Using the Search Engine Help Feature
Monday, August 13, 2007 - By: Brian D
Website Editor - Search Engine Tools - Search Engine Help
Search Engine Help is a step-by-step tutorial on how to get your website indexed, or recognized by, the major search engines. While we recommend reading the entire text of this tutorial, here’s a summary of the steps needed to get your site noticed by major search engines:
- First check to see whether or not your site has been indexed by major search engines. Do this by searching for your website name in Google. If you find your website listed in the search results, you are indexed. If you get no results for your search, you are not indexed and will need to follow the additional steps.
- If your site has not been indexed, add unique content to your site before doing anything else. If a search engine sees that your site is identical to hundreds of other sites, it will simply ignore it. Avoid leaving too many areas of your site “under construction,” as a search engine may then think that your site contains no relevant data.
- Be sure to add keywords and descriptions to your web pages. Your website Control Panel contains areas where you can control this data, called Meta Tags or Meta Data. This data cannot be seen by visitors to your website, but only by search engines.
- Keywords are the 15-20 words and phrases that best describe your website. Be sure to capitalize proper nouns and adhere to proper grammatical rules. Examples of keywords are: “ Tallahassee real estate, homes for sale in Tallahassee, Florida, Tallahassee listings.” Separate each term with a comma.
- The description appears below the URL in a list of search results from a search engine. In your website, these descriptions are found both on the Main Body Copy and Images area, as well in the Meta Tag Builder.
- Check for broken links. Search engines validate links to determine whether or not your site is legitimate. A site replete with broken links indicates neglect, and more than likely, malfunction. Broken links do not equal useful content to a search engine.
- Submit your website to search engines manually. Dmoz.org is the most notable of these manual submission websites. Dmoz.org will send suggestions to the major search engines as to
- Add reciprocal links to your website. A reciprocal link is a text or banner link pointing to another website. By having a number of these present on your website, you place yourself within a miniature network. Because the Internet is a larger network of smaller networks, the more networks to which you can attach yourself, the more likely the search engines will recognize your websites.
Things to remember when creating reciprocal links:
- Link to sites relevant to your own. If you create a site about real estate, some examples of related content might be movers, handymen, the local chamber of commerce website, etc.
- Avoid creating a “link farm.” While showing that you are connected to related sites boosts your relevance on the Internet, links to random content does not. If your site contains more than 20 links on a page called “Links” or something similar, search engines will detect this and possibly ban you from their listings. A better strategy to adopt would be to spread your links over many pages of your website. Try using the “Preferred Partners” section of your website, or writing articles concerning specific service providers. If another website owner offers to link to your site in exchange for placing 500 links on your site, think twice before sending your site into possible search engine exile.
- Paid reciprocal link opportunities exist. While AgentAdvantage/Homes.com does not endorse any of these third-party companies, we have listed them for your reference in this Search Engine Help section.
Completing these steps does not mean that your site will climb to the top of Google overnight. Attaining an organic search result takes time, following these steps, and visits to your website. Sometimes this process can take months. Many people cannot wait this long – and we don’t blame you!
AgentAdvantage offers Search Engine Optimization and Power Search to get your site on the major search engines, and more importantly, noticed by thousands of prospective homebuyers.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Our professional Search Engine Team employs many of the techniques described in this article – and more – to achieve a higher organic ranking on Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines. Many of these search engines have special algorithms, or a specific method to evaluate websites. Our experts implement design and copywriting techniques designed to be highly ranked by these algorithms. More on SEO here.
Power Search
Power Search utilizes Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertisements on search engines like Google and Yahoo! to get your site immediately noticed by home-seekers. Our marketing professionals constantly monitor your campaigns, and actively manipulate your ad markets to achieve your lead-generation goals. More on PowerSearch here.
