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by Susan Ives

Index
 The Lazy Webmaster

Getting found
September 2004

Susan Ives

Susan Ives is a past-president and past-webmaster of Alamo PC.

The best thing you can do is to structure your Web site so that it is more likely to be picked up by search engines and categorized correctly.

Meta Tags
First, look at the meta data. Meta means “higher level.” In Web design, it denotes information that does not show up on the screen but tells the Internet how to handle the document.

Two of them are sometimes used by search engines to find, categorize and prioritize sites and you should use them as a matter of routine. Place meta tags within the <HEAD> tag, right after the <TITLE> tag. The two you need to use are “keywords” and “description” Here is the format:

<meta name="description" content="San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (SAVAE): Baroque music from Mesoamerica and Middle Eastern music in Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic from the time of Christ.”>

For the description, aim for about 25 words. Avoid marketing hype and include key words that people may be searching for.

<meta name="keywords" content="SAVAE, San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble, El Milagro De Guadalupe, Virgen De Los Indios,  . .  Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Second Temple,  . . . plainchant, colonial, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, renaissance, missionary, Mesoamerican, Virgin Mary, Dead Sea Scrolls,  . . Iago, Early Music, Classical Music, Christopher Moroney,  . . .  huehuetl, teponaztli, huilacapitzli,  . . . ayacaxtli, omichahuaztli">

Keywords should relate to you site – in fact, it helps a lot if they are actually mentioned in the text of the page. The upper limit is 1,000 characters. Put the most important ones first.

There is no guarantee that search engines will use your tags – some do, some don’t – but including them can’t hurt.

Title Tag
I am surprised at the number of Web pages that fail to take advantage of the <TITLE> tag. If you bookmark a site, the <TITLE> tag is listed as the name of the bookmark or favorite place. If visitors bookmark several pages from your site, the title helps tell them apart. Search engines list the title and may use the words in it as the most important key words.

Hint:  Some search engines alphabetize their results by title, so pick something near the top of the alphabet. Don’t “spam” search engines, though, by calling your site “AAAAAA something.” They are onto this and may drop your listing.

The <TITLE> tag should be no more than 80 characters, including spaces. It may get lopped off in some listings, so put the most important information first. Look upon the title as a mini-advertisement for your site: it may be all a visitor coming from a search engine has to go by. Each page in your site should have a different title to distinguish it from the others. You cannot use HTML code in your title - only text.

Search Engine Submission:
Search engines typically have robots or spiders that sweep the Web looking for sites and pages to include. Catalogs have a human behind them, selecting sites. In either case, most will have a link that allows you to “suggest a site” to include. Take advantage of this, even though the best positioning in search engines and catalogs usually goes to organizations that pay for higher placement. To learn more about search engines and how to get a good listing, visit Search Engine Watch.

Paid inclusion
You can pay money to have your search engine request processed faster, have greater prominence or (in some cases) get listed at all. You can bid on being listed first for selected key words.

It can get expensive. Yahoo commercial listings, for example, are $300/year. Non-commercial sites can get listed for free, but Yahoo decides which ones get included. Some paid listings are invoiced on the basis of click-throughs – every time someone clicks on a link, you get billed.

This is a call you have to make.

Reciprocal Links, Banner Exchanges and Web Rings:
Some people set great store by exchanging links with other Web sites. I am ambivalent about this. I am always eager to get my sites listed on directories that specifically pertain to my site’s area of concentration. A genealogy site, for example, would want to be included on “Cyndi’s List” of 182,500 genealogy links. Everyone goes there for that kind of information. However, my belief is that asking hundreds of sites to link your site in exchange for you listing theirs is a waste of time. If I like a site, I list it. If I don’t, I don’t. No obligation on either side.

In banner exchanges, you submit an advertising banner to a service. So do others. The free service provides a script that automatically rotates all the banners through your site. You don’t get to choose the content or the design of the banners, and often there is a requirement to display them prominently on your front page. Look at an example at neobanners.com/.

Web Rings are formalized link exchanges that centralize the administration of managing hundreds of links on related topics. They are best suited to nonprofit and hobby sites, although small businesses not in competition with each other may find them useful. The biggest free service is at webring.com - go there to get the details.

Word of mouth
Don’t forget to advertise your site by more traditional methods. Put it on your business cards and letterhead. Include it in your signature block on e-mail. Tell your friends.

Want to learn more? Here are some Web sites that will teach you some of the Seach Engine Optimization tips and tricks:

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