by Mark Aaron Murnahan, CEO
YourNew.com
Although there is no "sure-fire" way to get to the top of search engine results, this is an important way to improve your chances.
In this article, we will address an old school technique that has always been important, but yet, one that many people overlook as they compromise Web site content for appearance. To emphasize, I would like to remind you that a Web site without viewers is like a billboard in your basement. Regardless how interactive, fun, or visually captivating your site is, if it is not seen, it will not pay you.
Let's remember that most of what is included in search engines is put there by a computer, known as a "robot", "spider", or "crawler". These computers use what you tell them to build a database of relevant information to serve out to the people requesting it. If you tell them the wrong things, or don't tell them the right things, they will not give you the results you are looking for.
Looking back into a somewhat forgotten HTML tag, I would like to remind you that the heading tag "h1" still holds a very important place in search engine technology. This is because it tells the top level heading of your page. Let's think of it like any article we read. Just look at the front page of your newspaper to see what I mean. If an article does not tell what it is about within the first few words, you will either move on a few more lines to see if it is worth reading, or turn the page. This is no different with Web traffic, or a search engine spider. If the site content is not compelling, and does not tell exactly why it is there, it is of no benefit to a search engine to include it in their database.
As a reminder:
Yahoo™, Google™, DMOZ™, MSN™, and every other search engine or directory in business today fulfills their objectives by providing informative and relevant results for search results.
Here is a very important step to telling search engines and Web surfers why they are there, and what to expect.
Many search engines and Web indexes will allow terms found in the H1 tag a huge boost in keyword relevance. The H1 tag is designed to tell the page topic. One problem some developers have with the H1 tag is that it's often too big and unappealing to use very often. In most browsers H1 is a huge font that can look out of place on a page.
Fortunately, you can get the best of both worlds by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Using CSS, you are able to tell the browser to display the H1 tag and other tags on your page in any way you like. This is very helpful because you can get both the boost in keyword relevance, as well as better control of your site's look, all in one simple step.
To do this, you have a choice of using either "local" style sheets, which are located in the same page, or a "remote" style sheet, which is a separate file on your Web site that is referenced on the page where you want to use it. To use a local style sheet, you simply use the following HTML tag in the <HEAD> area of the page. It should look something like the following:
This will make the H1 tags on the page use a 12pt Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman font in black text. Simply change the font size or font appearance to whatever you want to use on the page.
In using this CSS tag, you may use the H1 tag to improve site relevance, while avoiding the ugly appearance usually associated with the H1. Because many search engines will use this information from H1 tags, and give it more weight over normal page text, it is a valuable tool for improving search engine placement.
If you need more help with cascading style sheets, please feel free to contact us.
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by the Abrasive Webmaster
I get so tired of wimpy "attempts" to market Web sites. If you thought your Web site would automatically bring in visitors itching to spend their hard earned dollars, you must have bumped your head.
As hard as it may be to accept, it is not that simple. I know, it is easy to see that blue sky vision painted for you by the many Lamborghini-driving Internet executives produced in the 90's, but think again! If it is so easy, why haven't you done better? Maybe it is because everybody else saw that same dream. Now, let me pop that bubble you are looking out of ... if you want to succeed, be ready to bleed! As veterans of the Internet, YourNew.com execs still examine how this "Easy Street" look at the Internet caused thousands of dot coms to fail.
You cannot count on the Internet, alone, to do the work for you. That would be like assuming you can be successful just by having a good product. If that product is never released to the world, it will fair worse than bad ... it will break you. Amazon™ put countless millions into their marketing campaigns, both online, and traditional media and still struggles. What makes you think you can do it differently? If you buy into the "Easy Street" mentality, you may want to get your arrogance in check. This is like any brick and mortar business in one sense ... it takes money to make money! If you plan to substitute money with anything else, it had better be either gold, or long hours and hard work.
This brings us to the point. What are you doing (outside of the digital world) to promote your Web site? If you do not have your Web site advertised in print, on your car, on hats, t-shirts, and at least on your business cards and forms, you are spinning your wheels.
"The other media venues available to you are as countless as failed dot coms. If you are not using them, you are starving your online hopes."
The other media venues available to you are as countless as failed dot coms. If you are not using them, you are starving your online hopes. If you have a storefront, you probably understand the importance of various advertising media. Why would you neglect it in the cyber world?
If you think it is expensive, think again. A business card is so inexpensive that you can probably burn them to heat your home, and still be ahead. Just think of how hard it is to put your card on a bulletin board when you go to buy groceries, or leave one on the table when you leave the restaurant. If this is too hard for you, then just let me know when you are ready to expire your domain name, so that I may sell it to the next person willing to work for a living.
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