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Articles
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Now that your website is complete and you have done all the off-line advertising you can do (added the url to your business card, fryers, phone book listing, and told all of your friends and family to check it out) you are ready to start promoting your site online. You would like to get your site higher in the search engine results.
The Following 5 articles will be tips on how to optimize your site for the search engines and will focus on the following subjects:
1). Keywords, meta tags, search phrases: learn the lingo
2). Page title tags are premium
3). All your headings are important
4). Put your writer's hat on
5). Get linked up
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Meta tags are one or more significant words we call "keywords" that are separated by commas into phrases and placed in your Web site code. Search engines use meta tags to index sites so that people can find what they are looking for.
You can place meta tags on each page on your Web site by clicking the Page properties button in Page Editor or the Properties text link under Options in Page Manager.
Click the Search engine optimization tab and read the directions before adding your meta tags.
Make meta tags specific to the page you are working on. If you choose "bike shoes," you'll be competing with a lot of Web sites that offer bike shoes of all kinds. If you write "clip-on high-performance cycling shoes" people who search for all or part of that phrase are more likely to find your site in a search engine. If you feature a branded product, use that name in the meta tags as well.
As you put together your list of keywords for a page, do some searching yourself. Type a word or phrase in a search engine, take a look at some of the sites that come up, and depending on the browser interface, click View on the menu, then click Source to take a look at the meta tags that page uses. Look for your competitors in the search results and check to see what meta tags they are using. Compare the meta tags the highest-ranking sites use with those of companies lower in the results.
Do a low-tech usability survey as well: Ask friends, family, or customers who know your business what terms they might expect to use to search and find your company and its products and services.
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Search engine optimization (SEO) experts argue that the text you place in your title tag for each page is the most important text for search engines. Don't confuse your page title with the Site title text you'll place on your header in Site Designer. The text in the title tag is the text you'll see in the browser at the very top of every page —the blue bar or tab, if you are looking at Internet Explorer.
Be sure to include keywords in the page title tags. Writing "Bike components: frames, handlebars, wheels" says more to both visitors and search engines than "Bike parts," even if the latter is the short page name you use in your navigation bar. The context for how the names are used and viewed is different.
Keep the page title shorter than 80 characters. Search engines vary in their requirements, but this number is a good rule of thumb. Use different titles for each page and tie them closely to that page's content. Above all, make sure the title is meaningful, not just a list of keywords.
To add title tags when you create a new page:
In Page Manager, in the actions bar, click New page.
Select your page template and then click Next.
In the Choose page properties dialog box, type your page title in the Page title box.
Fill in the rest of the page information and then click Finish.
To add title tags to existing pages:
In Page Editor, on the page you want to edit, click Page properties and then change the title in the field provided. Click OK to save your changes.
Or
In Page Manager, next to the page you want to change, click Properties, and then change the title. Click OK to save your changes.
Click View to see how the title appears at the top of a browser window.
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