The playing field may be level, but there are an awful lot of players on the field. In order to make sure people can find your site you will need to make sure the search engines have found it first.
I have spent a considerable amount of time in the past few years exchanging links, writing articles, posting to forums and placing ads. It was time well spent, but when I analyze my traffic, I find most people still find my site through the search engines.
There is a great deal of good information you can read about search engines, optimizing, search algorithms, etc. Entire websites (and industries) are devoted to studying them. I must have read hundreds of articles on the subject and have developed my own simple approach. You will need to...
- Create pages with quality content, rich with keywords.
- Optimize your meta tags and links to reflect that content.
Does your site consist of a simple homepage and links to your inventory? I'm not saying this is bad, but if you want to get high rankings, you will need to create some content for the engines to find. For example, if you specialize in doorknobs, write an article about doorknobs - their history, their value - whatever you find fascinating. This will also add to your credibility as an expert in your niche market. I created these pages years ago to promote my grandfather's book, and my pages still rank fairly high for world fair collecting keywords.
Before you write your article, visit a website called wordtracker. They compile a database of search terms. Enter some keywords to see how often people search for them and how many competing sites use those keywords. They will help you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service, many of which you might never have considered.
Incorporate these keywords into the body of your article as often as you can while still maintaining logical readability and flow. Placing your keywords in your opening headline and first paragraph are important as well.
If you specialize in more than one area, write several articles about what you know. If your site is in an online mall that doesn't allow you to add content pages, consider getting your own domain. Develop a purely "informational" website and then create links to all your "selling" site or auction.
After you've created your content, it's time to add your meta tags. Some engines use the tags, most don't. I always add them anyway just to be sure. You will need to determine what words are on your page. You can only optimize what you have. Don't bother using words that aren't in the body of your page. I use a site called keywordcount to count the words on my pages.
Use your frequently used keywords to create your meta tags, the html code search engines use to analyze your site. If you look at the source of a web page, here is how they look...
<<HEAD>
<<TITLE>The page title </TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A short description
of your page.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT=" keyword keywords
key word etc">
</HEAD>
First comes the page title tag. This one is the most important. Don't just use "Acme Doorknobs Home Page" but instead "Acme Doorknobs - Your premier supplier of antique doorknobs, hardware and doorknob information". Your title should be between 5 and 20 words. Your title tag is what your visitors will see at the top of the page. (Look at this page title above.)
Next add your description tag, using your keywords again. Example: "Acme Doorknobs sells antique doorknobs, locks, hinges and related hardware for the doorknob collecting enthusiast." Use plural instead of singular, and don't repeat the same word twice in a row. About 25 words is good.
Then add your your keyword tag. Many believe they don't have much value, but I use my keyword phrase one time here, without the commas. I have seen pages where people list 50 words. I don't think it's worth the effort.
Now, on every image on your site, insert your keywords in the .alt description. These are the words that appear when your mouse hovers over an image, so make it a complete, understandable sentence. If it is a picture of a doorknob, make your .alt tag read "Acme Doorknobs sells high quality doorknobs like this and provides information for doorknob collecting enthusiasts... etc." Move your mouse over my top graphic to see how it looks.
Ever used of a link title tag? They create an .alt text box when your visitors mouse over your text links, just like with your images. Move your mouse over this link to see what I mean. antique doorknobs It is a simple way to sneak your keywords into your page. Insert a link title like this...
<a href="../antiquedoorknobs.htm" title= "Link to antique doorknobs">text</a>
You will need to go through the same process for every page.
Link popularity has become very important to search rankings in recent months. Outgoing links won't increase your rankings, only other sites linking to you. Seek out quality partners whenever you can! The ranking and relevance of your incoming links are important. It makes sense. A link from the Antique Doorknob Collectors of America will increase your rankings much more than a link from your kid's homepage.
It is also important how people link to you. That is, what words others use to link to you. It is called the "anchor text." Google considers them as kind of a mini description of your site. For example, you will get much more benefit from the text link quality antique doorknobs than from click here. Try and get your link partners to use your search terms in your incoming links, and reciprocate for them. Axandra has free link popularity software you can use to find out how many people link to your site and how many sites link to your competitors.
After your pages are optimized, I suggest you submit a sitemap to Google. You can find out all about them here.
You need to try and get listed in the directories. Yahoo makes you pay, and The Open Directory Project makes you wait. There are new directories being created all the time. You can fin just about all of them here.
I did a little experimenting with optimizing on my redwoods page. I put some of my vacation pictures on a page and optimized it exactly as I have described in this article. Try a search on Google for redwood tree pictures. There I am, #1! Who would have thought? Sure, redwood trees are not a tremendously popular search term, but about 80 people a day visit this page, hopefully looking for redwood tree pictures.