There are a lot of basic things you can do yourself to improve your own search engine results. I used to sell a lot of templates for eBay sellers by running regular, costly, listings on eBay. I haven't listed a template for sale on eBay for months, perhaps over a year now. But try Google searches for these typical keyword phrases that would be used by people searching for where to by one of my listing templates:
wiz's eBay templates
wizard's eBay templates
wiz eBay templates
wiz templates
You will note that I "own" the first few pages of the returns. In the case of "wiz's ebay templates" the entire first page -- all ten positions -- refer to my own pages or, in a couple of cases, pages that refer to my work. The next few pages have multiple returns that point to my pages or refernce work too. Now, that's what being found is all about. I still get regular requests for my listing templates. I just don't have to pay for listings or advertising anymore. Effective SEO can work just like this for you too.
The key to this is two fold:
1 - get your own web pages (plural) optimized for search engines
2 - get links on other relevant sites pointing to your pages
Let's look at number 2 first:
A lot of people talk about the value of in-bound links in developing page rank for your own pages. Some argue whether this is over-blown or not. Some say it has no value in to the search engines any more because it was over-used and abused. My professional opinion is that it still has value though not what it used to.
It does, however, have another value that you cannot afford to over look. Consider the numerous returns in the searches suggested above that were for sites not owned by me but which provided information about me, references to my work, and/or links directing back to my pages. Each of those returns had value to me. Each would lead someone looking for my services back to me. Even if none of my own pages showed up at all I would still have been found in the first, and first few, pages of the search returns. You just cannot discount that level of exposure!
Now, what about your own web pages. Let's start at the top:
1 - first, search engines seem to give more weight to websites that use good, current code. It may not make a big difference but it seems to be worth the effort to code pages well. Since search engine spiders don't have eyes -- they don't actuall look
at your pages -- it is only the HTML coded content that they can see. Bad or broken coding can hide important parts of your content from the spider's view.
Current coding practices mean all tag and attribute names need to be in lower case, not CAPS, like this:
<img src="/site/somepix.jpg" />
not this:
<IMG SRC="/site/somepix.jpg" />
All tags must be closed. Tags available in pairs need to be used in pairs. Single <li> or <p> tags, though often used in the past, are no longer valid. Tags that work alone, like <br /> and <img /> need to be closed within the tag.
2 - all web pages need a DOCTYPE statement. The level of coding should be indicated properly in this tag.
3 - deprecated tags like <center>, <font>, and <u>, should no longer be used. You can find an anotated list of HTML tags here:
http://www.ourhutch.net/examples/allhtmltags.html
4 - many tags formerly used for style, like <b>, <i>, <small> and <big>, should no longer be used in favor of CSS.
5 - tags should be used correctly. <em> is NOT for italics, and <strong> is not for bold text, even though many people use them for that purpose.
If you are not sure how to apply the concepts in those five points to your own website, you will find more information in this section and others. And, of course, you can always ask!
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