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KISS Your Websites Into the Search Engines

KISS - Keep It Simple, Sweetie. If you optimize your site for search engines, keep it high on content and links, low on Flash, Frames and Fancy Scripts.

Search engines love content they can spider and index. And they want to know what your site is about. So, make it easy for them. Keep all javascript (if you simply must have the design kick of rollovers and the like) and CSS files out of HTML and on the server. The closer your keywords are to the top of the page, the better.

• The first three words of your title should be your top keywords. Put your company name after that.
• Name your graphics, subdirectories and html files using one or two keywords.
• Link your pages with text links incorporating your keywords. If you use graphic buttons for your links, create a text-based navigation bar elsewhere on your page.
• Incorporate "contextual links" within your page copy to other pages on your site.
• Alt tags on graphics should be honestly descriptive and should also contain your keywords in a natural style.
• Use your keywords in headings with h1 and h2 tags, using CSS or inline style to control the size of the headings.
• Highlight keywords in bold, italic or even superscript if and when appropriate.
• Use keywords in bulleted lists like this one – search engines love that.

Write copy for your pages in a natural style, incorporating the stems of your keywords – so if your site is about design, use design, designs, redesigns, designed and designing in your text. Don’t overdo it – your text needs to optimized for the search engines and read well for the visitor.

Keep building content. Add a page at least once a week. The more often you add content, the more often the search engine spiders will visit.

Linking for Search Engines – On and Off Site

Search engines – especially Google, use the anchor text of links to determine what a page is about. Link from your page to an authority site using your keywords. So if your site is about widgets, link to your favorite authority site on widgets using that word in a text link to the authority site. Don’t be afraid to link off your home page to another site. If you haven’t captured the attention of a visitor in the first couple of paragraphs, they are going to leave anyway. And if you link out using a ‘target=_blank’ tag, your site will still be open in their browser window.

Link to another page on your site using your keywords as the anchor text. Link back to your page from another page on your site with your keywords. Make those contextual links.

Develop links to your site from other relevantly themed websites using your targeted keywords in the anchor text. Not all directories will let you do that, but some will, and most reciprocal link partners will let you choose your own copy for links.

And again, keep building content – more sites will link to you if you have original useful content to attract their links.

The more content, the better the site will fare in the search engines. Optimization can really be that simple!

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