Make Your Web Site Search-Engine Friendly

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by Kevin Nunley

These days, search engines can pull in a huge audience for your web site. Now that half of all North Americans are online with millions in other countries logging on the Internet each week, search engines are becoming the Yellow Pages of Cyberspace.

What a lot of people don't know, however, is that not all web sites are equal in the eyes of a search engine. Some sites are more "Search-Engine Friendly" than others. These sites will be better represented by the search engines, and will therefore get more hits from users.

Luckily, this isn't just a matter of chance -- you can (and should) control how well your site is tuned for search engines. There are companies that dedicate themselves to helping your search engine placement, but if you want to do it yourself, there are three areas you should focus on: Your title, your meta tag, and your copy.

YOUR TITLE: Make sure your site gets listed by having a Title that appeals to search engines. Engine computers often place the most emphasis on your Title -- that line that appears in a box at the top or bottom of your browser screen.

Think of the word or words most people are going to use to search for a site like yours. Include that most important word in your Title twice if you can. Also try to make that important keyword the first word in your title. For example, if your most important keyword is "bacon," your title might be:

Bacon Center features the world's best bacon

If your most important keyword is "marketing," your title could use two forms of the same word: Market your business with these marketing ideas.

A Title that says "Welcome to our site," or "Joe's Barber Shop" may look OK to visitors, but it offers very little for search engine robots that are thirsting for some way to classify your site.