|
Search Engine Positioning
Search Engine Positioning, or SEP, is the process of boosting and
maintaining your website's position in the results that Internet users see
when they run queries on different search engines.
There are two distinct steps you need to take in order to maximize the
effectiveness of your position in a search engine listing. The first is to
make key modifications to your pages in order to gain top positioning within
a search engine's index. The second is something that is commonly ignored.
That position needs to be maintained. Too often, webmasters gain a great
position on a search engine only to let it slip away, taking business away
with it. Don't make this mistake. This essay is written to give you a good
idea of how important SEP is in bringing more people to your website.
As you probably know by now, merely being listed in a search index
is not enough to bring new visitors to your website. Your website must rank
at or near the top of the search results in order to collect all the traffic
that search engines can produce. The first major step in positioning your
site is choosing descriptive and focused meta-keywords. The importance of
excellent keywords cannot be emphasized enough--you can read about keywords
in the essay Keyword Importance. Once you have a list of candidates for
your final meta-keywords, we can create a test Doorway Page for your website
using the keywords of your choice. Once the doorway page has been built we will
provide you with a page analysis.
Our analysis report will give you a score based
on real data taken live from the Internet's top-ranking websites. The
report tells you where to make specific changes in the Doorway Page based on
what the analysis finds. For example, the analysis might tell you to
include a longer or shorter title. It may also tell you that there are not
enough instances of the chosen keywords in your page. Or you may need to
reduce or increase the amount of description text on the page. Keep in mind
that while all of these items may seem minor, they are worth checking and
modifying if necessary, as they may affect your ranking position.
Once these are done, we can then build the changes into a new Doorway
Page.
Our consultant can then analyze the new page and return a
score that gives you an estimate as to how well that page is optimized for
good positioning on search engines in general, or one specific engine. The
importance of this second analysis cannot be underestimated. In fact, the
best results come from repeated building-and-analysis, until the Doorway
Page is optimized as well as possible. Once you have a page that you are
happy with, we will register your new doorway page with all of the search
engines you want to be listed on. The hardest part is now remaining patient
as you wait for all of the indices to pick up your listing. This can take
anywhere from several seconds to several months, depending on the individual
search engine. Check for your ranking regularly to determine if you are
listed, and if you are, where you are positioned.
If you have chosen good keywords, and followed the steps outlined
above, you should have a good position near the top of the listings. Now
the trick is to maintain that position. Just because you appear at the top
of the search results doesn't mean that you are guaranteed to remain there.
New websites appear by the second and search engines regularly change the
methods they use to index them. To ensure that you maintain your position,
you must first re-submit your site around once a month and check your
ranking on each major search engine regularly, preferably once a week. By
checking your ranking you can determine what your position is and whether it
is trending upward or downward. If you are heading up over time, great, pat
yourself on the back for a job well done. If your rank is spiraling
downwards, or you just can't seem to push ahead of certain competitors, its
time for some more advanced work.
Take a look at the websites that have higher listings than you and
note their URL's. You can have your L2 Consultant run a comparison
analysis on the specific URL that is competing against you.
Your report will show
you both your stats as well as those for your competitor. You can do a side
by side comparison and see exactly what your competitor has that you don't
have, or what you have that your competitor doesn't. Maybe that extra
keyword or those extra hyperlinks are nosing them ahead of you into Position
1. Once we've got an idea of what can be done to improve your ranking,
we can make the necessary
changes. Check your rankings again in a week or so and look for any
differences. This is a constant process that you must maintain with some
vigil. Don't let your competitors get a leg up on you by ignoring your
ranking trends for too long. Maintain your position and you will get a
constant, steady reward in the form of new visitors and increased traffic to
your site.
AddWeb Article- Copyright (c) 2000 - 2002
Cyberspace Headquarters, LLC. All rights reserved.
|
|
|
