2) Created your website and chose a hosting package.
3) Created your hidden sitemap and uploaded it and your website, to the
internet.
4) Submitted your URL to Google and Yahoo and notified them of your hidden
sitemap.
Now your goal is to have your website ranked as high as possible on the
search engines. In other words, if someone searches for "Custom printed
fabrics" our site is 3rd or 4th on the list. So the person searching will
see our site right on the first page that comes up. THIS is what we want. Having
our site listed on the 10th page or greater means we are very low on the
food chain. Few people will take the time to read through 10 pages of links. It
means that they will see 10 pages of links belonging to our competitors before
they see ours. Not good.
Here are some tips on how to improve your ranking. These are the things that
I have done to our website to get it to rank fairly high on the search engines. Meta
descriptions and Keywords: These are words and descriptions of your site that should be posted at
the top of each page. They are not visible to the people viewing your site but
they are read by spiders and robots. They give the spiders an indication of what
your site is about.
If you have Frontpage, open the HTML tab and look at how your website's code
looks. HTML is the protocol that tells pages how to display in monitors.
The meta descriptions and tags look like this:
<META name=
"Description"
content="Beautifully printed
silk shawls and bridal wraps. Custom fabric printing for upholstery. Digital
textile printing.">
The text in red is what I wrote. It doesn't matter that the words all run
together as long as there are commas. The description is just what it means, a
description of your site. The Keywords are words, separated by commas, that will
lead people to your site. These are the words that people search for on Google,
Yahoo and other search engines to find people like us. Aside from other things,
we sell silk shawls. So I want to make sure that "silk shawls" is
included in my keywords. I don't want to write "Kitchen
utensils"....because we don't sell kitchen utensils.
There are free programs online that can generate keywords for you. But if
you've gotten this far, I'm sure you can choose them yourself. This is your
first "round" at creating a description and keywords. As you refine
your site, you can change them later. You will read more about this further
down.
OVERKILL: It's in your best interest to keep your description and
keywords as succinct as possible. If you have 500 words in your keywords
description, the search engines aren't going to like it. Just keep it short and
simple. Don't use big words that few people will search for unless you have a
specific segment of people that you wish to target. Use words that are familiar
and don't repeat the same word over and over again. I used the word
"custom" in three places which is enough. You can use variations such
as "silk shawl" "shawl" "shawls." The spider will
read these independently. It's not the same as writing shawl, shawl, shawl,
shawls, shawl, etc. It's redundant and the spiders know better than to pay
attention. It's like Spider SPAM.
The search engines of today are a lot more particular than they were before.
Not only do they look at Meta's, they are sophisticated enough to compare what
is written in your Meta's to the content that is actually on your site. Too many
people have tried to cast a wide net by writing bogus words in their Metas in
order to lure as many people as possible to their sites.
In the past, a search for "Bridal shoes" could have landed someone
in a site that sold wedding decorations simply because the webmaster wanted to
drive the masses to the site regardless of what they wanted to buy, just as long
as it had something to do with a wedding.
It wasted a lot of people's time. So now, the spiders are sophisticated
enough to scan through the content of your site, in addition to the Metas, and
rank it in the search engines based on that. If your site has images, the
spiders will read the names of the image files as well. More on that later when
we discuss "Alt Tags." Site
Content: Do's and Don'ts Although Metas don't carry the "weight" with search engines
that they used to, they are still necessary. Every site still needs to have
them.
What you need to do next is to make sure that your web pages have written
text that reinforces what is written in the Metas. Your site needs text to get
picked up by the spiders. If you use my site as an example, you will notice that
at the top of each page there is a paragraph describing the images shown on the
page along with other information. The actual page names (URL's), Metas and
content of the text, all reinforce what the site is about.
This tells the spiders that my site is indeed about custom printed fabrics,
custom upholstery, silk shawls, etc. and that I haven't just written superfluous
Metas just to drive people to my site. You have to make your pages as
"tight" as possible to make them credible to the search engines.
A while ago many webmasters used to write a huge amount of text and keywords
and color the font the same color as the background of the page thereby
rendering the text invisible to the public. They did this so that the text would
still be found by the spiders because although it looked invisible to the
public, it was visible in the HTML code. The spiders caught on so it was
like spamming.
To get around this, the webmasters then started to make the text visible, but
place it so far down on the page that the visitor wouldn't think to scroll down
and see it because the content that they came to see was at the top of the page.
Well, the spiders caught on again.
Now, spiders pay more attention to what is at the TOP of each individual page
more than anything else.
When you write an intro paragraph at the top of your page, make sure to throw
in your company's name every once in a while. Especially if your site has
"frames" which most websites do.
Imagine a sheet of paper. It's solid and just has one part. If this was a
website, it would be said to not have frames because it's just one piece. Now
imagine a painting. A painting has the image in the middle and a frame around
it. You can change the image in the middle if you want but the frame stays the
same.
When you go to a website with frames, usually the menu bar runs along the
top, bottom or sides. When you hit a link in the menu, the central area is what
changes, the sides remain the same. This makes the pages load quicker because
your computer doesn't have to re-load the menu bar each time a new page is
displayed. The menu bars are permanent, it's just the page in the middle that
changes.
Spiders will not read the "framed" area. They will focus on the
content on the actual page.
Since our site has frames, the name "Ann Meredith" is on the frame
area as per the design of our site. That's why we had to repeat the name
occasionally within the text paragraphs on the top of each page. Try to do this
in such a way that your company name flows well within your text and doesn't
come off as redundant. If your intro paragraphs are not well written, it's just
going to turn off your visitors and bore them in to leaving.
Links:
These have become more and more important in search engine rankings. There
are two types: Internal and external. Internal are links which go to pages
outside of your website. External are links that are on other websites but which
lead to yours. The more of these you have the better. These links tell the
spiders that your site is popular and has content that people are interested in
seeing.
If your site sells something, like ours, I would encourage you to go to all
the Business to Business (B2B) websites you can find, open up a free account,
and post your products. Even with a free listing on a B2B website, they will
often show the link to your website to people who visit their site whether they
are paid members or not. So, here you have a site that links to yours. More on
B2B's is discussed below.
The more of these internal and external links, the better....As long as
they're relevant. If you think that joining a dozen "webrings" just to
accumulate links is a good idea, think again. The pages you link to, and those
which link to you, have to be pertinent to your site. The spiders will catch on
sooner or later and figure out that you are "link-farming" and it will diminish
your rankings.
Other ways to get noticed and accumulate relevant links:
1) Participate in or create your own "blog."
2) Write informative articles and have them posted on relevant trade
websites.
3) Join pertinent groups or forums.
In each instance, you will have a link from their site to yours and
vice-versa.
More
links:
Free directory listings and websites.
There are several web directories that will allow you to submit your site for
inclusion for free. What most of them ask for is a reciprocal link. This is a
link back to their site from yours. They will give you an HTML code to copy and
paste somewhere on your site. It's usually a small image or a few words that are
linked back to their site. It's not a big deal. I have a few of them on my
site-map page at the bottom. They are small and unobtrusive enough not to
interfere with the integrity of my page so I don't mind placing them. Here's an
example of one that I am rather fond of:
Websites such as Tripod will host websites for free. The catch is that your
website will have a bunch of advertisements on it. The best way to benefit from
these sites is to just upload the first page of your site as-is on to their
server. Go here for an example: http://annmeredithfabrics.tripod.com/
All I did was upload the first page of my website. Anybody that visits it
will eventually hit a link on the menu-bar and they will get redirected to the
real Ann Meredith website. If you hit the link above, you will see what I
mean.
The way to do this is by opening up your website in Frontpage, copy the first
(home or index) page in it's entirety then paste it as a new website in
Frontpage. You then save it under a different name ie: "Ann Meredith
2."
Make sure that you take a look at what this page looks like in Frontpage
before you publish it. Make sure that it's not missing anything. If you use
frames (you read about these earlier) you will need to copy and paste all the
files related to the frames or else the page will not load properly. It's not
hard. It may take a while but once you learn how to do it once, you will be able
to do it from then on without any trouble.
Then all you do is tell Tripod you are uploading your website instead of
building a new one (they offer their own templates). Make sure you say you
are using Frontpage.
On Frontpage you will choose "publish web" the same way you did
when you initially published your site. Tripod will tell you what address you
will be publishing to so you just fill in the information in the "publish
web" box you will see on Frontpage.
To find sites that offer free directory listings or free website hosting,
Just do a search for them on Google or Yahoo. There are plenty to choose from. Getting
listed on B2B's:
Business to business websites are targeted towards buyers and sellers who
deal in quantity instead of single items. They are normally for international
businesses that trade globally. If your website doesn't sell or buy anything on
this scale then this section will not pertain to you so you can skip it and go
down to "Google Base" below.
When you open up an account, the B2B site will ask that you enter a brief
description about your company. Make sure that your description mentions your
company's name. Save this description somewhere so each time you have to enter
it in a website you can just copy and paste it. Re-writing it each time you need
to fill out your company's description gets tiresome. Been there, done that.
Here's ours:
Ann
Meredith offers custom printed silk shawls and scarves. The shawls may be
printed with images that we design in our studio or with images provided by our
clients. Any photo, text or graphic may be used. Shawls are 100% silk with 100%
silk chiffon lining and hand beading. Shawls can be made to customer specs.
I have several descriptions saved that I use depending on the product I am
promoting for that particular B2B site. What remains the same is that each
description starts off with our company's name right at the top. Then I try to
repeat some words as much as I can. B2B websites have their own search engines
which are not as sophisticated as Google or Yahoo. So if someone on the site is
looking for silk shawls, chances are my company will have a higher ranking
because those words are mentioned several times in the description.
Most B2B free accounts will also allow you to post a limited number of
products or trade leads with images of your items. The image sizes allowed will
vary from 100 x 100 pixels or less, up to a file size of 500kb or greater. Some
sites are very generous with the files sizes permitted. Here's an example of one
of ours: Alibaba
What's great in joining B2B's is that eventually your products or trade leads
will show up on search engines. If you do a search for "Ann Meredith"
on Google, you will see a bunch of links from B2B websites that we are listed
on.
Google
Base:
Google recently started something similar to Yahoo Shopping. It's called
Google Base. The people at Google were generous enough to develop an online
store/showcase where you can post items for sale. They will allow you to
offer as many products as you want in several categories. People can see
your products and then go to your site to make the purchase. Here's the link
to our items so you can get an idea of how it works: Ann Meredith
In the next series I post I will discuss different ways to sell your
products online so I won't go in to too much detail at this time.
Alt Tags:
If your site has images, it's a good idea to name them according to what
they are and not use names like "image 1" "Image 2" etc.
To date, the images we have on our site are not listed in any image searches
yet. It seems to be difficult to get them to show up. From what I have read,
we are doing everything "right" but it doesn't seem to be helping
up to now. If our images start popping up, I will write about it.
Open our "Scarves and shawls"
page for an example of what alt tags are. Move your curser over any of the
images and a small window will open with a description of the image. This
window is an alt tag. What is written in the window and the actual name I
gave the file reinforces that we are selling silk shawls on that page.
In Frontpage, open up the webpage with your images. Click the HTML tab
and search for this code:
alt="image"
Change the word "image" in to a word or sentence that describes
the image:
alt="custom
printed silk shawl"
And that's it. The hardest part is just finding each instance of the word
"alt" in the HTML code.
Last
words:
Remember what I wrote earlier about making your pages "tight"?
This is what I meant; everything has to match up and flow in a logical way.
1) Your page names should be indicative of their content. Don't name them
"page 1" "page 2" etc.
2) Your Metas need to be concise, specific to the people you want to
target and use simple terms/words that you think people will use in their
searches.
3) The top portion of each page in your site should include a paragraph
describing what the page is about and your company name should be mentioned
at least once.
4) Your site should contain as many "pertinent" internal and
external links as possible.
5) Your images and alt tags should be indicative of the images they
represent.
The next entry in this series will discuss different methods you can use
for selling products online. I will mention the B2B's again in addition to
other ways such as selling from your own site and others such as Ebay
and Amazon.
Feel free to email
me if you have any questions or suggestions.
