Search engine optimization - part 4

How to optimize web site for search engines - Submission and tweaking

tweaking pages = tuning page content in small, small, small steps. :-)

Submission to search engines

Generally speaking, submitting site to search engines is not necessary. Todays, search engine spiders are fast, and your site will be found IF it is linked from some other site.

Note: submission guidelines described below were effective in time when this was written. What doesn't mean that will be effective now. Search engines are changing their rules almost daily, so, first check their webmaster guides.

Google spider is probably the fastest spider today. Small trick can be used to tell Google that your new site is online. It is tested with this site, and it works. Go to google.com, enter your new domain name into search box. Sure, your site will not be found in google database, and live link will be offered. Click on that link and google now knows there is new url. Soon, your site will be visited from google spider.

MSN, use their submission form. Link is on search results page. Click on "Help us improve", and scroll down on next page. Shortly after submitting your domain name, you will see that MSN spider has visited your main page.
Anyway, day or two later, you can search your domain name in both engines and link to your site will appear.

You can submit to Yahoo, too.
Go to yahoo.com, enter something to search. Look at the result page, at bottom. There is link to submit site. Click on that link. More options will be offered. choose free submission, (signup required) and submit your site. However, a small penalty will be added to your site position, according to Yahoo. That is "new site" penalty, nothing strange.

However, it is recommended - leave to search engine spiders to find your site following links from other sites. Popular blogs, forums, high traffic pages, where search engine spiders are active, are good places to add link to your new site. Not only that your site will be found in "natural" way, those links will be counted in site popularity. And you could get some visitors from there.

Tweaking pages for search engines

Once, when your site starts receiving traffic from search engines, you need to analyze that traffic. What keyword they are using to find your page, where is page positioned on search results page, what difference is between your title and competitor's page title on result page...

Analyze what keywords are most effective, try to optimize page to get better position for those keywords

Analyzing traffic, you could see some words, included in search phrases, that can't be found anywhere on that page. Those words are your additional keywords. Can be included on the same page, or new page can be made targeting only that search phrase.

For example: Keyword you are using to find this page on search engine can help me to add more content, answering on your question (search query). All pages on this site are tweaked on that way. On that way, I will get additional ideas for website content, at the same time, giving visitors what they are looking for. Don't forget to keep focus on main set of keyword, adding additional keywords here and there to catch "long tail" keywords.

Sometimes is necessary to tweak pages to avoid uninterested visitors.For example, if you are selling something, avoid word "free", or you could get bunch of visitors looking for free (name of promoted product). You can still use those visitors if you add some PayPerLead offer (sweepstakes for example), but then product sales could suffer. Track keywords, and remove/change words attracting unwanted visitors, or/and use those search term on related sites.

Read newspapers, watch TV, everything what is connected with your site theme, and in that moment popular, will be searched. Optimize some pages for those popular keywords, add link from main page to get it spidered faster, find good and related product, and... wait.

Edit, modify, add content often (not too often) to get search engine spiders to visit frequently, so you can react and tune existing or add new pages when you spot that some keyword becomes popular.

Don't forget what was said on Page optimization article. Catchy Title and text displayed on search engine results are worth more then gaining position or two on search engine results page using an other methods.

File name optimization for search engines
OnPage optimization for search engines
Optimizing links for search engines
Submission to search engines and tweaking pages
Search engines - web sites ranking factors

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