Unless your page is among the top of search engine
results, no one will know your page exists. The Internet consists of
BILLIONS of web pages
and millions more appear every day. This page will help improve your
search engine rankings and page quality using the secrets and tips we
learned over the past twenty-years. Computer Hope currently averages over 340,000 unique page views a day and over nine million unique a month (around 50 million hits).
E-mail
Secrets and tips
Below is a listing of links to specific
categories on this page. If you have not yet read through this document
we suggest reading this whole page so nothing is missed.
Content
Domain, titles, and URL
Navigation and Layout
Keep it simple, clean, and fast
Meta Tags and robots.txt
E-mail
Let others know about your site
Remind users of your site
Watch the traffic, logs, and keywords
Forum or other user generated community
Submit and promote your site to search engines
Analyze search engines
Watch for errors
Grade your website and let it age
Domain, titles, and URL
Navigation and Layout
Keep it simple, clean, and fast
Meta Tags and robots.txt
Let others know about your site
Remind users of your site
Watch the traffic, logs, and keywords
Forum or other user generated community
Submit and promote your site to search engines
Analyze search engines
Watch for errors
Grade your website and let it age
Content
Create new and original content
By far the most significant first step any site can do is create new and original content. Search engines use web robots (spider/crawler) designed to search a website and grab keywords
and text from the website to be listed on their search engine. If your
site does not have lots of content, your chances of being found are
significantly decreased. For example, if your web page has ten pages and
your competitor has 100 pages, it is a lot more likely that your
competitor's website will be found first.
Tip: Because of abuse
from content farms Google and other search engines are paying closer
attention to the quality of your content. Make sure all of the content
is quality content and that it is going to help your visitors. Just
creating content to create content does not help you or your visitors.
Always be asking yourself "Is this page good enough to be in a glossy
magazine or new paper article?"
Update content frequently
Update and add new content frequently. If your site contains frequently updated content, visitors have yet another reason to return and bookmark
your site and search engine crawlers will visit your site more often.
We recommend creating at least 2-3 pages of new content weekly or even
better a new page every day. Sites that have not been updated in over a
month are considered abandoned pages by most visitors.
Scripts and other tools can also post new content as it happens, hourly, or daily. For example, the Computer Hope home page
has a computer related history event posted daily, monthly computer
tips, daily computer word, and new forum posts and pages posted as they
occur. This gives visitors another reason to visit again.
Add content even if your site only sells products
Most
users do not visit a website only to purchase a product. If your site
is trying to sell something it should have complete information about
the products such as how to setup the product, how it can be used,
reviews, and comments from other users about your products. Not only
will this bring more visitors to your web page, it is also likely they
will convert into visitors that buy what is being sold.
User
generated content such as product reviews are also a must for any site
that sells products. Most people expect at least a general review of a
product and good reviews from many users can often talk the visitor into
purchasing the product.
Format the content
Format
your pages content in an easy to read and scan format. This can be done
by creating easy to read, short, and catchy headings as shown on this
page. Doing this makes your web page more enjoyable to read and help
reduce your pages bounce rate. For the heading of each page, we also suggest surrounding it with the HTML
tags. The heading tags help match keywords and can improve your search engine rankings.
Keep in mind that on average, 8 out of 10 people
will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest of the
piece. If your headline is confusing, tricky, or awkward, they won’t
continue reading.
The importance of the first paragraph
The
first paragraph of text is the most important paragraph on the page.
Search engine's pay close attention to the first paragraph and the first
paragraph is what is going to catch the readers eyes. Placing important
keywords into this paragraph and making sure it is well written can
help improve your rank and will decrease your bounce rate.
Make sure each page has enough content
Individual
web pages that only contain only a few dozen words do not help your
page or your visitors. Make sure that at least every page has 200 words.
Add a catchy picture
People
are visual creatures, adding one or more pictures that help grab the
visitors eyes, build interest, and make sure they don't leave the site
immediately. When adding a picture also make sure to add an ALT tag to
the image that describes the picture and has keywords that a search
engine is also going to notice.
Free
Most people on the Internet expect information to be free. If your site contains free information, be sure to mention it, for example, "free computer help"
is much more catchy than "computer help". Do not abuse the word free
though, visitors who follow a link with the impression it is free and
find the page is not free, requires registration, or has some other
scheme will immediately leave the page. Tricking a user may get them to
visit a page or link but anyone who feels tricked is going to
immediately leave and never return.
Domain, titles, and URL
Domain
If you plan on doing anything with your web page, a domain name is a must. When registering a domain name make sure the name is a short, simple, and easy to spell and remember. For example, computerhope is a much easier name to remember and type than computerhopesfreetechnicalhelp.
Many of the common domain names have already been taken, so try to
think of as many names as possible. Doing a whois lookup is an easy way
to determine what domains are available, the GoDaddy whois is an example of such a lookup.
Page title
Most search engines
use the title of your web page when displaying your site in their
search results. Therefore, it is always a smart idea to put keywords
into the title of each of your pages. However, keep the title short (at
most 5 or 6 words), use words that a potential visitor may be searching
for, and make the title understandable. For example, this pages title is
"Secrets and tips of promoting your web page and blog", this title is
not only descriptive but also uses keywords: secrets, web page and promoting.
Notice: The maximum size of a title before it gets cut off is 70 characters.
Tip: Try pacing your most important keywords at the beginning of the title.
URL Keywords
Add keywords into your URL by adding subdirectories that are your keywords. For example, the Computer Hope CD-ROM help section is: http://www.computerhope.com/help/cdrom.htm. As you can see, this URL has three keywords: computer, help and cdrom. Use this to your advantage, search engines today convert your URL to text and use it as a method of indexing your web page.
Notice:
Do not get carried away with using keywords in your URL. Having a short
URL is also a good method of making sure your link is shared. Nothing
worse than trying to send someone a link to a web page in an e-mail or
chat only to find the link is four-lines long.
Tip: When linking to your webpage or folder on your web page make sure to end the URL with a slash.
For example, http://www.computerhope.com and
http://www.computerhope.com/ both point to the same address. However,
the link without the slash causes the server to redirect the request,
which will slightly decrease the load time and may decrease your page
rank. Keep in mind this is only done for directories and not for files,
in the above example that pointed to the cdrom.htm file, it should not
end with a slash. Finally, keep it consistent, don't have both versions
of the same link on the same web page.
Domain 301 redirects
After
you have registered your domain make sure your domain is properly
forwarding to the address you want. For example, Computer Hope should be
http://www.computerhope.com and not http://computerhope.com. Both of
these addresses are valid, however, when entering http://computerhope.com it is forwarded to http://www.computerhope.com.
If we did not forward the URL it could mean that Google and other
search engines will treat both domains as different domains and could
mean a lower page rank.
If your page is not forwarding, you or your web host need to create a 301 redirect for your site.
Navigation and Layout
A visitor will leave immediately if they are
unable to navigate your website. Studies have shown the typical view
time when first visiting a page is two to four seconds,visitors
who do not immediately understand how to navigate the site or see what
they want will almost immediately leave. Internet users know that if
your page does not have what they are trying to find there is plenty of
others that will.
Link to all sub pages from the main page
Your
main page should link to all of your sub pages; if this is not possible
it should at least link to your main sections. When designing your
website, make sure visitors can find what they are looking for within a
few clicks. This can be accomplished by making lists of sub pages or
categories, adding your own search engine, or making a site map.
Sub pages should link back to main page
All
your sub pages should link back to your home page or other main
sections of your main page. Many of your visitors will not visit your
page through the home page, make it easy for visitors to go there from
all sub pages. For example, a company logo or name should link to the
main page, a navigation bar it should have a link that says "home", and
the bottom of the page should also link to the home page for visitors
looking for more information.
Have a search engine
If your page does not its own search engine, consider using a third-party search engine. These custom search engine scripts can often be implemented into your site in less than a few minutes.
Keep it simple, clean, and fast
Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)
Follow the KISS principle, if your website is too busy or over complicated your visitors will become frustrated and leave.
Do not make the visitor scroll
When
first visiting a web page, most visitors do not scroll down. Keep the
important and eye-catching information on the first viewable page. If
your page has lots of information, create bookmark links in the first section so visitors can jump to what interests them. Finally, never make a visitor scroll horizontal,
a web page that scrolls left-to-right causes frustration and most
visitors will not even realize they need to scroll and leave.
Keep your headers small
The top headers
of all your pages should be small, at most one to two inches in height.
A large header makes the visitor scroll down on every page and is often
distracting for users who visit the site frequently.
Test with other monitors and browser
Not all users have the same browser, monitor, or computer. Make sure your web page looks good on all computers and monitors. A page displayed on a 17" monitor will look different when displayed on a smaller 15" monitor or laptop display. Consider using online tests to see how your web page looks with different browsers.
Test with other devices
Today,
computers are not the only way people access the Internet. Make sure
your page is accessible and viewable on other devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Avoid large images and Flash files
Avoid large images or flash animations that take a long time to load. Not everyone has a broadband connection, visitors with a modem
or in other parts of the world may become impatient with slow load
times. As we mentioned earlier, the average view time on a website is a
few seconds, grab the visitors attention immediately with a fast-loading
page. If your page needs large images consider loading those in a
separate page.
Test your load times
Make
sure the overall load time of a web page is no more than four seconds.
Fast load times keep visitors on your site and search engines like
Google use a web pages load time as part of their algorithm for ranking
your page in the search results. Run portions of your web page through online tests to help determine the slow portions of your page.
Meta Tags and robots.txt
Meta tags
Meta tags are hidden text found in the source of a web page queried by search engines and browsers. Below are two examples of Meta Tags to add into your HTML code.
Description and keywords example
The
description of a web page is by far the most important meta tag to have
on every page. The description describes what your web page is about
and is often used as the description shown in search engine results.
Tip: Today, the keywords meta tag is not as valuable as the description, but can still be used to list keywords that relate to your page. However, all major search engines today now ignore this tag.
General Rules of Meta Tags
- Like all other HTML code, any website's Meta Tags are visible to everyone. View the source of some of your competitors' web pages to get ideas.
- Search engines use no more than the first four lines of the description and keywords meta tags. Do not enter more than four lines of text, it is not used and could cause your site to be delisted.
- Post the description and keywords of information that is on the page. Visitors tricked into visiting your page will not stay and this form of deceit can cause your entire site to be blocked by search engines.
- Because of abuse, search engines like Google, no longer look at the keywords meta tags.
Today,
most search engines no longer only rely off Meta Tags, some do not even
look at them. Some people recommend skipping meta tags, however, there
are still plenty of search engines that use these tags, we strongly
recommend at the very least to have a description.
Tip: See the meta tags definition for further information and other possible options with meta tags.
Robots.txt
Search engines use robots (spider/crawler)
to crawl and index your web page automatically. These robots often rely
on the robots.txt to tell them what they can and cannot index on your
website. If this file is missing from your website, your website may not
be indexed or indexed properly. Make sure to at least have a basic
robots.txt in your root directory.
Respond as quickly as possible
If your page accepts e-mail,
reply to every e-mail as quick as possible. If your page experience
large volumes of e-mail, make sure to let your visitors know that
replies may take a while.
Mention your web address in your e-mails
When
replying or sending out any e-mail, always make sure to have a
signature with your companies name, web address, and your e-mail
address. This helps remind users of your website's address and is an
excellent free method of free advertising. However, keep the signature
small, it should be no more than three-lines of text.
Do not send SPAM
Most users ignore SPAM,
sending out unsolicited e-mails can get your e-mail address or domain
added to lists that prohibit you from e-mailing servers that check these
lists.
Let others know about your site
Links
Link to other popular related pages and see if they participate in link exchanges. One of the ways Google
ranks pages is by who else links to your site and how popular their
site is. The more inbound links to your page the more likely visitors
will find your page because it is higher in search results.
Friends and family
Let
your friends, family, coworkers know about your website. Not only is
this a good way of getting the word out, it may also provide additional
feedback about your website.
Social network
Participate in online forums, newsgroups,
or other community driven sites that relate to your websites topic
while letting others know about your website through a signature or a
link. However, do not visit only to promote, provide constructive
feedback and suggestions; otherwise its likely the post will be deleted
or you could be banned.
Remind users of your site
Keeping your past customers and visitors reminded
of your web page is a crucial step in getting them to return. Below are
some helpful tips in keeping recent visitors reminded of your web page.
Facebook fan pages and Twitter
Creating a company Facebook fan page and Twitter page can be an excellent way to keep your community up-to-date and a terrific way to post promotions.
Let users rate and share your page
With
the increased popularity of social networking the ability to rate and
share your pages is another important feature that can help spread the
word about your page. These sharing and rating links can be added using
services such as AddThis or Sharethis. Below, is an example of what this may look like.
259 84StumbleUpon60
RSS feeds
Creating RSS feeds is an easy way to keep users up-to-date on all website updates and new content. For example, Computer Hope's RSS feeds use the free Feedburner service,
which allows easy control over RSS feeds, the ability to subscribe to
an RSS feed over e-mail, and the ability of posting RSS posts to
Twitter.
Newsletter and mailing list
E-mail
newsletters and mailing lists can be another fantastic method of
keeping users up-to-date. Sending monthly newsletters and your latest
deals are both excellent examples of how to remind past visitors and
customers of your site.
Birthday reminders
If
your company logs birthdays send your visitors or customers happy
birthday notices. Most users appreciate the personal touch, even if
automated.
Watch the traffic, logs, and keywords
Analyze web page visitors
Many web hosts
today offer their users with charts that show traffic information. Try
to view this information and determine what pages are popular or where
people are leaving.
Use Google Analytics
The basic web host statistics are a reasonable first start, however, nothing compares to the free Google's Analytics service.
Google Analytics reports provide a better idea of how users are using
your website and is better than anything any web host could provide.
Act on the information
Examine how people are entering your site and where they are exiting and bouncing.
If a page is popular, link that page to other related pages in your
site. If a page has a high exiting or bouncing rating, improve the page
and if needed add more information.
Examine the
popular search keywords visitors are using to find your page. If a page
has search keywords that do not relate to information you have, add it
to your page.
Examine and learn keywords
Use
online tools to monitor and compare search keywords to help better
judge what keywords you should be using on your site. A good tool we use
and recommend is Google insights for search, which allows you to enter and compare search keywords, compare keywords, and find trends.
Forum, bulletin board, or other user generated community
Create a community
Create an online forum
or comments section that allows visitors to make their own comments,
questions, and posts. Creating a community is a great way not only to
build a brand community but at the same time generate more content for
your site. If you already have a forum make sure that you read through
our tips for making your forum more popular. See the Computer Hope forum for a working example of a forum.
Join other social networks
Register and become a member of popular online communities and social networks such as Facebook, Google+, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and MySpace. If you have a company, product, or service also consider creating a fan page on Facebook.
Tip:
After joining StumbleUpon and getting the toolbar make sure to visit
your page and give it a thumbs up so other StumbleUpon users will see
your page.
Submit and promote your site to Search Engines
Google
- Today, Google is the ranked as the most popular and well-known search
engine on the Internet and often the only search engine used by many
people. It is not necessary to submit every page in your site, however,
to accelerate how quickly the Google bots find your site submit your
main page to the link below. What makes Google unique is their
proprietary PageRank algorithm, which makes the most relevant pages shown first.
Yahoo
- Another one of the most visited and known search engines on the
Internet and now part of Microsoft Bing. To add to Yahoo visit the link
below, sign into your Yahoo account, and submit your URL.
Promoting your local business
If you're running a business website and need to promote the business and site make sure to submit it to Google Places, Bing Business, and Yahoo! Local.
Search optimization services and other paid services
There
are several companies and people that claim they can help improve your
search engine rankings. While it is possible for these services to
improve your rankings, it is not likely going to happen for search
queries you want or is so insignificant that it is not worth the price.
It is more beneficial to follow all the free recommendations in this
page than any paid service.
Analyze search engines
Google
Google has one of the
largest (if not the largest) search engine indexes on the Internet. Use
it to your advantage to view who is linking to you or your competitors
and what they are saying about your site. Use each of the below searches
to see how your page is indexed and who is linking to you.
site:www.computerhope.com
In
the above example, Google search displays any page they have index
containing computerhope.com. Replacing computerhope with your domain is
an easy way to determine how many entry points you have into your
website. The more entry points a page has the better chance a visitor is
going to find your web page.
link:http://www.computerhope.com -site:computerhope.com
In
this next example, Google displays all pages that link to
computerhope.com but are not computerhope.com. Replace computerhope with
your domain to get your results.
Setup Google Alerts
Finally, setup a Google Alert
to send you e-mails anytime your webpage or company name is mentioned.
This is an easy method of finding new pages and articles linking to your
site or mentioning your service.
Setup Google Webmaster Tools
The Google Webmaster Tools
is yet another excellent free service Google provides webmasters. This
service provides you with a quick look at search queries used to find
your pages, crawl errors, links to your site, keywords, diagnostics, and
much more.
Alexa
Finally, Alexa
is another excellent place to check and compare your pages statistics.
If your site is indexed on major search engines and popular enough you
can view your sites traffic rank in comparison to all other page on the
Internet, view a graph of traffic details, rank, page views, page visits
per user, and much more. Keep in mind though that Alexa's data is
largely based on who is using the Alexa toolbar.
Watch for errors
Bad links
Bad links
are a growing issue with web pages and an easy way to lose visitors.
Never change any of names or location of your pages, even when
redesigning a web page. It is likely that those pages are already
indexed in search engines, linked on other web pages, or even
bookmarked. Removing or moving your page is like starting all over, and
could cause a significant reduction in new visitors.
Tip: If your server allows for custom error pages, always take advantage of this ability. A custom 404 error page that directs visitors to other pages on your site is much more useful than a blank 404 error page.
Tip: Use the Google Webmaster Tools to also quickly identify bad links.
Spelling and Grammar
Your
page is going to be seen by thousands or even millions of different
people, watch your spelling and grammar. Make sure to run a spell check
on your pages and proof read before posting the page. A page that has
spelling and grammar errors cause a more educated visitor to leave your
site.
HTML, CSS, and other programming errors
HTML,
CSS, or other programming errors can cause your website to not load
properly or to not work with older browsers. Make sure your web page is
going to work with all recent Internet browsers and that anyone who may
have disabilities is going to be able to read your page. Use free online services to check your site or blog for errors.
Grade your website and let it age
Let it age
Like a fine wine,
many search engines (such as Google) are also incorporating a websites
age into the overall rank of a site. This means a site that has been
online since 1998 is going to have a higher PageRank than a site that has only been online since 2010. When setting up your domain make sure it is going to be something you are going to be happy with forever.
It is also a good idea to register your domain for several years into
the future. This helps Google and other search engines in determining
the domain is not just a temporary domain setup to scam people.