You should see "Search Engine Secrets" and "http://www.vif.com/users/chris-m/..." right near the top of over 13,000,000 sites!
www.altavista.com
! (Do however realize and bare in mind, that since lately, it depends somewhat on the time of the day in-which
you conduct your search, because since lately, AltaVista is rotating databases,
and sometimes your site may not be visable at all!)
Try also the following searches on "LOOKSMART" for the following strings
which are for "Triglicerides" and "low cholestrol recipes" related medical / health queries, respectively!
key=Triglicerides
search=1&key=low+cholestrol+%2Brecipes
For other search engine type results please visit:
0001.HTML!
Rattleing the web competition to gain
a favorable web position can be a dauting task. Yet without that edge,
your web site can remain as obscure as tree in the forrest. And similarly,
as the song so well describes, "If a tree falls in the forrest, does
any body hear?" ie. the tree can die, but who knows or even cares?
So to, will your business, if you intend the world wide web (WWW) to bring
you customers and you do not pay close attention to your web position.
The questions are always the same!
How do i place myself in the top-10 ranking? How do i power house market
my web site? How do i shake the web competition? How can i rattle the web
competition? How do i make my site more visable or for that matter, even
locatable by anyone besides my close friends and family, who know my web
site URL (site name) address?
The key my friends, is in the wording.
There placement and position, and knowing the intricacies of the search
engine(s) to which you submit them (your carefully selected words) to.
Also your wording as compared to the wording of your competitions web page
wording! Jump start your web position using the following tips! Kick start
your business with these key steps to ensuring your web site health! Put
your web site on Viagra.
)  
The first kick start trick is to get your listing displayed to the appropriate
people, not necessarily in the appropriate categories. Because the majority
of people use search engines by searching for particular terms (rather
than clicking through the categories like Yahoo), it's important to arrange
keywords that will get your listing displayed to your potential customers
when they search for subjects that interest them. Let's illustrate this
concept with an example. Suppose you're selling lakefront vacation homes.
Your natural tendency would be to use keywords such as "lake",
"lakefront", "real estate", "homes", "vacation",
etc. And those will work, as long as your prospect goes on the Web with
the intention of looking for lakefront real estate. But this strategy will
miss a lot of very well qualified prospects -- people who are in the market
for your product but don't think about looking for it on the Web. What
if instead of, or in addition to the "lakefront" and "real
estate" keywords, you used words such as "fishing", "water
skiing", "sailing", and "swimming" in your description?
Do you see the difference? Yes, these keywords will put your listing in
front of a lot of unqualified people, but it doesn't matter. What matters
is, you'll catch those people who are interested in what you have but who
would have never searched for .
)  
One of the DUMBEST things I see are those idiots who use the same Title,
Description and Keywords for multiple listings. What is going through their
tiny little heads? What benefit will they achieve by doing this? NOT ONE
DAMN THING! These people should use different information for each listing.
This way more people will find them in the search engines. Well you can't
cure stupidity I guess... What if you just can't get your keywords down
to 25? Or what if you want to appeal to several different audiences with
different sets of keywords? Many search engines will not let you list the
same site more than once or twice, particularly within the same category.
So how do you get around this constraint? It's easy. For each listing,
use a different URL. Have several different versions of your "home
page", each with their own URL and "site name." You could
use "index1.html", "index2.html" and so on. Packing
each one of these with your powerful keywords. Some search engines limit
your listing by your email address as well as your URL. Beware of this
and get around it. Ask your provider what possible email addresses you
have. This is known as aliases. Just ask your provider if they are assigning
you an aliases. Let's look again at our lakefront property. We'll call
it "Another Site at Hidden Shores." You could create a page titled
"A Fishing Site at Hidden Shores", another one titled "Another
Skiing Site at Hidden Shores", "Another Sailing Site at Hidden
Shores" and so on. Each of these pages will have it's own unique URL
and name, and if you're not too obvious about it, you can get a separate
listing from most search engines (complete with different keywords) for
each page. And if you're lucky you can use a separate e-mail address for
each one of them. This can dramatically increase your exposure. (HINT,
HINT, did you notice I titled each page starting with the letter A?). Now
that you have all these sites (which is really the same one), it's time
to head on over to Easy Submit! and get them listed. When using Easy
Submit!,
you can enter all the information you want, start submitting to the search
engines and then return to the form page where you originally entered the
site. Now you only have to change the URL and maybe a couple of keywords
and possibly the title and description and you are now on your way all
over again. Now submit this other URLs and return to do another. See how
this all works? And you thought you only had one or two pages to submit...:)
UPDATE!! I recently discovered another way to submit your same URL to multiple
search engines. I really thought about not releasing this information,
but.... Let's take this example: http://www.yourdomain.com/directory?1234
Now try this: http://www.yourdomain.com/directory?1234 I believe most search
engines would not recognize that this is the same URL. I am currently testing
this and so far it seems to work. Try it on your site. Type out your URL
and add the question mark and some other data in your browser's location
window and you will see that you will indeed go to your site without any
difficulties. It actually works the same. I use 1234 so I can monitor how
many times I have submitted the same URL to each search engine. You will
notice that I am using a subdirectory here (/directory). The reason I am
using a subdirectory is to help fool the search engines. Many pages these
days are created dynamically. What I mean by this is that some sites give
away free pages and use a technique similar to the above URL to produce
a client's page. Most of these are MLM type sites. They produce different
pages using the same URL using a different client ID#. The ID# is usually
something like this "?6y543i". Get the idea?
)   Here are
the top ten requested search terms on Yahoo!: 1) sex 2) chat 3) xxx 4)
playboy 5) netscape software 6) nude 7) porno 8) games 9) porn 10) weather
You will notice the majority of these search words are sexual in nature
and just goes to show you what people are looking for.
)   Next on
your punch list is getting better positioning than your opposition even
when they have the same identical keywords. --------------------------------------------------------------------->
List your important keywords more than once on your site! Some of the major
search engines will rank your Web site based on the relevancy of the keywords
used in the search engine. For example, if your site sells Ray Ban sunglasses
and the words "Ray Ban" are keywords listed on your page, your
site will come up when a user searches for "Ray Ban". And the
same for a competitive Web site with the same keywords. However, if you
list Ray Ban not once but several times throughout your page, your site
is more "relevant" to the search for the user and usually will
get better positioning than the site who has it listed less times than
you. Another keyword that I feel is the most important keyword is your
business name. Many Web site owners often forget about this keyword. Think
about this for a moment. Let's say you are new to the Internet and your
provider allows you to search the Net using AltaVista. You heard that AT&T
had a Web site, but you don't have a clue about the URL. While at AltaVista
you could type the keyword "AT&T" and guess what you will
find? That's right... AT&T's URL. Many of you have invested a great
deal of money in your name and your contacts know your name so why not
give them the opportunity to find you that way? Many Web professionals
list their relevant keywords as many times as they possibly can throughout
their site because of this very reason. You can also achieve this by listing
your relevant keywords several times at the bottom of your web page, away
from your main page, tucked away and out of sight. Maybe you've seen this
for yourself on other Web sites. It may take a little longer for your page
to load, but the extra attention your site receives because of the higher
search engine positioning should outweigh the couple of seconds of extra
downloading that this causes.
)   Another
overlooked but important Tip is your Web site "title". What should
your web site title be to improve traffic? So many Web site owners name
their Web site titles poorly. Why name our Web page title "Welcome
To Advanced Business Systems"? Many search engines list by "title"
and in many cases is the only thing a searcher ever sees. The name of your
site has a tremendous effect on the number of visitors your site receives
from search engines.
)  
Another overlooked jump start important thing to do is a spell check before
submitting...
)   Many Web
sites on the Internet have dull, boring names for titles, but the title
is THE most important factor which determines if people come to your site
or not! Just because your site is listed first, the title alone will not
convince someone to click on it does it? When someone does a search on
a search engine, your title is often one of the ONLY things that determines
if that person is going to visit your site. If you want high traffic coming
from these search engines, then name your site(s) with enticing, stimulating
titles. Create titles that get attention and "pull" them to your
site. Here is a way you can do this. Most people can't wait to hear a secret
or have something exposed to them. Check out the headlines of the many
tabloids or newspapers for instance. You won't find one issue that doesn't
mention someone's "secret" love affair or a scandal that has
been "exposed". These are the titles that get attention. Get
the word "secret" or one of these other keywords somehow into
your Web site and watch your search engine traffic soar! Here are some
other provoking words; these words call attention to "letting you
in on something" or "letting something out of the bag".
These are EXTREMELY powerful words. Insider information! Revealed! Unveiled!
Unconcealed! People love to be let "in" on something, so offer
some information to let them "in" on something, and you'll produce
a lot of interest and visitors to your site from these search engines.
Here are some examples that illustrate this idea:
- Little known deductions that will save you thousands (accountant)
- Pricing tricks furniture companies use to jack up your bill and
how to avoid them (for a furniture dealer)
- What burglars fear most and hope you never find learn (for a security
company) Secrets your teenager may be hiding and what to look out for (For
concerned parents)
- How to win in court (even when you are flat out GUILTY!) (For a
lawyer) Confidential information that your (teacher, accountant, doctor,
mechanic, etc.) is hiding from you.
- Crafty tips pro's use to find the best real estate deals. (For a
real estate agent)
- 5 revealing signs your spouse is cheating on you. (For a marriage
counseling service)
- See how this works? Making your material something that appears
to be a "secret", something that is of enormous interest to your
target audience, will draw traffic like crazy. This is a very powerful
concept. Get this image implemented in the title of your web page, and
you'll have an almost cutting edge that most Web site owners will not at
all see how to overcome.
)
  Another important consideration is load time of your site. I have often
myself clicked on stop loading when a site took forever to be visable!
Also the plain and simple size of each page can be a detureant for people
clicking on your site ie. > 40K is a turnoff for many people with simple
MODEM connections.
)   One more
thing that will help your listing come out ahead of your competition (even
if you have the same exact keywords) is by beginning the "title"
of your site with an "A" or a symbol or number. Some search engines
will alphabetize (by web page title) "ties" on keyword listings.
So a Web site titled "Amazing Beauty Tips" will have a better
listing position than a Web site titled "Wendy's Cosmetic's Tips"
when the same keywords are on both pages. Try to figure out a way to name
your site starting with a number or "A" and that will give you
a difficult to overcome (and hard to detect for the average Web site owner)
competitive edge. Our research has also determined that not all search
engines take the same approach regarding alphabetizing. Many don't consider
single characters part of a title or a keyword. Sites like AltaVista for
instance will not search on "Vitamin A" or "Computer".
So therefore just because your site is titled "A Wonderful Site"
and you have the exact keywords as "Victors Wonderful Site" doesn't
mean your site will be listed first. In fact, we have concluded that many
search engine will list you towards the bottom where the "W's"
are and "Victors Web Page" would be listed first. To get around
this try naming your site something like this "An A1 Wonderful Site".
Get the idea? Also, sites such as Scrub The Web take a whole new approach
to positioning. It doesn't matter what you name your Web page. The main
thing that matters at Scrub The Web is keywords, descriptions and keyword
phrasing. Many of you use keywords, but most fail to phrase those keywords.
For Example. Let's say you use these keywords: antique, automobiles, cars,
exotic This may look perfectly well by most of you, but it is entirely
wrong. Nowadays people are using the power of these search engines and
are searching by phrase. Let's say someone searches for these keywords:
antique automobiles If the searcher is searching on "all" the
words, the above site using "antique, automobiles, cars, exotic"
as keywords, would be listed because it does contain "all" the
words. But what if the searcher were to search by phrase? You would not
be listed in the search results. How do you get around this? It's really
quite simple. Think about how you wish a searcher to find you. Think about
how they will find you. Then incorporate these keywords and keyword phrases
in your descriptions and keywords. This is what I would do for keywords:
antique automobiles exotic cars Did you notice I didn't use commas (,)?
Keyword phrases will not work with commas unless of course the searcher
uses them. I know you see sites say separate your keywords by a comma.
DON'T do it! Now using the above keywords I will have a better chance of
being seen whether a searcher uses "all" the words, "any"
of the words or even if they search by "phrase" (which is becoming
much more popular these days). Don't stop with your keywords. Use this
same technique when putting together your description too.
)   Proven
techniques for selecting the most effective keywords and how to arrange
them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Generally, the more specific you can be, the better. On the other hand,
you don't want to use keywords that are too unique, because no one will
ever think to look for them. Use keywords that someone who has never heard
of you, but who would be interested in what you offer, is likely to search
for. Many search engines limit your description to around 25 words. So
your description needs to be crammed with suitable keywords. The more keywords,
and the more strictly they describe your Web site, the more highly targeted
traffic you're going to harvest. Your keywords are crucial, and in most
cases you only get one chance with each search engine. Here's a very effective
technique that uses brainstorming, essence and competitive research to
develop a powerful list of keywords. Make a list of at least 50 words that
describe your Web page. Just put down the first things that come to mind,
until you have 50. Don't spend a lot of time fussing about how pertinent
they are. Just do a little brainstorming and keep writing until you have
50. Now, remove all the words that appear in the name of your site. (Your
listing will include these anyway). Take the top 20 remaining keywords
and prioritize them, with the most important first. Now, get on-line and
to a major Internet search engine. MetaCrawler (http://metacrawler.cs.washington.edu/),
which is a multi search engine, is a good place to start. I would next
try then Lycos (http://www.lycos.com), Open Text (http://www.opentext.com/),
HotBot (http://www.hotbot.com/) and WebCrawler (http://webcrawler.com/WebCrawler/WebQuery.html)
another multi-search engine. Try searching for each of the 20 words and
keep track of how many listings you get for each one. Look at the listings
you get back for each search, perhaps follow a few links, and see how the
sites compare to your Web site. This will give you a good idea of what
your competitors are doing, and how they're listing their Web sites. While
there take a look at the source. See what their "META" (more
on this later) tag consists of. See what keywords they are using here if
any. Next, start searching for combinations of keywords and keyword phrases.
Try combining the first two on your list. Try other combinations based
on the numbers you got back for each individual word. Try each of your
first few words combined with other words on your list. You'll probably
discover some combinations that will give you more of an "exclusive"
listing combinations that only return a few (or no) other listings. If
you find certain combinations that (1) would likely be searched for by
your prospects and (2) don't return very many other listings -- then make
note of these. These we will call "commanding combinations".
You may want to change the priority of your keywords based on what you
find. So go ahead and re-prioritize your 20 top keywords. Now, you'll need
to create several versions of your description. First, try and create a
description using all 20 keywords. If you discovered any "commanding
combinations" make sure that those words occur NEXT to each other
in the description. Now, limit your description to 40 words total, using
as many of your keywords as possible. Next, create a description that's
limited to 25 words. Use as many of your highest priority keywords and
phrases as possible. Finally, develop a 10-word description using your
highest priority keywords. You now have several versions of your site description.
It's a good idea to type them into a text file and have it available when
going on-line to submit your listings. Then you can just cut and paste
text into each Internet search engine's submission form. You'll want to
do the same with the name of your site and your URL. The reason you've
developed several versions of your description is that different directories
have different limits on the length of descriptions. Some permit unlimited
descriptions, and others limit to just 15-25 words. Also, there are other
places and methods on the Internet for you to promote your Web site, so
some of your descriptions can be used in other ways, such as for classified
advertising. You can also use one of the descriptions you've developed
on the top of your home page. Remember that the Internet search engines
are out there looking for your page and you need a way to let them know
how to describe it.
)   The WEB
PIPELINE: How to create a powerful "pipeline" that pumps
traffic to your site ---------------------------------------------------------------------
People don't go on the Web to be sold to, they go for information. They
don't want military style bombardment of sales
gimics! They don't want to be Spamed! Many
surfers are hesitant to click on a site that they feel is just one big
commercial. However, people are very willing to look at sites that they
feel match their interests. So, the trick is to create a lot of highly
informative, non-promotional "mini-sites" that will appeal to
your target market. You want to employ and build non military type sites
and use non military marketing techniques. They don't have to be extensive
-- a page or two will usually do. And on each page, you can have a link
(preferably a "banner") to your commercial pages. Then submit
them with Easy Submit! You can submit a separate listing for each "mini-site"
you create. And because these are non-promotional content sites, you have
more options available to you in the categories that you're able to list
under. You can use these "mini-sites" and their associated search
engine listings to appeal to several different target markets, and then
"pipeline" all these visitors to your main promotional site.
The possibilities are endless and very powerful.
)   How to
use the META tag to help secure best positioning in AltaVista and other
crawler based search engines. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the best and most popular search engines, AltaVista (now powering
Yahoo), depends on a software program to search through web pages and generate
listings. AltaVista will find your pages and index them on its own -- you
don't get the opportunity to tell it about your site. AltaVista indexes
all the words in your document, and uses the first few words as a description
of the page. However, you can use an HTML tag, called the META tag, to
specify how you want your page described and indexed. This tag is used
when you create your web pages. Here's how it works. The META tags needs
to be included in the HEAD section of your page, between the and tags.
On your page, include the following two META tag statements. Example: The
first statement will specify the description that AltaVista uses for your
listing. The second statement will enable you to add keywords (which may
not otherwise be present on the page) to the index. This is also a good
opportunity to insert keyword combinations. We have also found that keywords
work better without commas although I have no concrete evidence of this
as of yet. May we suggest you create two (index.html & index1.html)
to test this out on your own. Remember to keep close tabs on your hit results
and let us know what you have found to be true. BIG TIP: If you have a
large Web page which has all your keywords and keyword phrases within the
content of your Web page, I would NOT include the META tag keywords="".
Why? Because these crawlers do one of two things. They either index your
entire Web page or they simply use the keyword META tag for the keywords.
In many cases your text within your Web page has all the keywords necessary
to make it work. I would however use the META tag description="".
This way you can control the description on the search engine. **CAUTION**
Some Search Engines who index using the META tag will not use the keywords
in your META reference if you duplicate them several times. I would recommend
you not duplicate these keywords more than 5 times. I might also mention
that some search engines also limit your description to 25 words or less
so think before you create your META tags. Also be careful of search engines
that require you to put "site.idx" in your root directory. One
search engine that requires this is Aliweb. Aliweb is not widely used so
I would forget about this one. I have tested Aliweb's "site.idx"
and found it to interfere with search engines such as AltaVista, HotBot
and InfoSeek. I'm not sure why, but I can tell you that in one directory
I had over 1,500 pages that were index by AltaVista and after installing
"site.idx" I lost about 75% of the listings within one month.
I completed this "site.idx" exactly as outlined by Aliweb and
it did indeed get the sites listed there, but removed most of the site
from the other more powerful and used search engines. ANOTHER WARNING:
Make sure you put these META tags BEFORE any Java script. Many of you are
including these tags after Java script which really confuses these crawlers.
You don't want them to index you on your Java script code do you?
)   Five things
you should NOT AT ALL do ---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) DON'T submit a listing before your page is up - your listing will most
positively be rejected, and it will take you that much longer to get listed.
I see people doing this all the time! Don't get ahead of yourself. Take
your time and do it right! 2) DON'T try to list in an inappropriate category
- this will also cause your listing to be rejected. The categories are
not that important, because most people don't use them to find listings.
So don't jeopardize your chances of getting a listing by trying to get
it in an inappropriate category. 3) DON'T have a confusing site name -
your site name should briefly describe your site and what people will find
there. If it's cryptic no one will bother clicking on it. 4) DON'T use
clever, made-up words. No one will know to search for them. 5) DON'T use
the words "site", "Web", "Internet", "Web
site" or "Home page" in your listing. These words apply
to ALL sites and are a waste of the limited space you have to describe
the unique aspects of your site. Bonus Tip! 6) DON'T use single characters
for keywords. Single characters such as "B" or the number "1"
most likely will be rejected and have no relevancy anyway. Let's take a
site which sells vitamins for instance. They want to tell the world what
vitamins they have available nd I don't blame them, but using keywords
like "Vitamin B" will be relevant to all sites having the word
"Vitamin" in them. Try using more specific keywords like "Vitamin
B12".
)   Don't
count on WEB positioning software to help you much! In the end, you
must decide by using your smarts and business savy to use the effective
keywords to both promote
your site and products / services and at the same time beat out the competition.
The artificial intelligence associated with these WEB positioning softwares
is far from being truely intelligent. Also; Web rules, search and
positioning algorithms, and so on, constantly change at a rate faster than
these programs are updated! You should, or you should get, a consultant
who can constantly upgrade your web position. If you have a large web-sit
and many products to market, this can become a full time job. However;
as in any large company, it is part of the cost of being competitive and
staying in the race! Yes the WEB is free! Gaining and maintaining your
position in it can also be, but you had better get used to considering
your time and the pay for the time you spend at it, ---- as $0.00/hr. The
returns for your efforts and time however; may afford to pay you, a healthy
retirement in the end!
)   Many
people believe that having fancy web pages with scroll bars, and or
pictures, flashing neon lites, banners and the like ... will get them the
results they seek and want! In reality however, most people, who search
the Internet for answers, solutions, products, results, ... etc. DETEST
and are repulsed by all that un-neccessary extra garbage, if not for the
garbage itself, then for the extra time they must spend waiting for your
junk to load! Even Microsoft and others, have in Early 1999, re-designed
their web sites (due to public outcry and protest). Just as people have
cried out against road-side advertising banners and billboards across
North America, (which as of now, is very illegal in many States and
Counties) so to, is it in bad taste to do on the Internet! If you want to
turn people to turn away from your site before the information is even
visable on their computer screen, then fill your web site with advertising
banners and fancy .JPG pictures that take a lifetime to download from your
ISP to your potential customer.
 
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