Search engines, and search engine optimization, attract some of the biggest myths online.
Before you're tempted by this week's quick fix, here's the TRUTH about search engines, and the optimization of your site to get a high position in them.
1) Search engines exist to serve their searchers. They want to offer them the sites with quality content suited to their searches.
It's not technique alone that gets you ranked in search engines. It's content.
2) Most search engines like pages of no more than 1320 words, at least 2% of which involve your keyword.
They DON'T like titles or meta keywords which have "stop" words - the most-used words, like "and", "but", "to", "you", etc.
3) Search engines don't like too many keywords on a page. It's best to use just one. Building a new page round each important keyword can increase the value of your content, too.
Search engines will look for your keyword in the first AND FINAL paragraphs. Missing one of these will get you penalized.
You can score extra points with search engines for having your keyword in the first headline on your site - using the h1 and /h1 commands at the headline's start and finish will point search engines in the right direction.
4) Make sure you use keywords that people actually search under!
Search engines can only bring you traffic under what's searched for.
Use the Google or Alexa toolbars to find what's popular, or check the usefulness of any keyword.
5) Make a Google sitemap.
Google itself will show you how, so you can be sure this is a safe technique.
It makes your site a lot more Google-friendly, and no matter how many other search engines you impress, Google's currently the biggest and the most important.
6) Write articles and post them to as many article directories as possible.
If a directory accepts your articles (and they almost always do), they have to give you a link back to your site. Many such directories have high Page Rank with search engines, and a link from them is a good point in your favor.
Your articles can also be picked up and used in newsletters and e-zines, which can bring you traffic.
It's important that the articles are your own work, though. Buying ready-made articles and customizing them is is often self-defeating. Directories weed out articles that are too similar.
(Automatically-generated content pages are also dangerous. Search engines refuse pages that appear too similar to someone else's - and can ban you altogether.)
Don't worry. Articles are really not that hard to write. All you have to do is write 600-800 words on something that you know about, with a connection to whatever's on your site.
Keep your style informal - write as if you're talking to a friend.
Check your spelling, and make sure your grammar's reasonable... and that's it. Just ask the search engines for a list of article directories, and start uploading!
7) Once you get a decent ranking in the search engines, you can boost it by asking other sites for links.
Choose sites with good page ranking.
Send a personalized e-mail to each one. Say what you like about the site, and explain what YOUR site has to offer them. If their site's about, say, sports equipment, and you're offering a book on coaching the same sport, both sides can benefit from linking.
8) If YOU get links requests, check out the sites to ensure they don't have anything search engines might object to. If they do, the search engines can ban you, too.
Make sure you exchange links ONLY with related sites. Free-for-all links get you banned from most search engines.
9) DON'T fall for expensive books and software promising a high position on the search engines.
Techniques meant to fool search engines into giving you high placing don't last long.
The people who run search engines aren't stupid. They soon outlaw these things - that's why search engines change parameters so often.
10) For high-quality, frequently-updated, no-cost optimization software, visit
http://www.access-your-peak-performance-zone.com and check out our Resources page.
Remember, search engines want the best pages for each keyword search. Make yours one of them, and the search engines will love you.
