#1
Meta Tags

Many engines rely on meta tags to index and categorize your web pages.

You should make sure that all important entry pages to your web site have at least the KEYWORDS and a DESCRIPTION META tags included in the Header section of the HTML code.  This should be done BEFORE a submission.

Without META tags, some engines may not index your web site correctly, or downgrade your ranking.

Note: SubmitWolf comes with a META Tags editor, which can help you insert and optimize your META tags.   Click META Tags Editor from the Windows menu.

Meta tag hints:

The following are some simple rules to help improve your page ranking using META tags.  This is a general guideline only, as all engines have their own specific rules for determining page relevancy.

1. Always include the most relevant keywords first.  The relative position of keywords can influence ranking on some engines. 

2. Do not repeat keywords in your meta tags eg:  software,software,software,software

3. Do not try to include every keyword in the dictionary.  The more keywords you have, the more you can diluted the perceived relevancy, which may result in downgrading your engine ranking on some engines.

4. Some engines do not use META tags, so try and have the important keywords also appear elsewhere in the visible text portion of your page.

#2
PAGE Title

Always try to include the most relevant keyword(s) in the page title.  Many engines place a high degree if relevancy on pages that mention a search keyword in the page title.

In the HTML source code of the page, the page title is defined in the <TITLE> tag. 

Example:

<TITLE>All the information about keyword you will ever need.</TITLE>

Note: SubmitWolf's META tag's editor can be used to insert, or modify the Page Title.

Hints:

1. Do not repeat keywords in the page title. eg:  keyword, keyword, keyword

2. Keep the page title brief.  Including too many keywords may dilute your overall relevancy rating.

3. Aim to use a grammatically correct sentence as the title, rather than a list of keywords.

#3
The URL

Keywords in the URL itself, can increase the relevancy ranking on some engines. 
If you are not fortunate enough to have a keyword in the domain name itself, you may be able to include it as the name of the page file. 

Example: http://www.mydomain.com/keyword.html

If you look at this from a search engine perspective, there may be tens of thousands of pages that specifically mention the word skydiving for example, and these need to be sorted according to their relevancy.  Which URL would you assume to be the most relevant to a search query on skydiving?

1. http://www.skydiving.com/skydiving.html
2. http://www.somedomain.com/skydiving.html
3. http://www.somedomain.com/mypage.html

#4
Headings and Titles

Many engines use sophisticated algorithms to determine the relevancy of a given page to a give search query.

A common practice is to assign a higher relevancy value to pages where a keyword appears in BOLD (in-between the <b>...</b> or <strong>..</strong> tags)
or as part of a heading. (in-between the <H1>..</H1>, <H2>..</H2> etc. heading tags)

A keyword that appears in such emphasized text, is often assumed to be a heading or a sub-title, and is thus often assigned a higher relevancy value.

Hints:

1. Aim to include the most relevant keyword(s) in titles as a heading or bold text.

2. If possible, use the heading tags <H1>, <H2> etc. in preference to <b> and <strong>.

#5
ALT Tags

Many web pages contain menus, titles and even text as graphical images.   These can make your web page look very good, but they are not search engine friendly, as engines can not index text in images. 

Always ensure that any important text displayed in an image contains an ALT tag, which has a copy of the text, or describes the image.

For example the tag: 

<IMG SRC="imagefile.gif">

Should be Written as:

<IMG SRC="imagefile.gif" ALT="Image descriptions for engines to index">

#6
Invisible Page Text

In addition to indexing the visible text of a page, some engines will also index the invisible text.   You may improve your ranking on some engines by including
keywords as invisible text.

One example is the <A HREF="#5">ALT= tag</A> as used with images.

You can also use comments to insert text into a page.  Example:

<!-- This page is about this keyword -->

Comments are not displayed by the browser, but are indexed by some engines. 

#7
HTTP-META Redirection

Redirection pages are often used to initially display a page, before re-directing the user some place else.   This practice is not search engine friendly and in fact many engines will not index such pages. 

Hints:

1. If you use re-directing doorway pages to your main web site, for better search engine results, it is better to remove the automatic re-direction and force the user to manually click a continue button.

#8
Hidden Text

A common practice used in the past, was to insert a text into a page and make it invisible by using the same (or similar) font color as the background. Usually this was done to make a page appear like it is relevant to a given topic, while the actual page is bout something else. 

Most engines frown on the use of such tricks and many now detect this and will not index, or ban such pages.  

#9
Repeating Keywords

Some engines do not use the META tags, and prefer to only index the visible text on a page.  For this purpose, some pages include a list of keywords at the bottom of a page:

Example:

computer,software,hardware,shopping,games,internet,monitors,printers,sale....

Overall this is not a good practice as some engines see this as an attempt to Spam their index, and may reject your page, or downgrade it.   

Hint:

If you wish to include an additional list of keywords in the visible text of your page, use them in grammatically correct sentences. 

Example:

A broad range of computers and software for sale. We stock monitors and games or printers. Best place for hardware shopping on the internet.

#10
Frames

As a general rule, do not submit frame entry pages to search engines.

For example if the page: http://www.mydomain.com/index.html is a frame entry page, it may contain a few lines of HTML code which creates the frames and forces the browser to load other pages within them.   The problem with that is that Most engines will only see the frame loader page and ignore the whole picture.

Hints:

If you must use frames, there are a few things you can do to improve your situation.

1. Include META tags and a page title in the frame loader.

2. Include <A HREF="|6">invisible text</A> in the frame loader page.

3. Register the individual frame pages.  Note:  if you re-build the frame if a frame page is loaded out of context, ensure you do this in JavaScript and NOT on a server level.  Otherwise, if an engine attempts to index a frame page, it will receive frame loader code instead.

4. Create a more search engine friendly entry page to your web site. 

#11
Link Popularity

An increasingly popular method for sorting search results, is by link popularity.  That is, by how many other sites link to your page.

It relies on the fact that other sites are more likely to link to your web page, if that page is of high quality standard.  On the surface this makes sense, as the general internet community decides what sites are worth going to, by which pages they link to.  It is however not a very fair system for new web sites trying to get established.

Submitting your web pages to FFA (Free For All Link Lists) and other directories can help to a small degree, however by far the best approach is to trade links with other web sites.