Searching for sites

[Mr Mikey]

What is the best way to get your site where it is easy to find with search engines?
I am using Meta files with no luck, google does no use Meta files anymore.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[dbphotos]

Links from other "quality" sites listed in the search engines. There's also a whole bunch of other things they look at in their algorithms that continually change.

Here's a link to Google's recommendations.

Webmaster Help Center - Webmaster Guidelines

[prometeus]

PageRank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If your site has a higher pagerank it will be found more easily.
Have a nice weekend dissecting the article.

Few tips that work.

make sure you have the subject in the url.
example:
if you have a page about wedding photography make sure you have don't have an url like this.
www.mypage.com/index.php?xd2393,kddd-34
yes some cms's do things like that make sure you have urls like this
www.mypage.com/wedding-photography.html
That will also help in getting a search result like this in google:

mootools - home

mootools, a super lightweight web2.0 javascript framework.
mootools.net/ - 8k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

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[Patrish]

Hi, Mr. Mickey! There is no easy answer to your question, but here are some suggestions to get you started.

Be sure that when you post a link to a picture, you label it in your alt text. (My Golden Retriever catching a Frisbee by the ocean.) This is important to the search engine bots because it not only aids in a search, but it benefits people who have sight problems. And if for some reason graphics don't load, it tells them what they would see.

Here's some basic information on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) :
5 Great Resources for SEO Beginners from Search Marketing Gurus | Search Marketing Tips, Advice, Strategies & Tactics From Internet Marketing Professionals

Use the Keyword Suggestion Tool below when you putting terms on your web page(s). For instance, do more people search for the word "photos" or the word "pictures?"

Keyword Suggestion Tool
Free Keyword Suggestion Tool (Wordtracker Suggestion Tool & Overture Bid Tool Combined) & Keyword Generator

Other good information regarding SEO:

Subscribe to the High Rankings site:
High Rankings® Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services and Search Marketing Tips | Boston Area

MetaTag Analyzer:
Website Webmaster Search Engine Tools

Search Engine Marketing 101:
Search 101 - Search Engine Watch

Here are some of my favorite SEO forums:

Small Business Forums
Small Business Ideas, Issues, Resources, News and Help | Small Business Ideas Forum

SEO Chat:
SEO Chat Forums - Search Engine Optimization

I Help You:
SEO Best Practices Search Engine Forums - Powered by vBulletin

If you will link the URL to your website, I would be happy to take a look at it and provide suggestions. (I've been doing SEO for years.)

[webaware]

What has been said in this thread so far is all good advice. To summarize SEO (search engine optimization) there are two major areas for optimization:

• On-site (some call this "on-page") optimization
• Off-site (some call this "off-page") optimization

To go into all the possible techniques might take volumes and in general, what you want to do is first determine the most popular search phrases your "target" searcher will be using to find your site. From there, use those search phrases when performing your on-site/on-page optimizations.

On-site/on-page optimizations include:

• Use descriptive title tags on each page that accurately describe THAT page. Don't use the same title on every page of your site. Be specific a descriptive about each page, but not too wordy.
• Use meta keyword and meta description tags on every page. Again, accurately describe the current page.
• Use alt elements for EVERY image.
• Use height and width elements for EVERY image (this is known to help with Google's image search)
• Use text copy that is verbose and focuses on key search phrases you think your target searchers will use. This generally takes several rounds of revision as you put your site out into the wild and see how it ends up ranking against the competition.
• Sitemap file (sitemap.xml). Create one and submit it to all major search engines every time you make significant changes to your site.

Off-site/Off-page optimizations include:

• Link building from credible, authoritative web sites. No good if you have a link from a link directory. Very good if you have a link from a very authoritative source (think: trade journal, research journal, etc.) that references your site in context of what your site is about.
• Constantly studying competitive sites that rank highly for those search terms you deem your target audience is searching for and figuring out why they rank highly compared to your site. Make changes as necessary.

To the last point above, SEO is a never ending process. Other sites are always coming on the scenes that search engines find extra bits of information about that means they start to rank higher and you have to figure out what you have to get out in front of the search engines to influence them to rank you higher against the competition. It's part art, part science. Experience gives you a lot of good insight too.

You can't be effective at SEO without good visitor metrics (Google Analytics is an excellent, and free, choice for htat). Being able to see trending over time about how people are finding your site is invaluable to making the necessary tweaks necessary to have consistently highly ranked sites.

[aleksman71]

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