Getting Your Website Smack In The Search Engines' Bullseye

So you've struggled, labored, sweated and poured lotsvitamin C, name that page with a searched for
of love into designing and building your website. Andkeyword or phrase pertaining to the benefits of vitamin
phewee ain't it just the pertiest thing for sore eyes! ButC; e.g., vitamincbenefits.htm. So how do you know
just as in real, life so goes it for the virtualwhich keywords are regularly searched for? Don't
realm--beauty will only get you so far. So you've got toworry at the end of this article you'll be supplied with a
put that site to work! And how do you do that? Get itlist of great and free keyword search tools.
out there...put it right in the bulls eye of the searchNobody gets to see the name of your file other than
engines! That's the way you're going to get traffic toyou the webmaster and the various search engine
your site. And just in case you don't know, trafficrobots. So it doesn't matter how awkward they look
(specifically targeted traffic) is the life blood of anyor sound because unlike people a search engine robot
internet business.is not concerned with the aesthetics of a thing.
By the close of 2005 the big kahuna, the absoluteKEYWORD DENSITY VERSUS CONTENT
capo di tutti frutti of search was Google whichWhile making your webpage as attractive as possible
commanded a whopping 46-47 percent of allto the search engines bear in mind you're doing this to
searches conducted online. The runner up was Yahooget traffic...human traffic. So the content (copy) on
with about 25 % and followed distantly by MSN whoyour pages should read attractively to your human
conducted about 11.4 % of all searches. AOL boastedvisitors while also appealing to the search engine
a paltry 6.9 % which still came to a not insubstantialrobots. In this respect keyword optimization is a fine
350 million searches. Searches through Google were abalancing act and if push ever comes to shove you'd
mind-sweltering 2.4 billion! Contrastingly MSN is the kingbe better off weighing this balance in favor of your
of super-fast indexing whilst Google is the snail in thehuman visitors. After all what's the point of having a
site-indexing race. Yahoo once again falls in the middleton of traffic passing through your site and hardly any
of the two. So bear in mind, if your site is new andof it performing your most desired action (visitors
you're optimizing for Google don't forget about thebuying something, signing up etc) all because of that
other Big Two search engines (Yahoo and MSN)lousy copy you wrote with the search engine robots
which can send some rather decent traffic your wayforemost in mind!
in the meanwhile.OVER-OPTIMIZATION
There are two types of optimization techniques thatThere are also other very important factors to
will determine your website's standing with the searchconsider when optimizing for keywords. How many
engines. They are: On-Page Search Optimization andkeywords (phrases) should you consider for a given
Off-Page Search Optimization. This article will give youpage and how many times should that/those words
pointers on On-Page Optimization.appear on that page. Okay, the first thing that you
ON-PAGE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMAZATION OFhave to understand is that there is such a thing as a
YOUR SITEwebsite being Over-Optimized! You may believe that
KEYWORDSthe greater the optimization the better but the reality is
The first thing you must learn to do is to treat eachmore complicated. You see the search engine
webpage on your site as (if not quite independent) analgorithms take into account the keyword density of a
autonomous entity. In essence this means a differentparticular page, and by doing in-depth analyses of the
title for each page and targeting different keywordstopmost websites for a given keyword (for Google,
for a particular page. Let's say for example your site isspeculation puts the ideal keyword density at between
about vitamins and has a number of different pages1.5 - 1.8 % while MSN runs up to 3.0 %, with consistent
for the various vitamins. Your home page (index page)ole Yahoo somewhere in the middle) they will know
would target general keywords such as vitamin, healththat something just isn't right if your website boasts a
supplement, dietary supplement, food vitamin etc. But akeyword density of 10%. This is know as spamming
page with content about vitamin C should not targetthe search engines and sends up an immediate red
such generalized terms. It should target keywordsflag alert.
(phrases) specifically related to vitamin c such as:So what's the big deal? Your site won't get the ranking
vitamin c, c vitamin, ascorbic acid, benefit of vitamin cit perhaps deserves if it's new, and if it is an
and so on. The title of each particular page shouldestablished site it will most likely be taken down a
begin with your most valued (most searched for)notch or two. Another factor to consider if your site is
keyword. Once again using vitamin C as an example,new, is that Google routinely sequesters new sites (a
your webpage title should begin with Vitamin C and notprocess called sandboxing) until the site can establish
something like 'All the facts about vitamin c'. If youvalue and credibility. This is all part of the on-going
actually design and construct your website frombattle between search engines (trying to deliver
scratch you can even go a step further. Name yourvaluable and worthwhile information to search queries)
webpage files starting with the targeted keyword.and the spam websites that offer no substantial value
Once again, taking your vitamin site as an example, forwhatsoever, but are keyword dense one-page
pages relevant to vitamin C, name them accordingly.websites with the sole goal of making money online in
So say one of the pages is about the benefits ofsome manner or other.