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Steps
to optimizing your HTML code.
Written
by Shelley Lowery.
Your
key to success in online marketing and promotion is your web site. From your
title, keywords, meta tags, and text, to your over all site design, each plays
a very important role when optimizing your site. If your site doesn't rank in
the top 10 or 20 when doing a keyword search at the top search engines, your
target audience won't be able to find you.
About
80 percent of all web site traffic originates from the eight major search engines.
Most people will go to a search engine, type in a keyword or keyword phrase
and look through the top 10 - 20 results. Most of the time they'll find what
they're looking for in the first 10 results. The percentage of click throughs
are even smaller. Listing near the top and grabbing the attention of your target
audience is the top priority. There are many components of your web page that
you should pay close attention to when preparing it for listing in a search
engine.
The
first step towards improving your listing is selecting the best keywords and
keyword phrases that best reflect your web page. Keywords are the foundation
of your web presence in the search engines.
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Keywords
To
help you choose effective keywords and keyword phrases, there are two important
steps. First of all, get a Thesaurus and investigate synonyms for your original
keywords. Write these words down on a sheet of paper. Next, perform your keyword
and keyword phrases search at the major engines. Pay close attention to the
web sites that rank 1 through 10. View the source code of these pages. Pay close
attention to their placement of keywords in the <TITLE>, <META>
and <ALT> tags. Next, do a search for your competitor's web sites and
view their HTML source code. Noticing patterns is your key to ranking above
them.
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<IMG ALT> Tags
An
image alt tag follows your graphic address or url in your html code. These words
will be displayed in place of your graphics through an older browser or when
your visitors have their graphics turned off. To fully optimize your graphics,
insert several of your keywords in the alt tags of the graphics located at the
top of your pages.
Example:
<IMG
SRC="wsmain.gif" WIDTH="318" HEIGHT="62" ALT="Webmaster Resources - Free resources
for the webmaster" BORDER="0">
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<TITLE> Tags
The
<TITLE> tag is the first thing that a user sees when your site is returned
by a search query. You only have a split second to grab your targets attention.
Place keywords that are most pertinent to your business in the title tag. Effective
title tags include only relevant keyword or keyword phrases. Avoid non-indexing
filler words, such as a, an, the, welcome and home page.
Example:
<TITLE>Web-Source.net
Webmasters Resource Directory - Free resources for the webmaster - marketing,
advertising, promotion, classified ads & more.</TITLE>
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<META> Tags
<META>
tags are HTML code that enable the search engines to determine what keywords
are relevant to this specific site. The META "description" tag will contain
a description of your site. Make sure your description contains some of your
relevant keywords. The META "keywords" tag will contain a listing of your keywords
and keyword phrases that are relevant to your site and enable a search engine
to find you.
Example:
<META
name="description" content="A webmasters resource directory for 1000's of quality
resources to assist the small business owner in successfully designing, marketing
& promoting their products & services.">
<META
name="KEYWORDS" content="webmaster resources, free ebooks, e-books, ezines directory,
e-zines, publications, media, press release, content, articles, classified advertising,
internet marketing, Internet promotion, small, home based business, entrepreneurs">
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Text
Not
only are the html tags an important part of optimization, but it is almost just
as important to add plenty of text to your pages. Your text should contain each
of your keywords used in different variations. I.E. If your keywords are free,
promotion, marketing, advertising, Your text might say something like this;
Promotion, Marketing and Advertising are the key to your success. We offer many
promotional resources, including; Free marketing articles, classified advertising
and free promotion.
Optimization
will be your solution to winning the search engine wars.
About
the Author
Shelley Lowery is the Webmaster of Web-Source.net - A complete resource portal
for the Internet entrepreneur. The site assists the entrepreneur in developing
a serious Web presence by providing a wealth of free information, resources,
tools and content. http://www.web-source.net
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