| Introduction
All
websites created using easisites are submitted to a variety of
Search Engines. Nevertheless we recommend that site owners submit their
own easisites websites to Search Engines on a reasonably regular
basis.
| Tell
the Search Engines? |
| It's
a good idea to have the Search Engines re-catalogue
your site every few months, especially if you
have made significant changes to the content.
It
only takes a few minutes effort, but remember it will
be a few weeks before they revise their entry about
you.
If
you need the entry revised sooner, seek out their paid-for
services.
Some
Engines tell you your site must be optimised first.
Yours already is because that's part of what the easisites
system does automatically. |
Google
including AOL, Ask Jeeves, Netscape, NTLworld,
Virgin. |
 |
FREE.
Google is the world's foremost Search Engine.
Google entries are forwarded to many other Search
Engines. |
Yahoo
including MSN, AllTheWeb, AltaVista, BBCi, HotBot,
Lycos, Tiscali, Freeserve. |
|
FREE.
But to submit your site you need to be a registered
Yahoo member. If this is your first time with
Yahoo you'll need to fill out the registration
details first. |
| dmoz |
|
FREE.
This is a less well-known directory where your
site will be looked at by "a real person" before
they list it. You'll climb the ranks on other
Engines if dmoz catalogues you.
Navigate the dmoz site to a page you'd like
to appear on, then click the "update listing"
and/or "Add URL" link. If you are already in
dmoz, you just need to check their listing is
still correct. |
|
| Other
Search Engines |
|
There
are thousands of lesser Search Engines and Directories.
Too many to list here. Make it a habit to add your site
if you chance across any free ones in your web surfing. |
|
Hints
on placement with Search Engines
dmoz.
Google and others place greater credence and therefore
a higher ranking on sites that are also listed at http://www.dmoz.org
because dmoz entries are all checked out by a human being before
they get listed.
If
you have not already done so, you can request an entry on dmoz
for free.
Navigate
to the page you think you deserve to be listed on and click "add URL".
Then
type in a short description of your business. (I'm afraid this isn't
something we can do for you.)
You'll
also find a list of directory sites on dmoz, related to business
categories (such as 'Bed and Breakfast') - many of which are free to
register with. Why not register with as many as you can? It all helps
to spread the word.
There
are no magic tricks to getting your site listed in the top twenty on Search
Engines. But if you know what Search Engines look for when they
catalogue a site, you can help your case by making sure your site is suitably
organised. Some people call this "optimising" your site.
Specific
requirements for top search engines (taken from www.searchengines.com 26/11/2002)
| Search Engine |
Keywords |
Location of Keywords |
Document Length |
HTML Title |
Meta tags |
Themes |
What's spam? |
Other info |
AltaVista
Search Engine |
Only
the first two occurrences are indexed, use in <title>
and top of the page |
Top
of the page, <h> tags |
Longer pages favored,
600-900 words |
Most
important keywords here, 300 characters,
short titles preferred |
Not
very important, but use them just in case |
Yes,
consistent keywords throughout the site |
Repetition
of keywords one after the other, meta refresh tags, invisible
text, identical pages, excessive submissions. |
Repeat keywords in files names. Use keywords in text links. |
Google
Search Engine |
Weight and proximity matter most |
<h> tags,
bold text |
Wide
range, from 50-600 words. |
Keywords here, up to 90 characters |
No |
Yes,
consistent keywords throughout the site |
Use
of link farms, cloaking, excessive repetition |
Link
popularity is the most important factor |
HotBot
Search Engine |
Frequency and weight in the body are most important |
URL
text and title |
Short, 100-250 words |
Most
important, keywords here, up to 105 characters |
Very
important, both description (150 characters) and keywords (75
characters) |
Yes,
consistent keywords throughout the site. |
Repetition of keywords one after the other, meta refresh tags,
nearly identical pages, invisible text, irrelevant keywords,
too many submissions |
Use
keywords when describing links, and naming files |
Lycos
Search Engine |
Keywords spread throughout the page and in the title |
Top
of the page, <h> tags |
Short, 100-250 words |
Keywords here, second word, up to 1129 characters |
Not
indexed by Fast, but shows up in top rankings |
Yes,
consistent keywords throughout the site |
Repetition of keywords one after the other, nearly identical
pages, invisible text |
Use
ALT tags |
| Search Engine |
Keywords |
Location of Keywords |
Document Length |
HTML Title |
Meta tags |
Themes |
What's spam? |
Other info |
How
this relates to your easisites website:
Keywords
- This means the words used on your site after the irrelevant ones are
ignored. Irrelevant ones are words such as because, and, the,
if, but... and for some search engines even words like "internet"
get ignored. So many sites use them, they aren't constructive
in deciding what sites to return from a search.
The
<title> is the blue bar along the top of the window when you
view anything on your computer. Your easisite shows a title composed
of your business name, the snappy description and/or the title of the
particular page. Make sure those items contain words you want
search engines to notice.
Make
sure your site mentions the important words near the beginning of
the pages.
In
most cases your page titles will already be in bold text and they
also get used for the menu links, thereby satisfying the advice to
use keywords in links.
easisites
designs don't generally use <h> tags for headings (and neither
do most other sites on the web). That's because <h> tags
impose a particular text appearance on the display that spoils efforts
to have a good looking web site.
Page
length
seems to influence cataloguing by search engines. If you keep
pages sensible - not hugely long and not merely a couple of lines, things
will be OK.
HTML
Title is the same thing as <title> mentioned above - the blue
bar at the top of any window on your computer.
Meta
tags were invented to give search engines the information they need
to catalogue a web site. However, people cheated by supplying
incorrect information to trick search engines into listing sites in
the wrong way - site owners hoped to gain advantage.
For that reason they are often ignored by search engines these days.
If these tags do not match the real page content the search engine
is unlikely to catalogue your site.
For
consistency your easisite does have them. They are (for all
web sites) "behind the scenes". Use View/Source from
your menu when viewing your site and you'll be able to see the two
meta tags of "description" and "keywords".
The easisites system has generated these from what you actually put
on your pages.
Themes.
Search Engines can check each page of a web site to see if they relate
to the same theme or topic. If your site is consistently about
the same thing (e.g. your hotel or farm), your listing will improve
for being a site with a consistent theme.
Spam.
In this context it is attempts to trick a search engine. If
you want to sell, say, "ballet shoes" it will count against
you if you repeat the phrase "ballet shoes" over and over
again without a decent amount of other text on the page. By
and large, if your key phrase turns up more than 10% of the time you
run the risk of having your site de-catalogued from a search engine.
If
you simply write in a normal fashion it will be fine. The
easisites system does not utilise invisible text or other things a
search engine will reject.
Excessive
submissions means repeatedly asking search engines to catalogue
your site over and over again. Some search engines think this
means daily, others weekly ... none give an exact figure so as not
to leave themselves open to tricksters.
If
you submit your site for inclusion (as above) once a month or every
other month, that will be OK. It is important to repeat your
submissions periodically like this because new submissions are given
extra "points" when it comes to your placement in the lists.
Link
popularity. This is a count of how many other sites on the
web have links to yours. Nobody can redesign a web site to improve
this.
You
can increase these "incoming links" by asking other web
site owners to have a link to your site. If you are a hotel,
ask a tourism web site to list your web address. If you sell
food, request links on web sites about food, recipes and so on.
There's
no automation that will help - contact these other companies and ask
- even offer to have a link back to their site by way of exchange...
help each other get better listings.
The
actual web address
(or domain name) of your site. Search engines all say they do
not downgrade a listing if the web address is uninteresting or doesn't
contain any keywords. But once your site is shown in a list,
people are surely more likely to visit if the address looks like
the thing they are seeking.
It's
also true that people sometimes take a guess and type a web address
without going to any search engine first.
If
you want to buy a more catchy domain name (e.g. balletshoesuk.co.uk)
for your site, easisites can arrange this for you. Take a look
at the instructions about domain names after you enter your password
to update your site.
Final
hint: (Not mentioned in the table above.) Search engines
love to show how good they are and return exactly the right web site
someone searches for.
Someone
might enter a search such as "organic carrots in berkshire".
If your site has exactly those words on it you are likely to come
at or near the top of the list.
Your
site could have a sentence such as "Blake's farmshop is the number
one outlet for organic carrots in Berkshire".
The
hard part about this is for you to guess what people might type when
they visit a search engine. But you can try... try to write
your sentences so they include the phrases people might type when
hunting for your kind of product or service.
Remember
that unless you pay search engines to list your site, there are no
guarantees you'll be included. Engines that accept free submissions
usually delay inclusion for a couple of months by way of urging you
to pay instead.
We
at easisites submit all new sites (if the owner ticked the box for
it) to the Engines that take free submissions. We do this once,
a day or two after the site is first built. After that it is
up to site owners to renew their submissions from time to time.
There
are, of course, many other search engines besides altavista
and google. Visit any search engine you'd like to be listed
on and find the links about adding your site to their lists.
for
more on Web Marketing check out:
www.searchengines.com
The
Web Marketing Checklist: 29 Ways to Promote Your Website
16
Ways to Lure Traffic to Your Web Site |
