Search Engines - Tips to get listed high
  • Text content is everything
    • Use a relevant, descriptive title
    • First sentence should summarize your page (many search engines use the first line as the page descriptor)
  • Meta tags are essential on every page
    • <title>Your Title Here</title>
    • <meta name="KeyWords" content= "apologetics,etc.">
    • <meta name="Description" content="Type a brief description of your page here">
RTB Creation Conference
June 24, 2000
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Slide 19 of 26


Most people find information on the Internet through search engines and directories. There are now hundreds of these sites with a few dozen popular ones. There are billions of pages on the Internet. How do you get yours listed in the search engines so that people can find you? What is more of a problem is getting your page listed above everyone else's. If your site is not listed in the top 30 sites for the topic of search, nobody will ever find you, even if you are listed in the search engines. How do your get listed higher than the hundreds or thousands of other sites with similar content? It sounds impossible, but it is not if you follow a few simple rules (that most other people ignore).

The first rule is the rule of content. Text content is everything. Graphics may be cute or impressive, but they have no bearing on how your site is listed in search engines. Your site must have a relevant, descriptive title that appears at the top of your page and also in the <title> command in the page <head>. All the key words used on your page should appear in a summary sentence under the page title. Many search engines use the first couple sentences of your page (including the title) as your page descriptor, so put something there that will grab your audience. Use the page's keywords often - especially within the first couple paragraphs of your page. Many search engines rank pages by the number of times the search term is found on your page.

Depending upon the search engine, meta tags may be as important (or more so) as content. This is becoming increasingly rare, since many pages have been designed to include popular meta tag descriptors that have nothing to do with page content. The meta names go into the <head> section of your web page. Two meta names are essential:

<meta name="KeyWords" content= "apologetics,Christian,next term,etc">
<meta name="Description" content="Your one to two sentence description goes here.">


More great tips and free newsletter

http://www.godandscience.org/general/sld019.html
Last updated March 31, 2008

 

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