Jeff Rascov Digital Media

Welcome to the West Valley College DM/IS25 Internet Marketing

Section: 18657

Lesson 3 - Prepare web site for submitting to search engines.

This is a new video explaining Assignment 2

Important information for this week.

Read chapter 3 from the Fast start book.
Developing Keywords.
Basic Marketing HTML

Lesson 3 - Preparing a Web Site for Submission

Wow that was alot of reading last lesson. This lesson will cover basic techniques and research you can do to gain ranking in search engines. Not everything is listed in this lesson. There will be more techniques in other lessons. This lesson is about getting started.

Research.

Find which web site are ranking within a given market. Evaluate why their web site has achive high ranking. How - you will learn how to evaluate by learning what search engines are looking for in ranking.

Concept "the Phrase" - Most people don't just type one word into Google. Think about it, the way words are grouped together will give different results. Read this from google. Then go to google main and type in "Digital Media" you get results, but my site is not listed, but if you type in "digital media training" west valley digital media program is listed around #5. Read page 22 of the SEO Fast Start. thats the free handout list on the first page of this class.

Keyword Strategy - Chapter 3 in the free book.

1. Look at the content within a web site. Particularly, notice the words that are in the HTML content. The text that is embedded in the web site is very important to the ranking of web site.

2. Develop a list of 10 phrases that you believe a user would type into a search engine to find your web site. These phrases should reflect the content of the page.

3. Do some research using search engines. Search on multiple search engines to see which web sites rank well. Also, look at the words and phrases that pop up under the links. This is especially effective on Google. Google will place the phase in Bold letters on the web site.

google

4. Deconstruct the web sites found in search engines. Click on the links of highly-ranked sites. To see the source of the code, if you're using Internet Explorer, go to View, then Source. This will show the code of the web site. Look at the tags for the title, the Meta tag keywords and description. These are some of the elements that have helped this web site rank highly. Also look at the content of the page. See if the phrase you typed in is included in the content. Writing content for web sites will be discussed later.

We will do more research on keyword phrases when we get to the assignment at the end of this lesson. More Reading - That was then this is now. Some things have changed over the years, but key concepts stay the same. Read this article.

Lesson 3 - Preparing a Web Site for Submission

Most of the information in this section explains HTML code. HTML is the code is the code used to display web pages in web browsers. If you have no knowledge of HTML thats OK you can complete this class. There are no assignments where you need to input HTML you should understand the Tags that are inportant to Search engines.

Don't know anything about XHTML, read these slides

Preparing a web site for high ranking is not easy, but there are some basic things that can do to a web site. Some of these are just common sense.

Title Tag: The w3 specifications

Every web page has a Title Tag. Look at the top of this page, "Internet Marketing by Jeff Rascov"

1. Title - The title tag in HTML. It is located in the Head Tag of the HTML. The content of the title tag appears in the blue bar at the top of the screen when a viewer opens a web page. If you do not include a title in the head tag of your page it will read "Untitled" by default.

HOW
The Code is:

<html>
<head>
<title>Put your title here</title>
</head>
<body>
</body>

WHY
Many Search Engines consider the title to be very important to the ranking of a web site. When you search on Google.com the results are listed by the title tag, the link to the page is by the title tag.

google graphic

"Content Pyramid" It could booster ranking if you gave each web page within your site a different title according to your key phrases. The title of each page should reflect the content of that page. This could result in having multiple pages ranked in search engines. For example, if you search on Google for "Digital Media Degrees" a sub page of the digital media web site, the degrees page, was ranked prior to the home page. This is what is called the "pyramid concept." Page 37 of the SEO Quick Start Users searching will find your home page by entering through different pages within your site.

What - How to make a good title.
A good title is one that reflects the content within the page. It should be a short phrase. You should take content "words" from within the page to make the title. The title should be 4 to 10 words. It should be short and to the point. The first words within the title should be the most important words.

For Example: The Digital Media web site
Good Title - Digital Media Training at West Valley College.
Bad Title - Welcome to Digital Media at West Valley College.

To view the HTML Code. Use the menu at the top of the Internet Exploring and View>Source

Never start title with "Welcome to" No one is going to type into a Search Engine the words "Welcome to"

By using this title I am attracting users who have searched for "Digital Media Training."

Lesson 3 - Preparing a Web Site for Submission

2. Meta tags - Tags that are placed in the Head section of a web site. There are many different types of Meta tags. Most are used to provide info to the browser. w3.org specifications

The two basic meta tags that are important to search engines are:
Description - this is usually one sentence or phrase that describes the content of the page or web site.
Key Words - These are phrases that are written to describe the content of a page or web site. google2

HOW

The Code is:

<html>
<head>
<title>Put your title here</title>
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="write your description here, written in quotes">
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="write here, with commas, spaces">
</head>
<body>
</body>

WHY

Using meta tags is one important step to achieve high ranking, but they are not the only thing to rely on. Directories do not use them to categorize or place web sites.
The five major search engines recognize these elements:
AltaVista, Inktomi - Likes both Description and Keywords Tags
Excite - Likes Description tag
FAST, Google - Don't use the Keyword meta tag to help with ranking, but the description tag is important to google

What - How to write a good Description and choose good Keywords.

Research is very important. Have a list of good phrases. Use those phrases several times within the Description and Keywords. Don't use keywords and words in the description that are not in the content of the page.
A good description is:
1. Written to reflect the content of the page.
2. Repetitive. Repeat some of the words used in the Title
3. Best if it is kept to 200-250 characters.
4. Usually expressed in sentence form.

For Example - Digital Media and Internet Services courses at West Valley College. Degrees, Certificates, and online classes in Digital Media, Web Design, Computer Arts, Web Programming and Wireless Technologies.

Good Keywords:
1. Use short phrases
2. There is no exact way to list keywords. You can either separate words and phrases by coma and spaces, or use no commas, or use no spaces. I use both commas and spaces.
3. Pick out important and unusual terms and list them. Try to use words that are not used by competing web sites. For example - "Internet Training" has a lot of competing web sites, but "Internet Schooling" has less competing web sites. We will learn more about this later.
4. Don’t repeat words too often. Combine words
5. Usually limit your keywords and phrases to 200 - 250 characters. You can use more but it may not help much.
6. List important phrases first

For example: web design courses, digital media classes, California colleges, West Valley College, degrees and certificates, learning Dreamweaver, XML courses, Adobe Photoshop, Flash, online training, digital media degrees, graphic design careers, distance learning, West Valley Design Group

Lesson 3 - Preparing a Web Site for Submission

Written HTML text on the page. Try not to put text in a graphic, like using photoshop for text, the search engines cannot read text in a graphic.

Page 59 in the SEO Quick Start

3. Content - This is the text written on the web page. Many search engines like lots of content. Some say a web site should have 200 to 400 or more words per page, but that seems a lot. My idea is to try to have as much content as possible. Your content should reflect the phrases you have chosen for the keywords.

Good Rules to follow:

1. Create the cleanest, simplest HTML layout for your web site - KISS- keep it simple. Don't place all the text in tables. In fact, the less tables you use the better.

2. Use your key phrases in several different locations on the page.

3. Search engines consider the text towards the top of page to be most important.

4. Search engines recognize Text in Bigger sizes, H1, tag as being the most important.

5. Text should be in HTML, not displayed in a graphic.

6. Repeat, repeat, repeat major phrases several times.

7. Content is considered more important for ranking by Directories that by search engines.

Lesson 3 - Preparing Web Sites for Submission

General things you can do to a web site to achieve high ranking.

4. Alt tag for Graphics Gifs and Jpgs are the most popular graphic formats on the web. This are images such as buttons and pictures that are made up of pixels. They are sometimes called raster or bitmap images. Search engines cannot read the content of these images. In HTML you can add an Alt - alternative - tag to the image to have HTML words associated with the graphic.

HOW
The Code is located in the body tag of HTML.
<Body>
<img src="pathtoimage.gif" height="heightmeasureinpixels" width="widthmeasuredinpixels" Alt="use key phrase">
</body>

WHY
You can see the Alt tag applied to an image as the pictured is being downloaded. Special adaptive software for disabled users recognize the Alt tag to describe the picture that appears on the screen. Alt tags are another effective way of adding key phrases to web sites.

I didn't understand the importance of the Alt tag until I saw results from it. In December I found that a user had found my web site by searching in the image section of Google. I had never before tried the image section of Google.
The image section of Google ranks pictures by the Alt tags.
google3
A user found my web site by typing in Photoshop Training. This is an Alt tag placed on my picture which is located on the first page of the digital media web site.

What - How to make a good Alt tag.
A good Alt tag is a combination of words that describe the picture and are key phrases chosen for the web site. The Alt should describe the picture, not be totally unrelated to it.

For example - The picture of me on the first page of the digital media web site is "Photoshop Training". This could be a picture of me in the Photoshop class. I believe this is OK. I guess the best would be "Picture Jeff Teaching" but that doesn't meet my marketing needs. It is a fine balance between describing the picture and slipping in key words.

Lesson 3 - Preparing a Web Site for Submission

General things you can do to web site to achieve high ranking.

5. Linking - Having "Spiders" able to follow the links within your site is important. When a "Spider - the program that search engines send out to read the content of your page" crawls your site it has to be able to follow all the links. In addition, the more web sites found linking to yours boosts your ranking. This is called Link Popularity.

HOW
The Code is located in the body tag of HTML.
<body>
<a href="community/community.html">Community</a>
</body>

This code goes to the community section of the digital media site.

WHY
It is important that spiders be able to follow links on your site. Links help establish the overall content of your web site. The spiders are able to use the relationship between the different pages.

In addition, spiders keep track of which other sites your web site is linked to. Link Popularity - When search engines see other sites linking to yours, it boosts your site's ranking. Your web site is considered to be important if other sites link to yours. Also, the type of web sites that link to yours is important. If MSN links to your site it is better than a local community page. To find out who is linking to your web site you can use a service at addme.com. It is called Link Popularity

What - How to establish good links.
It is important that your links be HTML links. This is a big problem because many people like to create graphic buttons: graphics with cool rollover effects. The best way to get around this is to use HTML links as well as graphic links. HTML links allow the spider to read the link. It reads the words in the link to help rank a site.
For example - if you search on Google for Digital Media Degrees, You will see my web site listed. The description under the listing contains my HTML links.

Lesson 3 - Preparing a Web Site for Submission

General things you can do to web site to achieve high ranking.

6. Domain name - The domain name is the word you type into a browser to find a web site. For example, you typed in www.learningbytes.com to find this web site. Well maybe now www.rascov.com The domain name of a web site should be aligned with the content of the site. Avoid missspellings of names when choosing a domain name. If the domain name that you want is taken, try to use dashes or plural versions. For example, in 1997 I created a web site for the Biltmore Hotel. The domain name Biltmore.com and biltmorehotel.com were taken, but we were able to get hotelbiltmore.com. This was not the best solution, but it worked.

Why
The domain name is an important part of a search function. Names that correlate highly with search phrases will be ranked above those with lower keyword correlation. If you search for Digital Media, you will find the web site www.digitalmedia.net to have a very high rank. I don't believe that this web site is optimized as well as mine.

How - to choose a domain name
There are now many companies that provide domain name registration. www.dotster.com is one. When you use their records to see if the domain name you want is available, they will suggest other related domain name possibilities.

dotster

There are many different extension to domain names, the the ending sufix. The best is to get .com it seem to rank the best.

Assignment 2 - Week 2 - Jan 14

Over the years it was easy for me to explain the Keyword concept, we would use the web site http://www.wordtracker.com and it would produce a clean easy to read report. Now of days there is many different web site and different ideas on how keywords are used. For this assignment just do your best to understand the concept of Keywords and what makes good key words, Try one of the web sites below.

Before you start look at this reading.

Click here for Math teacher explaining the keyword report.

Watch my short video - yes this is little rough too.

Lesson 3 - Preparing Web Site for Submission

This lesson was just the basic. There is alot more. Look at how to find good keywords.