Search Engine Optimization By Tom Fallenstein

Introduction Why you want high rankings Why you want high rankings Keywords Keywords Tools to help choose keywords Tools to help choose keywords Cost, Types of Search Engines Cost, Types of Search Engines Ways to Improve Ranking 1. Titles 2. Meta Tags 3. Alt Tags 4. Body Text 5. Keyword Density Ways to Improve Ranking 1. Titles 2. Meta Tags 3. Alt Tags 4. Body Text 5. Keyword Density

Introductions to Search Engines Search engines are one of the best advertising tools on the internet and most cost effective, but in order for them to be useful, a good ranking is crucial. Close to 90% of internet users find sites through search engines, like Yahoo, Google, and MSN, and when seraching 92% of people will click on one of the top ten results. This is why it is so important to get a high ranking on search engines.

Keywords Keywords are the first thing to think about when trying to improve search engine ranking. Keywords are the words or phrases you think your customer will search for. Example Keywords for my Flapper Costumes.com site flapper style flappers costume halloween costume gangster costumes picture roaring 20s flapper dress photo 1920s 1920’s era clothing fashion roaring 20’s There are a couple of sites that help you find related keywords or how many people are searching for certain words. and

Types of Search Engines Pay Per Clicks (Overture, Find What) Directories (Open Directory Project, DMOZ) Engines (Google, Lycos, Altavista, etc) Yahoo, and MSN are a mix of Directories and Engines Many Search Engines integrate other engines into their searches. (Ex. Yahoo uses Yahoo, Google and Overture for results) (and Google looks for DMOZ listing for better ranking) This is why it is important to be in as many search engines and rank well in all of them. And while Yahoo and other you have to pay to be included you can cut around that by ranking well in Google. Show how Yahoo uses google and overture

Titles The easiest and quickest way to improve listings in a search engine is to have a short descriptive title which uses your keywords Titles are the first thing people see when searching, weather it’s a company name or just a brief description. Make sure to use keywords within the title, and try to keep it around 3-5 words.

Meta Tags The second thing most search engines look at is the description of the website, this is commonly kept in what is called a meta tag. A meta tag is hidden code at the top of a site. Meta tags look like this Meta tags look like this Show flapper costumes meta tags

Alt Tags Another helpful way to get good rankings is to use alt tags. An alt tag is hidden code that goes after the code to an image and looks like this: Every image should have an alt tag, because search engines can only read text, this is a way to describe what an image is to a search engine.

Keywords in body text Keywords within the body text of the site can be just as important as anywhere else. Search Engines search from the top left to the bottom right. So the most important keywords should be towards the top of your page.

Linkable Keywords Along with keywords in the body of the text, keywords should also be used in links. Because they are relevant to search engines. But try to stick mainly with the links to your other pages of your site. After doing all of this work to get your customer or person to your site, you don’t want to give them an easy link to leave.

Keyword Density Search engines look how often a word or phrase is repeated within a site, this is called keyword density. A common keyword density is 3%-7%. That means around 3% of the words on the example site would be the word “flapper”

Conclusion Use all of these tips on all of the pages, not just the index page. Search engines link to every page of your site, so users can come to any page. Use all or as many of these tips on all of your pages in your site to improve your search engine ranking And don’t forget to submit your site to as many search engines as possible, almost all search engines have a “submit site” or “add url” page on there site. Because I use these tips in the flapper costumes.com site, I rank in the top ten in 6 of the biggest search engines, and I get over 400 unique visiters per day.