October 24, 2008 by Admin
Crawling with Spiders:
Search engines will be using their ability to crawl to give you a ranking. You have to make sure that the spiders crawling around on the web will actually net you the best ranking you can get. To do this you need to make sure that certain things don’t occur on your page. The spider will download your pages and then navigate through them. If the spider can’t crawl they will definitely leave your site and rank you low.
It is very easy to create stopping points that will affect the ranking you receive. Google and other search engines have the ability to go through a multi layer strategy to find out just where your search engine may fail to meet its needs. You could end up in the supplemental index without trying at all. This index is the black hole of the internet and almost impossible to get out of.
If the navigation on your site is easy then you get the rankings you want because the spiders can go just about anywhere and get you in the index. So, let’s take a look at some things you need to do.
HTML should be used for links and content. For a link you want the HTML format to make it easier for the spider to download the link and find the usefulness of that page. The content should also be in HTML so that it is easier to navigate and read. Other technologies will lose you points.
Sitemaps are essential. If you don’t have one then build one because this is another method of navigation for the spider to peruse and offer a better ranking on.
If there is any link on your page you need to make sure it works. A broken link will hinder the spider getting through the site. So make sure you check your links regularly.
There are some issues that you also don’t want to do. We have a list of certain things you need to stay away from in order to gain better rankings.
You should not ask for form submission before a person can view your site. For example if you have content you should not hide it. Spiders will not fill out the forms and therefore you will not get a high page ranking. They will also not look for an alternative route to the page. Stay away from submissions unless it is voluntary and doesn’t hide anything.
You should also avoid registration, cookies, or search. Since these forms can’t be filled out you will get kicked out. Also spiders don’t accept cookies therefore you will lower your ranking if you have one. You want all content on the site to be found by the spider and placed in the search engine appropriately.
Not all pages will be offered in the search engine, just the most important. You don’t want to hide anything in case it would hinder getting the page indexed that should be.
Any URL that is used should have meaning. In other words session IDs, calendar links, and other useless pages will stop the spiders from getting into your pages. You need to make it as easy as possible. You also don’t want the spider to see hundreds of links just for one website navigation.
You should avoid any long or complicated URL. In other words using symbols is a no-no. You want a URL that has keywords for all your pages. Something that is simple to remember for the consumer will also be easy to navigate. The easier the search engine can crawl your site, the better off you will be.
Frames on your site are not good. You should avoid using them at all costs.
You also don’t want duplicate content on any page. Each page should be different and relevant. The less relevant a page the less relevant a search engine will find your site. It can determine an original content page, but that still hinders your ranking. If you have shoes to sell you should not have a page for each colour shoe. Instead you can have one page for the same type of shoe. So by category is best for each page.
We have looked at how to get your content indexed and how to keep it there. We should also look at a couple of other things that you can do for search engine optimisation. For example the spiders will need directions. This is based on internal linking.
I know what you are thinking; a spider that needs directions? It is true; if you don’t offer the right links in your site the spider will not get the message you are offering. The question is how do you get the right message to the spider and get money incoming from your site?
The sales you make are the overall goal and without the proper site you will not get what you hope for.
Architecture of the Site is imperative. You need to understand where to put the focus on your site. You can do this through several methods, which we will look at below.
First the keywords on your site should be relevant. In other words use both the free and paid keyword tools to find the best keywords to target your audience. You can certainly brainstorm and gain feedback from people, but overall it is about the keywords already in use and what the target will search for.
The organization of the keywords is very important. In other words if you sell cat supplies you want to organize the keywords so that they will relate to the subject at hand. In a URL you might have the main keywords or business name, but then you might also offer a heading for the next page. The home page may be catsupplies.com, then catsupplies.com/toys, catsupplies.com/manuals, etc. This method of offering keywords in the URL’s helps with navigation.
The homepage should link to each main page in the site. What we mean is that each URL you offer as a way to get to your site is a main page. From that main page there are other options to look at. You need the homepage to link all main headings for easy crawling as well as navigation for the consumer. The categories should also be themed to make sense.
You need to make sure the landing pages are going to be there. You should have a link going to and from the landing pages in a number of ways. If you link the pages in an important easy to navigate manner you get better results. So reinforce them.
Consistency is the key. You should have the same URL format for all pages. Don‘t vary ever.
The site architecture above all else needs to be flat. You should have internal linking, but that actual directory doesn’t need to be full of information.
Overall the important thing to learn is that the pages you want ranked should be the ones you concentrate on over others. The products and articles are most important. About your company or even a privacy policy is secondary and unimportant to Google.
There are other options that you need to consider besides the internal linking. You also want to look at On Page SEO. Let’s explain what this means.
The pages you have should be target specific to keywords. In other words keywords and their synonyms should be used. Any keyword that will be related needs to be there. You have primary keywords and then secondary. Your content needs both for SEO.
You should not have one page per keyword. Instead use keywords on all pages and make sure that they are all optimized for the search engine.
The pages you have should have a unique title. The title should have keywords and be important to gaining your target audience. The title tag is meant to be useful for a quick glance. They need to be right every time.
All titles need to be below 65 characters in length, but descriptive. The title minimum is in place because that is the search engine requirement. Anything longer and you will not get the desired results. You also don’t want it to be short. The length will get you clicked on. Using the space you have will also mean you get enough information to the consumer.
Each page you have should also have a meta description. The meta description will be 25 words in length for a good one. It will offer keyword placement to entice the consumer, though it bears nothing to the ranking. In fact the meta tag could mean the difference between getting a potential sale and not. Most of the time the title will catch their eye, but then so do the other top ten. So you need a meta description that tells the consumer more about the site than the other results. It should also follow through. If you use a keyword it should apply to the page content. Don’t just throw it in there for results. This loses sales. The search engine will bold the keywords in the description when they are searched for. This helps you get the consumer to your page.
Use your resources. For example NOODP and NOYDIR can help you get more from the search engine. They help you optimize the titles and descriptions. Of course you still don’t want them to mess with your title, so be careful. They may actually un- optimize the directory listing if you use keyword meta tags.
Any other meta tag besides title and description will be useless in the ranking of your site. You don’t want to use them in order to get indexed properly.
All pages should have a single h1 tag. That is the primary heading with keyword. You need to make sure that the search engine understands what is on the page as well as your consumers.
In some cases you can use subheadings, but that is a H2 and H3 tag not an H1.
Lists, bolding, and italics are important to the content on the pages. If you use it where helpful then you can gain more consumers. You don’t want to use too many as this will negate the quality and irritate the consumer.
Keywords can be done in alt text. For example anchor text for images can be employed. Just make sure the alt text is readable and descriptive in order to gain the best results.
Your anchor text needs to be SEO styles. In other words link your pages and offer contents with description and keywords.
The site navigation menu and map should not be the only way you form a link. You need to form a link that is internal and easy to follow. By offering several ways to find the page you will have more success.
If you follow all of these steps then you will be done and have the best website that you can have.
The main point is that the website should be informative and interesting. You want to impress the consumer into coming back and being loyal to you. You can’t do this if you pay attention only to SEO. Certainly you can offer SEO to the search engines and get links to help in the ranking, but you could lose on page effectiveness. It is more important to offer a site that will get you the clients you need.
The volume of the websites and pages on the internet are extreme. In one topic you can find a billion pages. This means that you will have to work really hard to get on top of all of those other pages. Don’t sacrifice something just for ratings. The search engines are taking note of quality over quantity. If you have a lower quality in links and content you can expect to be in the black hole of indexes. The black hole is something you can’t get out of.
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