7 Tips For Attracting Search Engine Attention

1. Fill your website with original, quality content that is valued by your customers and is specific to your business relationship with them.

2. Select search words and phrases that reflect those used by people searching for the types of goods and services you provide. Two or three-word phrases are better than single words because they refine the potential list of matches and eliminate unwanted competition from sites that are not as specific a match. Each page in your website can have its own set of search words and phrases reflecting the content of that particular page.

3. One of the main ways a search engine ranks pages is by determining the frequency and location of search words on your web pages. So, use those search words and phrases: in your meta tags; in your title tags, in content headlines; and near the top of the page, specifically in the first one or two paragraphs. Search engines may penalize pages or exclude them from the index if they detect search engine "spamming." "Spamming" is when a word is repeated many, many times on a page to increase the frequency and propel the page higher in the listings.

4. Avoid the use of web technologies that prevent or hinder search engines from reading and indexing your web pages - specifically frames and dynamically generated content. Including an HTML site map will aid engines in indexing your site and provide a comprehensive navigation aid for site visitors, as well.

5. Avoid using graphic files (GIF, JPG, FLASH) to display key content – specifically for headlines, customer quotes, and other content-rich elements; do take advantage of the ALT attributes in every image to describe the image content, using search words when appropriate. Search engines cannot "read" image files, so any content contained in the image itself is lost.

6. Do participate in reciprocal cross-linking with other quality sites that contain information that would also be of interest to your target profile of visitor. You want links from good web pages that are related to the topics for which you want to be found. Every major search engine uses link analysis as part of their ranking algorithms because it is very difficult for webmasters to "fake" good links. As a result, link analysis gives search engines a useful means of determining which pages are good for particular topics. To find those good links, go to the major search engines and search for your target keywords. Visit those pages that rank high in the search results and ask the site owners if they will link to you. Not everyone will, particularly if your site is considered to be competitive with their site. However, some non-competitive sites will link to you, if you are willing to link back. In this way, you can benefit by receiving some visitors from these high traffic sites, as well.

7. Take the time to manually submit your website to leading search engines and directories, particularly when launching a new site, or when implementing a major upgrade of an existing site.