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From Composer, title, "keyword,",
and describe your page (Format: Page Color and Properties
commands).
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Titling your page
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Titling your page - Choose
your title CAREFULLY! Search engines use the title to locate your
page, and users see it as a title for their bookmarks.
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Be sure that your most important
words are first, and are duplicated in your META tags.
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The most common META tags
are keywords and descriptions.
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Page keywords
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What 10 keywords best describe
your site? Your business? What 30 keywords? What 50 words?
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Rank order them by importance.
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***Although many references
will tell you opposite, use upper case characters in your keywords
and description (***SEE NOTE BELOW). Any case will be found when
the searcher is using all lower case, but only UPPER CASE KEYWORDS will
be found when the searcher is using upper case in their search.
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Ex. If, using Alta
Vista, you searched for "candy", Alta Vista would find "candy", "Candy",
and "CANDY". However, if the searcher queries "Candy", Alta Vista
will only 'find you' if your keywords include "Candy" or "CANDY"; if they
query "CANDY", only "CANDY" will be found. Remember, you want to
be found in this case.
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Use brand names, company
names, and conceptual words.
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Keywords do
not have
to be singular. They may also be phrases offset by commas.
For example, "CLOWN, RED NOSE" only includes 2 keywords, not three.
"RED, RED NOSE" would not be repeating keywords!
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Use the plural version of
a word if it only means adding an "s" at the end of the word. Most
search tools will include both singular and plurals in your search.
However, if the plurals include more than just adding the "s"--for example,
berry and berries--then include them both. Also consider using misspelled
forms of your most important keywords, especially if they are commonly
misspelled. Want some Barebcue?
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Do not excessively repeat
keywords. Many search engines will penalize you for this.
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Review the top 10 Web sites
that appear in a search that describes your Web site. Look to see
what they have done before you finish your META tags.
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Avoid using words like "Free,
the Best, the only" and so on to describe your site. They take the
place of relevant key words!
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Always use your keywords
in the title of your page. The more times these words match up,
the more heavily they will be weighted, and the higher your ranking!
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Page descriptions
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What one sentence best describes
your site?
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Use keywords in your description.
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Place the keyword in the
beginning of your description. For example, "floral arrangements
for your loved ones" will be ranked higher than, "we are
a virtual store that sells floral arrangements."
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Other META tags - What are
they and should you use them? Go to Scentiments
and look at the META tags. This Web author has taken full advantage
of using them and repeating keywords!
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Sample META tag from the
Internet Marketing contact page (placed tag between the <head> </head>
tags, but after the title)
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<meta name="description"
content="contact Internet Marketing program at Old Dominion University
here.">
<meta name="keyword" content="Internet
Marketing, Old Dominion, ODU, University,
Marketing, contact, Monarchs, Kosloski,
Norfolk.">
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Take a look at the source code for this page.
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Try to make the first words of your title, your
description, and your keywords match each other! Most search
tools will give your words additional 'weight' if they are repeated in
each of these sections.
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Try and use these words in the first 15 words
of text on your page. Once again, many search tools will add
weight if this occurs, and some will even exclude you if it doesn't, thinking
that you are trying to 'trick' the visitor.
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Go to Perfume
for less and examine the meta tags for a sample of well thought out
META tags.
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Other tags - "ALT" tags help to identify images
to your visitor, and may help ranking in some search engines. ALT
tags give you an opportunity to repeat keywords without "stuffing".
Use them wisely, but most importantly, USE THEM! This is yet another
legitimate opportunity to repeat your most prominent keywords. ALT
tags are placed after an image file and generally look like the following:
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<img src="monarchs.gif" alt="Go Monarchs!">
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Use ALT tags in images on
your Web site--especially the first image on your page (in the code),
and fill it with several important keywords in priority order.
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Keyword blunders
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Do NOT "stuff" keywords--you
may get penalized. Never use the same keyword more than 3 times.
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Do not use competitor names
as keywords--it's illegal!
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Do not add irrelevant keywords.
You may get an unsuspecting visitor, but it is unethical, and your visitor
won't stay anyway!
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Do not use excessively common
keywords. Remember to think of how you would search if you
wanted to find a similar page.
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Be aware of the impact of
javascript and frames. (Frames do not allow you to change your keywords
for each page. Remember, if you can get a visitor to visit
any
of
your pages, it is then your site's job to keep them there. By varying
your keywords on each page--or at least the order they are placed in--you
significantly increase the odds of getting discovered.)
(Flanders and Willis, Web Pages That Suck, 1998)
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Be aware of the impact of
search tools that now let businesses "buy" their way into a good ranking.
Most recently joining the list? Yahoo! This makes it much more
difficult for those who don't want to pay to get a top ranking.
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Enhance your Web site to
attract users to stay and return
CASE STUDY:
As of 5/28/01, www.coke.com has no META tags! If you wanted to find
coke.com in altavista, you would certainly hope that by simply typing in
the word "coke" that you would be able to fine the genuine Coca-Cola web
site. NOT TRUE! I typed "Coke" into the search engine, and
where did the official Coke site rank? I don't know. I stopped
after looking through the first 180 sites, and none of the coke.com pages
were in there. Maybe a surprise to the first one who looks far enough
to find it. Oh yeah, there were 561,424 hits at the time. Happy
hunting. And Coke? FOR SHAME! It's a good thing they've
got great brand recognition...
***This
is contrary to what Flanders and Willis state to be true in their book.
One of my students pointed out the fallacy in their logic, and it made
sense to me. I addressed the issue with Dr. T., and she agreed that
my
student was correct! So I sent an e-mail to Mr. Flanders, not
really expecting a response or total resolution. I received a response
in less than 24 hours, although he still disagreed. I went back and
forth with him about four more times before he finally agreed that my student
was correct! He has said the he will make the correction in their
next edition. Now that it's out, I'm curious to see if it's in there...
Keeping
Busy | ALT
and META Tags | The
Tags Page
3D
Text and Images | Crunching
Images | Javascripts
| Hotlinks
| Assignment
|
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