Search Engine Placement
Well, here's a can of worms. There are all kinds of "consultants" out there promising you amazing
search engine results for your website. And more arrive regularly via email (Google recommends that
you treat these email offers the same way as those offering to transfer bank funds from a deposed
dictator). The buzz words are "Search Engine Optimization" - how your website code can be modified to
enhance your position in search pages.
This war has its military analogy. For every weapon system, there is a countermeasure. In the early
days of search engines, it was fairly obvious how the automated selection process worked. Robots
crawled the web and looked at sites, then ranked or indexed them. So webmasters developed techniques
like embedding keywords to attract the robots. The search engine people developed countermeasures
including recognition of fakery and secret selection algorithms. And so on.
This has continued apace, yet there are still lots of consultants and programs offering to salt your sites
with keywords, etc. Even though such techniques are completely unworkable today. For an in-depth
discussion of the topic, read the Wiki (online encyclopedia) article on search engine optimization.
Especially note the paragraph on "white hat" vs. "black hat" methods. Another good source is Google's
own advice on the subject, What's an SEO?.
The best advice is to not try to "fool" the robots or the search engines. Instead, follow their guidelines
and design your site for the user, not for the search engine. In most cases, you don't want a truly broad
audience anyway. What you want is a "targeted" audience; that is, viewers who are really interested in
your particular products or services. With a good honest design, your site will be found by both the right
users and the search engines.
For those who want SEO services for their website, we offer a package that will provide the basics for
either the U.S. & Canada (Standard, $50), or worldwide (Standard plus additional Option, total $100):
1. Generate keywords and install Meta tags for keywords, site description, and robot (crawler)
instructions in your Home page file.
2. Submit your site to 11 major search engines.
3. Submit your site to 30+ secondary U.S. and Canada search engines plus plus theme and regional
search engines in U.S. and Canada. * See Option
4. Our recommendations for up to 6 article pages that can be added to your website. These pages
improve search engine placement by creating additional webpages that point to your site.
5. Creation of an anti-spam email account and address to eliminate spam resulting from submissions.
OPTION (additional $50): More than 100 worldwide search engines and directory services also available
for submission if desired. For additional options, see our sister company at SEO-Basic.com.
|
