Google is the dominant player on the web.
Google is FREE to
list and a good ranking on Google goes a long way to
obtain general search engine recognition.
The dominant
Search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo use Crawler robots to gather information about web
sites. The information is collected and taken back
to a database. Once this database is updated it
starts to show the results of the crawl.
The time frame
from a new site to be crawled and when it starts to
show is dependant on what "weight" (importance). New
sites are subject to Google's aging delay on new
domains with sites with that have no links to
them. Your new sites will rely entirely on your own
promotional efforts during this period.
Getting
Google to catalogue your site quickly
Check your Google site status here
Search engines come out with paid advertising
schemes - this advertising has to be approached with
caution so you get a return from your investment.
Google does offer paid advertising in the form of
Google Adwords
You can read up on
Google Adwords
The exact method of
how Google reads a webpage is a closely guarded
secret.
In fact, Google
"shifted the goal posts" (altered the algorithm) a
number of times and continues to do so. Your
rankings will vary because of this.
For Small
Businesses on the web, the level playing field has
been altered constantly.
Large
established websites with lots of internal and
incoming external links are favoured. This means
portal or reference sites get more weight.
New and small
websites have to battle for rankings by ensuring
their sites are optimized for Google.
Here is a summary
of what the Google robot prefers.
(Googlebot -
the program that continuously gathers web
information and stores it on Google's Database - you
can check visits by Googlebot by looking at your
site statistics)
-
Text is
king.
Googlebot cannot read images or Flash (Some Flash and
Java Scripted links cannot be crawled.)
-
The more
links from other websites to your site the
better.
-
The Title
tag should contain key phrases.
-
Meta Tags
especially the keyword tag are given little
importance.
-
Headers
with descriptive paragraphs are recommended.
-
Complimentary key phrases on all Title Tags
of internal pages.
-
Pages updated
with new content on a regular basis.
-
The use of
frames is not beneficial.
-
Plain Text
links to the rest of your website.
-
A site map
page
