Quick Skinny on Search Engine Optimization

1. META tags alone will not get you any search engine rankings. In fact, many of the most popular search engines give very little "weight" to the contents of the META Keyword tag. A well crafted META Description tag (specific to each page of the site) would provide better results - but there is no silver bullet for search engine rankings.


2. What search engines do recognize is a "limited redundancy" of a term throughout various features of the web page. Search engine ranking algorhythms are far more complex than they used to be.


3. If you target the wrong keywords, all of your optimization efforts will be in vain. There is data available to determine what the most popular terms are that people use in search engines to find a web site like yours. For example, the term "lawyer" is searched for far more often than "attorney." If you are looking to increase business from higher search engine rankings, target the terms your market is using.


4. In general, you don't want to target more than one to two closely related terms per page. This allows you to use all of the page features to target a term well. Search rankings are all about competition. If you are targeting 5 independent terms on a single page, you are never going to outrank a competitor that is using the same methonds to target a single term.


5. If the term or phrase you are targeting is not in the page text (usually several times), than there is 100% chance you will NOT be listed for that term. For search engine optimization, CONTENT IS KING!


6. For "organic" or "natural" search engine results, search engines also consider external or off-page factors such as inbound links to the web site. Inbound links from theme related sites give your site credibility in the eyes of the search engines. It also increases the frequency of search engine indexing.


7. Results from optimization take time. In general, we tell owners of established web sites 4-6 weeks until valid results are seen, and new web sites 6-8 weeks (especially for an engine like Google). There are programs offered by Yahoo! and MSN Search that can expedite results for their respective engines. A higher number of quality, inbound links would shorten the time frames quoted.


8. Target geographically. Don't target "divorce attorney" - target "Chicago divorce attorney." The term is better focussed to your target audience, and it will have far less competition.