FACT: Search listings are more than 6 times more effective than banner ads in generating consumer online purchases, and almost 8 times more effective than tile ads.

FACT: Search listings are more effective in generating online purchases than ALL OTHER METHODS COMBINED, including banner ads and tile ads.

FACT: Search listings also work better than banners ads and tile ads with regard to brand recall and favorable opinion.

FACT: People are more likely to search using multiple keywords than a single keyword. The trend for using multiple keywords is on the rise too, which means you want specific queries *and* more flexible related queries, based on your site's content, to pull up your listing. - from whatUseek.com

Search engines and directories will use visible and hidden information on your web pages to categorize your site. There are four sections that need to be correlated in order to achieve good ranking in a search, they are:

1. Your META Keywords (hidden)
2. META Description (hidden, except when at a search site)
3. Page Title (visible at the top of the browser window)
4. Actual Page Text (visible)

First, assemble a list of good keywords (up to about 30) relating to your products or services on the page you’d like to submit. Use words that you believe people will search for you with, for instance if you sell dog supplies, your list may look something like this:

puppy
food
collar
chew
toy
dog
pet
brush
flea
etc.

Next, (let’s say you have a huge selection of chew toys & pet brushes) arrange these words in descending order of importance:

dog
puppy
chew
toy
pet
brush
flea
collar
food

Using this list you are now able to write your page description (which will be visible under your link in a search engine or directory), use as many keywords as possible and keep the description 20 or under words, for instance:

DogsRUs: huge selection of DOG and PUPPY CHEW TOYS and PET BRUSHES, nutritious PET FOOD and natural FLEA COLLARS. (19 words, 50% keywords)

It is possible to get that keyword percentage up much higher, be creative, get rid of as many ‘a, an, of, but’ etc. as possible, make the writing dense and tight. (It is not necessary to capitalize the keywords, this is just done for illustration.)

Now think about a title to go at the top of the browser window (limit this to 5-8 words), in this case it may be:

DogsRUs Dog and Puppy Chew Toys, Pet Brushes

Finally, draft text for the page (that will be visible to your visitors) that again uses these keywords in sentences and paragraphs. Weight your most important keywords near the top of the document, for example:

Welcome to DogsRUs!

DogsRUs, established in 1990, carries a huge selection of dog and puppy supplies, chew toys and pet brushes. We are continually expanding our inventory to give our clients several nutritious dog food choices and all natural, non-toxic flea collars. Our puppy chew toys help develop strong teeth and our adult dog brushes really make their coats shine....Etc.

You may notice that the words ‘dog, puppy, chew, toy and brushes’ are repeated several times. This is ok and should help ranking provided you don’t overdo it or place the words too close together in the paragraph. Search engines will notice if you repeat words too many times in succession and penalize you for it, or in some extreme cases, disallow your site all together.

One last thing, why not apply this technique to every page in the site? Every one of your pages will have unique paragraphs and words and items on it, so why not optimize each of them for good ranking? This offers multiple entrances to your site and increases the likelihood of being found. Composing these META tags and descriptions does take some time, but if think of it as a little game, it’s kind of fun - it will really pay off in the end.

As usual, for a fee we are happy to create these types of compositions if you wish. If you have any questions about this document, send us an e-mail (woof!)

For more information on search engine rankings, please visit Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch.

Ed Davis
Virv WebWorks

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