Search Engine Optimisation :: Frequently Asked Questions
SEO FAQ Page 2
2. Why doesn't my site rank well for the keywords I target?
4. How do I optimise the site copy? Where do I place my keywords?
5. How do I build links pointing to my site?
6. How do I optimise the <title> tag contents?
7. What are meta-tags? Are they really important for SEO purposes?
8. What is search engine spam? Why is it a bad idea? Is there a SE spam classification?
10. How do I optimise the site's navigation for SEs? What is anchor text?
11. How soon will the search engines find my site?
13. Such and such a site ranks #1 for my targeted keywords, but it's no better than mine - why?
17. How do I create a spider-friendly site map?
18. Do spiders follow image links?
19. Do spiders crawl dynamic sites?
20. Do I hurt my rankings by linking to other sites?
21. What is the "Google sandbox effect"? Can it be avoided?
How do I build links pointing to my site?
There are several ways of building links to your site. The first and most well known is reciprocal linking: you contact another webmaster and offer to link to his/her site in exchange for the same favour.
Another common way is directory submission. Directories are numerous, and their main goal is to list sites, so your submissions are, in most cases, welcome. Just be sure you've read and understood the guidelines.
Publish articles and press-releases across the web. Offer testimonials and add your link to your signature. Add an RSS feed to your site (it will help you if your content is frequently updated and interesting to a wide audience) Register your RSS feed in proper directories, and soon lots of blogs and news pages will link to you in exchange for an intro paragraph of each and every article you publish and feed.
Stay away from FFAs (free-for-all schemes), link farms, pyramids, automated reciprocal linking scripts and reciprocal link directories that offer automated link exchange procedures.
Make your site good. Quite likely, you will soon find out people are linking to it just because they like it.
Do not buy links for the sole purpose of acquiring another link. Buy advertising - and make sure it converts.
more on link building page top
How do I optimise the <title> tag contents?
Optimising the <title> tag in the <head> portion of your HTML-based web page is a very important part of your overall SEO work. The page title is displayed in the topmost area of you browser window and it pretty much tells your users what your page is about - for this reason the search engines pay special attention to it.
To increase the relevancy of your main keywords, include them in your <title> tag, but do not overuse this tactic. Twice is OK, but the same word repeated three times may be considered spam. If your brand name doesn't consist of keywords, add it to the end of your title tag. The search engines only read part of it, so your keywords should be closer to the beginning.
The title of your page should be readable, short and descriptive. If some words are unnecessary, remove them.
If you are targeting both singular and plural forms of your main keyword, it is sometimes possible to include both of them in the title. Do so only if it sounds logical.
What are meta-tags? Are they really important for SEO purposes?
Meta tags are special tags placed in the head portion of the HTML-based page and are intended to provide certain information to browsers and search engines such as description, keywords, copyright, etc.
Their common format is: <META NAME="tag name" CONTENT="value">
The following meta tags are most often mentioned in connection with SEO: "description", "keywords", "robots" and "revisit-after".
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="the description of your page">
You can use this tag to add a good, descriptive summary of the page's content. There is no need to make it too long, but pay attention to its marketing quality. It will not help you to achieve better rankings in Google and will do very little for it in Yahoo!, but there is a chance Google or Yahoo! (as well as some other SEs) will use the content of your "description" meta tag as a snippet when your site is listed in their result pages. Such snippets impel potential visitors to click on your listings when they see what they actually search for - or to go elsewhere. So, include your keywords, but do it moderately. Stuffing won't work in this case.
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="your keywords">
This tag is ignored by Google, but other search engines pay some attention to it. However, stuffing keywords in it is not recommended - it might harm rather than help your rankings. Separate your keywords using blank spaces or commas - it makes no difference. Do not make them too long: those minor search engines that still read this tag and can bring you traffic should know exactly what you are targeting, and there is no need to confuse them.
You may delete this tag completely if you wish. It won't change your overall traffic significantly.
<META NAME="revisit-after" CONTENT="10 days">
This can be set at 15 days, 7 days, 1 day or whatever you like. Many webmasters add this tag to their pages in the hope that it will force a visiting spider to come and re-crawl the page at a frequency of their choosing. It does nothing of the kind. Most spiders simply ignore the tag, and many interpret it quite the other way, which is: "Do not come earlier than instructed". If your pages contain this tag, remove it.
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">
This tag tells the spiders to index the page and follow all the links that can be found on it. This is true by default, so there is
no need to add this tag.
Use <META NAME="robots" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW"> if you do not wish the spiders to read and index
this particular page.
Use <META NAME="robots" CONTENT="INDEX,NOFOLLOW"> if you do not want them to follow the links on the page.
Last Modified: 23.08.2007
See also
SEO FAQ Index
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Featured SEO Articles
Improve The Search Engine Rankings Without Losing Quality
The Internet as a Tool of Self-Education
