonicselectric.com/ – size 22K – 22 Sept 96 You guessed it, this was the navigation bar that the site developer included at the top of the page. The search engine’s spider grabbed the first text it found and hoped it described the page. Most important, nothing about this listing is compelling. You have no idea what the company does or why you should visit the page. META tags are easy to build. Just follow the format below and replace our title, description and keywords with your own. Here is an example of META tags: ffiHEAD? ffiTITLE?increase traffic with iprospect.comffi/TITLE? ffiMETA name=”Keywords” CONTENT=”increase traffic, increase Web site traffic, search position, report position, report search ranking, rank, search ranking, monitor search positions, web site promotion, internet promotion, optimize search positions, improve traffic”? ffiMETA name=”Description” CONTENT=”INCREASE Web site TRAFFIC. Response Direct is the premier Web marketing e-agency – want traffic?”? ffi!– This is a comments tag, you can put keywords here, too–? ffi/HEAD? Clearly the site above wants to place well for both the product name, “Increase Traffic,” and the name of the company, “iProspect.com.” The ffiHEAD? Tag Start your META tag section with a ffiHEAD? tag and end with a ffi/HEAD? by adding the front leaning slash. All of your META tags should be contained within these two tags. The ffiTITLE? Tag – The Most Important HTML Tag on Your Web site The ffiTITLE? tag displays the name of the site that will appear in the top of the browser. This is the most important HTML tag on your Web site! ffiTITLE? is the title tag and must be ended with a ffi/TITLE? tag. Many people visiting your Web site never notice this text that appears in the top blue border of their browser, but most search engines assign the most significance to text contained in the ffiTITLE? tag. Between these two title tags, identify your site but try to make it sound interesting and worth visiting, while at the same time, trying to get as many of your keywords into it as possible. Always put your ffiTITLE? tag right after the ffiHEAD? tag. Important: Most of the large search engines will use as their title for your site in the search results the contents of your ffiTITLE? tag exactly as you composed it. The ffiMETA name=”DESCRIPTION”? Tag This tag allows you to write a description of your Web site that some search engines will use instead of what they would otherwise randomly select from the copy on your pages. Not all search engines recognize or read this HTML tag. Here’s how you use it: ffiMETA name=”Description” CONTENT=”Description of your site.”? Start your description META tag like the above followed by not more than 25 words in general that are a compelling and interesting description of your site. The ffiMETA name=”KEYWORDS”? Tag This tag lets you suggest keywords to the search engines that you would like your Web site to be returned for. Again, not all the search engines will use this tag and some won’t even consider keywords included in this tag in their scoring of your Web site. Here’s how you use this tag: ffiMETA name=”Keywords” CONTENT=”Keyword1, Keyword2, Keyword3″? List all the keywords you can think of that you would like your site to come up under within the length limits for each engine. The ffi!– Comment Tag –? A comment or remark tag is typically used to record comments about your Web site or HTML code that you don’t want viewed on the actual page. This tag can also be filled with relevant keyword content. Again, not all the search engines will use this tag, and some won’t even consider keywords included in it for scoring of your Web site, but some do. Here’s how you use this tag: ffi!– Here are some comments that visitors to your Web site won’t be able to see in their browser because the words are included in this non-printing tag –? Technically, comment tags are not considered part of the META tag family of HTML code except that for Web site marketing purposes you can include these comments between the ffiHEAD? and ffi/HEAD? tags where the META tags go. But you can also include comment tags throughout your Web site. Comment tags can be used at the top, middle and bottom of Web pages for keyword placement to help increase keyword weight. Copyright © 2000 iProspect.com

About 4891 days ago E-Commerce

Longer Domain Names Are Going Fast ? Are You Missing Out?

On Dec. 16, 1999, Register.com announced it would begin accepting domain name registrations up to 67 characters in length, versus the old 22-character limit. While much of the hype promoting the value of this new service is just that, there are compelling reasons to use long names nonetheless. Consider this top-level domain name and others like it as illustrations of how not to leverage this new freedom: http://www.ourcompanieshavethebestproductsonthemarketIswear.com And while the example above may seem of little value, consider the opportunity for companies whose actual company name is so long that it could not be effectively abbreviated under the old 22-character domain name schema. In practical terms, this new longer domain name may hold some real value for companies (including these Fortune 50 examples below) whose long names lost out to old character restrictions on the Internet. Benefactors include: www.theprudentialinsurancecompanyofamerica.com (38 characters) www.internationalbusinessmachines.com(29 characters) www.statefarminsurancecompanies.com (28 characters) www.morganstanleydeanwitter.com(23 characters) Short, memorable domain names have recently commanded sale prices bordering on the obscene, most recently with “Business.com” selling for $7.5 million in November 1999. “Cybersquatters,” sometimes known as domain name speculators, register available domain names, hoping to resell them for a king’s ransom when somebody wants one badly enough. Now that 67-character domain names are available, these parasites are in full-frenzy mode, snapping up the obvious choices. It begs the question, does a longer domain name have real value for my company? If attaining high ranking in major search engines is a goal of your online marketing plan, pay attention. The availability of longer domain names affords an opportunity to educate online marketers about the value of keywords in the top-level domain. There has been a relevance “boost” reported by search engine positioning consultants in the following spider-based search engines for Web sites whose domain name includes keywords. These include: 1. Excite 2. AltaVista 3. HotBot 4. WebCrawler 5. Google Simply put, if your domain name includes keyword phrases, it will tend to rank higher than Web sites that do not include those keywords in these engines. You may already know that most search engine users do not scroll past the first three pages of search matches after performing a query. If your Web site is not found in the top 10 to 30 matches, your site may as well be invisible. Any edge you can give yourself will pay dividends. Many Web marketers are learning the value of a search engine positioning strategy that includes several domain names. If a Web site contains content on several topics, products, or services, why not break out that content onto separate URLs? Each of those new URLs may be eligible to be listed separately in directories like Yahoo and OpenDirectory as well. There are myriad benefits to breaking your content out into separate and multiple URLs. If your company, Joe Smith Co., sells indoor/outdoor concert speakers, your Web site might have been located at www.JoeSmithCo.com. If you hoped to rank well in the search engines when someone queried “Joe Smith Co.,” you’d be on your way. However, if your company name does not have national brand recognition, you’d be well advised to work toward ranking well on targeted keyword phrase queries instead. Under the previous domain name length restrictions, the best you could’ve hoped for would be a domain name like www.indooroutdoorconcertsp.com (22 characters before the “.com”). Now, with new longer domain names available, you could register www.indooroutdoorconcertspeakers.com or even www.indoor-outdoor-concert-speakers-at-Joe-Smith-Co.com. We recognize that either of those two domain names would be too long for branding purposes (47 characters in the second example!). And we’re not encouraging companies to register such long domain names for their primary company Web site. But remember, domain names are inexpensive, at just $70 for two years. Hosting a Web site is also relatively inexpensive, with some companies charging as little as $25 a month. A top ranking in the major search engines is free. However, just a few top rankings in the major search engines can drive more targeted traffic to your Web site than just about any other online marketing method. A search engine positioning strategy that uses multiple domain names is generally beneficial. The ranking improvement possible will likely pay for the cost of the additional hosting and registration fees. Conclusion There are several valid reasons for implementing long domain names, including long company names and appropriate keyword and phrase inclusion. However, much of the recent, breathless advice on registering long names comes from Web marketing firms that charge you fees based on registering additional domains. Often these companies link to registration companies through their affiliate program, which pays a commission to the referrer. Regrettably, there is as much hype as valuable discourse on this topic. Registering very long domain names containing several of your targeted keywords or phrases such as: www.keyword-and-keyword-phrases-and-yet-another-keyword-phrase.com Probably won’t help you accomplish your search engine positioning goals in the long term. Search engines will likely flag domains that contain more than two dashes, or that contain dissimilar keyword phrases. However, longer domain names that help Web site marketers focus in on a particular product or service that is composed of more than 22 characters may reap considerable benefits. Copyright © 2000 iProspect.com