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Remove all other
meta tags (author, date, etc.), unless you're sure they are absolutely
necessary. The only meta tags I ever use are the META DESCRIPTION and
occasionally the META REFRESH tag.
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Include a site
map with links to all your pages. This will help search engines find
and index all your pages.
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Limit the number
of links on a web page to 50.
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If you have
more than 50 links, limit your links to your most important pages.
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Include text
on the page as some search engines, such as AltaVista, have been
known to kick out links only pages.
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Use one or more
header tags in your main page body and include your most important keyword
phrase/s.
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Use large header
tags, such as <H1> and <H2>.
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Use Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS) to alter the appearance of the header tags to
fit the look and feel of your site. For more information read this
CSS tutorial.
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Check the first
couple of lines of the first paragraph to see if it's appropriate to
be used as a description of your page. Many search engines utilize the
first couple of sentences of the body text as the search results description,
instead of the contents of the META DESCRIPTION tag.
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Try to achieve
an overall keyword density of 1-2%.
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Try to achieve
a minimum word count of 300 and a maximum of 750 words on each page.
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Register a domain
name with the exact keyword phrase you wish to target, using hyphens
to separate the keywords.
For example, if the keyword phrase is "search engine rankings," then
register:
search-engine-rankings.com
If the domain you
want is unavailable, either try a different extension, such as .NET,
.INFO, or .US, or add a keyword to the end (preferential) or beginning
of the domain.
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Name directories
after your keyword phrases, using hyphens or underscores to separate
the keywords.
For example, if an important keyword phrases is, "search engine rankings,"
name your directory:
www.yoursite.com/search-engine-rankings/
or...
www.yoursite.com/search_engine_rankings/
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Name web pages
after your most important keyword phrase. Separate the keywords using
hyphens or underscores.
For example, if the keyword phrase is "search engine rankings," then
name the page:
search-engine-rankings.html
or...
search_engine_rankings.html
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Name your graphic
files after keyword phrases. Again, separate the keywords using hyphens
or underscores.
For example:
<IMG
SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif">
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Include an ALT
(alternative text) atrribute in image tags. Include the most important
keyword phrases.
For example:
<IMG
SRC="search-engines-rankings.gif" ALT="search engine rankings.">
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If you use an image
map, include HTML links, as some search engines do not follow image
map links. Plus image maps do not offer search engines any link text
to index. So, try to avoid the use of image maps as they do not help
with your search engine optimization efforts.
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Use the longer
or plural version of a keyword, where possible. Word stemming is a concept
used by some search engines to return search results that include keywords
that extend beyond what you searched for.
For example, a search with the keyword "engine" might return results
for, "engines," "engineers," and "engineering." If someone searches
for the longer version of a word and your page only uses the short version,
then your page will be excluded from the list of possible results.
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Sprinkle a few
uncommon keywords and synonyms in your main body text. Less popular
keywords have less competition in the search engines. So your web page
is has a greater chance of being listed amongst the top results.