f you were to run a search engine what would
be your number one goal. This one is simple;
you would want to be the most used search
engine on the Internet. The only way to
become the most used search engine is
accuracy. People use a search engine for one
reason and that is to find what they are
looking for. When I first started using the
Internet 12 years ago, it was difficult to
find anything in a search engine. You would
type in baby toys and get hundreds of sex
toy sites with a few baby toys sites mixed
in. Now you type in baby toys and you get
baby toys. The reason Google became number
one was that for several years they had the
most accurate results. So if you want to get
a high ranking in a search engine for the
terms your pages are about, then you must
give the search engine what it is looking
for.
The search engines became more accurate
because now they look primarily at one
thing. That one thing is content. The only
way for a search engine to find out what a
page is about is to scan the page and see
what it is about. Yes, there are a few other
things the search engine looks at but none
of those things matter if the content does
not match what people are typing in a search
engine. If you want to rank high in the
search engines, you must make a great page
specifically about the topic that page is
about.
Natural Language
It also matters how you put your content
on the page. One of the things search
engines look at now is natural language. You
cannot just put a search term a bunch of
times on the page. It is true than once upon
a time that worked. But stacking search
terms no longer works. Search engines look
at how many times a term shows up in a
sentence and how many times it shows up in a
paragraph. In a normal paragraph you will
not have a search term that shows up 6 to
ten times. That is not the way a paragraph
is normally constructed. When a search
engine sees this it counts against you and
not for you. The same is true about
sentences. So be careful how you word your
content. Try not to put the same term
multiple times in a sentence or several
times in a paragraph.
t is also a good idea to make sure you
write in complete sentences and make your
content read well. This is not just a good
idea for search engine consideration but
also for the reader of your page. You want
them to find the page informative and easy
to read. Having them come back and telling
their friends about the page is important.
If they find it interesting enough, they may
just give you that all-important link to
your page.
Here are some other things to consider
about content.
The content of your page is not just
limited to the words written on the page.
Search engines also look at how you present
your content and what you say about it. For
example, every page in your site should have
a title. This is the first thing written on
the page such as the title to an article.
When you present a title you place it as a
heading. Heading tags are a way to tell the
search engines this is what my page is
about. To be effective your heading needs to
be about the same thing as the rest of the
content of your page. You can also put sub
headings on the page. You can title
different sections of the page with heading
2 or heading 3 tags.
Search engines also give you two places
to tell them what you think your content is
about. This is done through your meta title
and description tags. These are the only two
meta tags that most search engines look at
so far as determining how they are going to
rank your page. I do not even add a key word
tag to any of my pages. The meta title is
the place where you tell the search engine
what your page is about. It can be exactly
the same as the title on the page itself
(your H 1 tag or page heading). Your
description tag gives you the opportunity to
describe the content of the page to the
search engine. The description needs to be
short and to the point. It should be no more
than two sentences but preferably only one
sentence. There is no reason a good
description of a page cannot be made in one
simple but complete sentence
Last but not least is the overall content
of the page. Make each page about one thing.
The more topics your page talks about the
less credit you get for each topic. For
example you want to make a page about the
three most influential people in medicine
today. You can make your first page generic
and mention the names of the three people
and their general contributions to medicine
while concentrating on making sure every
paragraph is about the main topic of "most
influential people in medicine". Then, if
you want to go into detail about the three
individual people, make a separate page
about each and have them linked to from the
"most influential" page.
About The Author
Article by Rusty Ford, Editor
Arthritis-Symptom.com .
