Search Articles

May 2005- Gain Search Engine Listings - and Customers: KISS!
by Lil Waldner

KISS is an acronym. It stands for Keep It Smart and Simple. This is what the search engines like, if you provide your web site with the META content for the title, description and keywords. They do not like lengthy texts. Quality counts, not quantity in order to get your site listed. Readers and potential customers want determine on one sight if they click on a web site.

You might produce and submit a series of smaller web sites and submit them to the search engines in order to gain link popularity for your main web site. Of course, your main web site has to be designed with the same care.

If you submit web sites with too long texts in the mentioned META tags, you only migth succeed in the mass of FFA search engines, but you will fail getting into the really great and important search engines.

Let’s scrutinize matters in the following paragraphes:

The Title

It should be brief and descriptive. The best effect can be achieved, if the title of the web site as a whole and the title within the head of the HTML text is the same. It is recommendable to insert a link to your web site into the visible title of your website. The really big search engines like it, e.g. Google, MSN.

The title should not count more than 60 signs. AEIWI rejects submissions with longer titles.

The Description

Some search engines allow up to 250 signs, others cut the text after 150 signs. It does not help if you type in a longer text in a submission form. The search engines take up automatically the content of the META description text. You cannot control matters, if you use one of the automated submission services or a bulk submission software. It does not look fine, if the text is cut automatically within a sentence. You are always on the safe side, if the description counts no more than 150 signs. Exactseek offers the opportunity of an enhanced description in their confirmation email.

You also might submit to directories. Unlike to the search engines, where robots crawl and pick up the web sites, human beings decide if a web site will be accepted for indexing in a directory. The description has to be well composed and decent. You need to avoid exaggerations, if you want to have a chance for a free listing in prominent, high ranking directories. By the way: Most of the people do not trust ads with exaggerated promises. They just skip them.

The Keywords

AEIWI and others limit the META content text to 80 signs or 10 keywords. If you choose the right keywords, 10 keywords are enough. They should be derived from the title and description in order to achieve a favorable effect.

There is more space for keywords within the ALT IMG link tag of a graphic. You can insert hundreds of keywords, using the tag ALT=”keyword1, keyword2, keywordn,...” within the ALT IMG link tag. The keywords are hidden behind the graphic. The robots of Scrub The Web and sometimes also of Google crawl them.

Start practizing!

Now you may test how it works. The best way to find out the effect is by practising.

About the Author
Lil Waldner is a business economist. She is experienced in project management and marketing. She has worked for public entities as well as for private companies. She has worked as editor of newspapers and she has written booklets and essays with economic and public issues. Visit her web site: http://affiliatechain.com

Note: These articles do not represent the advice or opinions of Apollo Hosting. They represent the thoughts, advice and opinions of the individual authors.