How Search Marketers Study & Learn How to Succeed in the Engines

The complicated algorithms of search engines 

may appear at first glance to be impenetrable,

 and the engines themselves provide little insight

 

into how to achieve better results or garner 

more traffic. What little information on 

optimization and best practices that the engines

 themselves do provide is listed below:

 

Many factors influence whether a particular web 
site appears in Web Search results and where 
it falls in the ranking.

These factors can include:

• The number of other sites linking 
• to it
• The content of the pages
• The updates made to indicies
• The testing of new product versions
• The discovery of additional sites
• Changes to the search algorithm – 
• and other factors

 

Bing engineers at Microsoft recommend
 the following to get better rankings 
in their search engine:

• In the visible page text, include words 
• users might choose as search query 
• terms to find the information on your site.
• Limit all pages to a reasonable size. 
• We recommend one topic per page.
•  An HTML page with no pictures 
• should be under 150 kb.
• Make sure that each page is accessible
•  by at least one static text link.
• Don’t put the text that you want indexed
•  inside images. For example, i
• f you want your company name
• or address to be indexed, 
• make sure it is not displayed inside
•  a company logo.

Googlers recommend the 
following to get better
 rankings in their search engine: 

• Make pages primarily for users, 
• not for search engines. 
• Don't deceive your users or
•  present different content to
•  search engines than you 
• display to users, which is
•  commonly referred to as cloaking.
• Make a site with a clear hierarchy
• and text links. Every page should
• be reachable from at least one static 
• text link.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, 
• and write pages that clearly and
•  accurately describe your content.
•  Make sure that your <title> 
• elements and ALT attributes are 
• descriptive and accurate.
• Keep the links on a given page
•  to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).