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Is your web site 'search engine friendly'?

Before you even consider submitting your web site to the search engines, it's essential that you ensure that, as far as possible, the pages on your site are 'search engine friendly'.

What does this mean? Essentially, you need to check that the following points are covered:

Title Tag: This is frequently used as the 'headline' on the search engine page that displays the results of a key word / phrase search. It should be different for every page on your site.

Description Metatag: Metatags are hidden areas on your page that web site visitors don't see, but many of the search engines can read. This is often used by search engines to provide the one or two descriptive lines on a search result (although some search engines take the first few lines of content on a page for this description).

Consider these two items as a "Classified Advert" on the search engine results page. It's not enough to get a high placement on a search engine... you also need to encourage people to click through to your web site.

Here's an example of a good search engine listing:

How to choose domain names Title - attracts people's attention.
You probably already know good reasons for registering your own domain name. But your domain names will have more impact if you follow this strategy. Description gives people enough info to get them to click through.
http://www.marketing-magic.info/archives/archive-internet-marketing/choosing-domain-names.htm

Keywords Metatag: The main search engines no longer use this tag (Google never has), but some of the minor search engines still use these to rank your web site on the words or phrases that people are searching for. Beware! There are pitfalls here, and your web site could be ranked lower if you don't obey the rules. What rules? Well, search engines all have different rules. These are the bane of the life of a webmaster (or webmistress).

Content: This is the most important factor in your web site's ranking. Many search engines now rank sites much higher if they have relevant, focused content. If your metatags for keywords and description don't match what is actually on your page, you will lose valuable placement position on the search engines.

Links: Does your web site have many other web sites with links through to yours? If not, increasingly, search engines will rank you lower. The rationale is that good web sites will have loads of other web sites linking through to them. Google, in particular, places a lot of emphasis on in-bound links.

So, how do you check whether your web site is "search engine friendly"? There are a number of automated services that claim to check your site on a number of criteria. Unfortunately, because they are automated, they can't take account of some of the subleties that search engines use.

And that's why Marketing Magic has a real person checking your site for "search engine friendliness".

What's more, this service is FREE!. To access it, click here.


		Marketing Magic is owned by Traynor Kitching & Associates, ("TKA") an Internet marketing consultancy based in York, England. All material is © 1997- TKA and other authors Send comments and questions to: help@tka.co.uk