Keyword Placement


After you have gathered a list of your 20 to 50 most popular keyword phrases, you can begin to place them in various HTML tags on your web pages.

Writing Effective Title Tags

A title tag has a specific meaning when it comes to web site design and the search engines. A title tag is the text placed inside the <title> and </title> tags. From Figure 2.10, the title tag looks like this in an HTML editor:

Figure 2.10. The title-tag content displays on both Netscape and Explorer browsers at the very top of the screen. Notice the company name on this page (Valley Plastic Surgery Center) comes first because a popular keyword phrase is a part of the company name .

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 <title>Valley Plastic Surgery Center - specializing in aesthetic and  cosmetic surgery</title> 

On an actual web page in a web browser, the title tag looks like what is shown in Figure 2.10.

The title tag is very important in terms of search engine visibility because it serves multiple functions:

  • Title-tag text is considered primary text by all the search engines, meaning that all the search engines record this text and place a considerable value on it.

  • Title-tag text is the first text shown in search results. The text is highlighted in the search results as a hyperlink to your web site. This hyperlink is the call to action ”it's letting your target audience know that there is a link to information pertaining to the words they entered in a search query.

  • Title-tag text is the text shown in Bookmarks and Favorites.

Thus, a title tag serves two main functions. The first function is for search engine visibility. All the search engines consider title-tag text when calculating relevancy. The second title-tag function is a call to action. Your title-tag content should encourage your target audience to click the link to your site.

As a general rule, write a unique, descriptive title of 5 to 10 words for each page ”or 69 to 75 characters . Remove as many filler words as possible from the title. Titles should contain your most important keywords and phrases and accurately reflect the content of your web pages.

All title-tag text should be unique because every page of your web site contains unique content. Does your About Us page contain the same information as your Products pages? Probably not, and your title tags need to reflect the differences in page content.

Unless your company name is well known and has excellent branding, it is best not to place your company name in the title tag. To get or maintain branding and to modify your site to accommodate your target audience, do not put your company name in the beginning of the title tag unless you have a keyword in your company name.

For example, the company name TranquiliTeas Organic Teas is a good company name for the search engines because the keyword phrase "organic teas" is part of the company name. Therefore, a good title tag for a page that sells organic green tea might be this:

 <title>TranquiliTeas Organic Teas:  green tea</title> 

Some search engine marketers change an official company name to artificially inflate the keyword density inside the title tag. They might separate words that are normally put together. In the following example, a search engine marketer wanted the word "teas" to be more prominent in the title tag. Thus, he purposely misspelled the company name in the title tag:

 <title>Tranquili Teas Organic Teas:  green tea</title> 

Rather than ruin some otherwise excellent branding, it would be better to put the singular version of the word tea at the end of the title tag because the plural version is already a part of the company name:

 <title>TranquiliTeas Organic Teas:  green tea</title> 

An alternative title that can be equally as effective for both branding and search engine visibility is this:

 <title>Green tea from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas</title> 

Notice that I didn't include the abbreviations such as Inc., Ltd., or Co. Why? These are words that the target audience is not likely to type into a search engine query. Thus, placing these abbreviations in the title tag is not necessary.

Power Combination Strategy

The best way to write a title with targeted keywords is to utilize a strategy called the power combination strategy , or Power Combo. Whenever possible, the first three words in your title tag should consist of words that, when typed in any combination in a search query, can be a keyword phrase. For example:

 <title>Organic green teas from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas</title> 

The targeted keyword phrases contained in this title tag are as follows :

  • Organic green teas

  • Organic teas

  • Green teas

It is not always possible to create your title tags utilizing the Power Combo strategy. For instance, if a three-word phrase seems very unnatural , don't use it.

Remember that your target audience is going to see your title-tag content in the search results. They don't want to see a list of keywords. They want to see a short phrase that clearly and accurately describes the contents of your web page.

The reason that you should place related keywords close to each other, whenever possible, is that search engines also measure keyword proximity . Keyword proximity is measured not only in the title tags, but also throughout the text of an entire web page.

Singular and Plural Strategy

Many businesses find that their target audiences use both the singular and plural version of a word to find their web site. Therefore, using both the singular and plural version of a keyword can be a good title-tag strategy.

For example, the following title tag contains both the singular and plural version of tea:

 <title>Green tea from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas</title> 

Keep a list of various titles so that when it comes time to resubmit a page to a search engine or to build another web page targeting the same keywords, you have a database of effective title-tag text. Sometimes, search engines show a preference for short title tags. Sometimes, they show a preference for longer ones. Test every single title and measure your audiences' responses to those titles. Use the titles and keywords that get the best response, and rewrite other web page titles based on your testing results.

The following is a short list of title tags that can go on a page with content about green tea:

  • Green tea

  • Green teas

  • Organic green tea

  • Organic green teas

  • Organic green tea from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas

  • Organic green teas from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas

  • Green tea from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas

  • Green teas from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas

  • TranquiliTeas Organic Teas: green tea

  • TranquiliTeas Organic Teas: green teas

  • TranquiliTeas Organic Teas: organic green tea

  • TranquiliTeas Organic Teas: organic green teas

Body Text

The visible-body text on a web page is the HTML text contained between the <body> and </body> tags that you can copy and paste directly from a web browser to a text editor. Text inside of headings, paragraphs, ordered lists, unordered lists, and tables are examples of visible-body text.

Search engines constantly change the tags on which they place emphasis. You never know if a search engine emphasizes meta-tag content one month and then ignores it the next month. One aspect about the search engine spiders does not change: They always index title tags and body text. For this reason, it is extremely important to place keywords throughout the visible-body text in your web pages to guarantee that search engines can find and record all your relevant keywords.

Keyword Prominence

All the search engines consider the words at the top of a web page, commonly referred to as above the fold , more important than the words on the rest of the web page. How high up a keyword is on a web page is called keyword prominence .

For example, the Elgin Area Chamber wanted an aesthetically pleasing home page that would help the Elgin community find the site. To be sure that the home page could be found in the search engines, they placed their most important keywords in prominent places, as shown in Figure 2.11.

Figure 2.11. The Elgin Area Chamber made sure that the most important text and features on its web site were visible at the top of the screen (above the fold) on its home page.

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One simple way to include your important keywords at the top of your web pages is to always include a heading or headline that contains keywords. Use a variation of the title-tag text for a headline. For example, the title tag might state the following:

 <title>Green teas from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas</title> 

A simple headline might state this text:

 <h1>Organic green tea</h1> 

If you want your headline to contain a call to action, you can change your headline to contain an action verb, such as the following:

 <h1>Order our organic green tea gift set</h1> 

The first paragraph on your web page should accurately describe the contents of that page, using your most targeted keywords. If your web page contains content that falls below the fold, the first set of text on your page should let your target audience know that the information they are searching for is available on that web page.

An effective way to optimize a long web page is to write multiple headlines using keywords (as shown in Figure 2.12). At the top of the web page, make sure that there are hyperlinks leading to those headlines. Figure 2.12 is an example of a long web page with headlines.

Figure 2.12. A Safe Place offers multiple services for children. To be sure that its target audience knows of the different children's services available, the webmaster placed hyperlinks to each children's service at the top of the screen.

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Although using keywords in your introductory paragraph is very important, web pages that contain keyword phrases used consistently throughout the body text often have greater search engine visibility.

Another way to increase keyword density is to write conclusion paragraphs or sentences that can go on almost every single page of a site. Every conclusion sentence contains keywords and an appropriate call to action. For example, consider the following:

 <p>If you would like more information about our organic green teas,  please email John Smith in our Japanese tea division.</p> 

If you prefer that your target audience calls you instead of emailing, you can use this text:

 <p>If you would like more information about our organic green teas and  the other organic teas we provide, please call John Smith at 1-800-xxx- xxxx.</p> 

Calls to Action

Obtaining top search engine visibility is only half the battle. To be victorious, you need to convince potential customers to click the link to your site, to purchase the items for sale on your site, or to perform whatever call to action you desire . What do you want people to do when they visit your site? Do you want them to subscribe to a newsletter? Pick up the phone and call you? Place an order using shopping cart software? Fill out an online form?

A search engine “friendly web page does not just satisfy the search engines. It must also satisfy your target audience and help you achieve your site's goals. Therefore, every page that you want listed in the search engines should also contain appropriate calls to action. One of the simplest calls to action is a hypertext link.

The benefits of hypertext links are as follows:

  • Many search engines consider the text in and around the anchor tag to be important because you do not link to pages that are not important.

  • Your target audience automatically understands that the blue, underlined word (or just the underlined word) should link directly to the information contained in that word. In other words, a hypertext link is a natural call to action.

For example, suppose you have a web page that summarizes the main types of products you have. Many web copywriters use the phrase "learn more" to indicate that there is more detailed information about a product. If there is more information about a specific product, why not add a specific keyword phrase to highlight it?

Thus, instead of this text:

 <a href="greenteas.html">  Learn more  </a> 

you could write this anchor text:

 <a href="greenteas.html">  Learn more about our green teas  </a> 

One way I like to remind myself to use more keywords is to ask this question:

What kind of ________________?

If you offer services, what kind of services do you offer? If you offer products, what kind of products do you offer? If you want your target audience to read more, about what should they read more? Your products? What kind of products do you want them to read more about?

By answering these questions, you can naturally come up with your own set of keywords that you can place within the body of your web pages.

Meta Tags

A meta tag is an HTML tag that gives information about the content of a web page, such as what HTML specifications a web page follows or a description of a web page's content. A meta tag, however, does not affect how a web page is displayed in a browser. For search engine visibility, the most common uses for meta tags are the keyword, description, and robots exclusion attributes.

One of the most widespread beliefs about meta tags is that they are the secret ingredient to obtaining optimal search engine rankings. In fact, only some major search engines use meta-tag content for relevancy. Some search engines use meta-tag content when they display the results of a search query. Others (and almost all directories) do not use meta-tag content at all. Thus, meta tags are not a secret ingredient at all. Rather, they are secondary text meant to enhance your site in the search results pages.

The Meta-Tag Description Attribute

When writing meta-tag content, spend more time writing a good description than writing a keyword list. In terms of search engine visibility, the description is far more important than the keywords list.

Some major search engines use meta-tag descriptions when displaying the results of a search query. Therefore, the meta-tag description must accomplish two goals:

  • Help obtain a good search engine ranking in the search engines that use the meta-tag description for relevancy

  • Elicit a call to action, such as encouraging people to click the link to your web site

A meta-tag description is placed between the <head> and </head> tags. The HTML code for a meta-tag description looks like this:

 <meta name="description" content="Page description goes here."> 

When writing your meta-tag descriptions, select the most important four to five keywords per page based on your keyword research. Write careful 200-to-250-character sentences and phrases, targeting the most important words contained on your web pages. When you are writing meta-tag descriptions, try to eliminate as many filler words as you can to make room for the keywords.

If you use words in your meta-tag description that you do not use on your web pages, most of the search engines consider it spam. As a rather extreme example, it is the equivalent of an adult/ pornography site using the word Disney in its meta tag.

General guidelines to writing meta-tag descriptions include the following:

  • Do not repeat your exact title-tag content in the meta-tag description. This sets off a red flag to the search engine spiders that you are keyword stacking.

  • The most important keyword phrases should be placed at the beginning of your meta-tag description.

  • Use the singular and plural version of your most important keywords, when applicable .

  • Try not to separate important keyword phrases.

  • Although the search engines do not give specific guidelines for keyword repetition, try to keep repetition to a minimum. I generally stop at three to four repetitions. Too much repetition sets off a red flag to the search engines that you are keyword stacking.

  • Some search engines treat different words, such as the singular and plural version, as the same word. When writing your meta-tag descriptions, be aware of this.

  • If you are going to repeat words, try not to put them right next to each other. Separate them with other words.

  • You should be encouraging your target audience to click the link to your site. Ask your target audience to read more about or learn more about your targeted keywords.

  • Placing a list of keywords in your meta-tag description is not an effective way of encouraging your target audience to click the links to your site. It also sets off a red flag to the search engine spiders for potential spam (keyword stuffing ).

  • Whenever possible, make sure your meta tag contains sentences or long phrases.

Here is an example of a simple but effective meta-tag description:

 <meta name="description" content="Get gourmet herbal teas at  wholesale prices from TranquiliTeas.  Organic tea importer offers  decaffeinated herbal teas and other herbal blends. Black, oolong,  green, and iced teas available as loose tea or in tea bags."> 

The preceding meta-tag description contains 183 characters without spaces and 217 characters with spaces. You can determine this in Microsoft Word using the Tools > Word Count function.

Simple ways to create similar meta-tag descriptions are discussed in the following sections.

Changing the Verb

In the aforementioned meta-tag description, you can remove the word "get":

 <meta name="description" content="Gourmet herbal teas at wholesale  prices from TranquiliTeas.  Organic tea importer offers decaffeinated  herbal teas and other herbal blends. Black, oolong, green, and iced teas  available as loose tea or in tea bags."> 

You can also change the word "get" to one of the following:

  • Providing gourmet herbal teas at wholesale prices

  • Offers gourmet herbal teas at wholesale prices

  • Select gourmet herbal teas at wholesale prices

  • Buy gourmet herbal teas at wholesale prices

  • Your online resource for gourmet herbal teas

Adding a Call to Action at the End of the Meta Tag

Another way to add quality keywords to your meta-tag content is to add the phrase "Learn more about keyword ." Other ways of stating this phrase are as follows:

  • Read details about our gourmet herbal teas

  • Contact us for more information about our gourmet herbal teas

You can also change the verb to a different verb tense. In the following example, we used the word "offering" instead of the word "offers":

 <meta name="description" content="Gourmet herbal teas at wholesale  prices from TranquiliTeas.  Organic tea importer offering decaffeinated  herbal teas and other herbal blends. Available as loose tea or in tea  bags.  Also offering black, oolong, green, and iced teas."> 
Changing the Word Order or Phrase Order

When you adjust phrases, be careful that you are not keyword stacking. Remember that all meta-tag descriptions should accurately reflect the body-text content of the web page.

 <meta name=description content=Gourmet herbal teas at wholesale  prices. Also offering black, oolong, green, and iced teas.  Organic tea  importer offering decaffeinated herbal teas and other herbal blends.  Available as loose tea or in tea bags.> 

If you do not have the time to write unique meta-tag descriptions for your web pages, copy and paste the first two sentences of your main HTML text into the meta-tag description. If you do not place text in the meta-tag description, the search engines (which use meta-tag descriptions) might come up with their own description based on the content of your web page. That description probably will not showcase your web pages in the best light, as shown in Figure 2.13.

Figure 2.13. This web page obtained a #5 position in HotBot, but its description reads "Please turn on JavaScript in your web browser for QuickLinks." A meta-tag description with keywords and a call to action could yield more clicks.

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Many search engine marketers use a list of keywords in the meta-tag description. Not only is this search engine marketing strategy borderline spam, but also it is a poor way to encourage visitors to click the link to your site. Take a look at Figure 2.14. Would you click this in a search result?

Figure 2.14. A top search result from AlltheWeb.com. This search result is difficult to read and contains no call to action.

graphics/02fig14.gif

Using a Company Name in a Meta-Tag Description

Just as with the title tag, unless an official company name contains a keyword, either do not use it in a meta-tag description or move it to the end of the description. For example, "inc." is not a keyword unless the site is Inc. magazine.

The Meta-Tag Keywords Attribute

When selecting words to place in the meta-tag keywords attribute, it is best to select keywords that you actually use on the content of the web page. If a word appears in your meta tags that does not appear in your main body content, your web page very likely can receive a spam penalty from the search engines.

When selecting keywords and keyword phrases for the meta-tag keywords attribute, consider the following variations:

  • Singular versus plural.

    When creating your keywords list, place the version of the keyword that your site visitors use the most at the beginning of your keyword list.

  • Uppercase versus lowercase.

    Most search engines do not use case sensitivity as an element of their algorithms. Thus, using all versions (all uppercase, all lowercase, or all initial capitalization) of keywords and keyword phrases is probably a waste of time and can result in a spam penalty for keyword stacking.

    Consider this as well: When people type words and phrases in a search engine query, they tend to type words very quickly. The quickest way to type words is not to use any capitalization.

  • Commas versus no commas.

    It makes no difference to the search engines that use the meta-tag keywords attribute whether you use commas or spaces to separate your keywords and keyword phrases. If it is easier for you to view your keyword phrases with commas, use them. Using commas does not affect your web page's relevancy.

    Important

    graphics/icon01.gif

    The meta-tag keywords attribute is important for sites with an internal site search engine. It is not important for visibility in the major search engines. If you do not have the time to create unique content for this attribute, then you can safely skip this optimization procedure.


  • Misspelled keywords.

    Because some keywords (such as the word " millennium ") are commonly misspelled, you might want to put a misspelled keyword in your meta-keywords tag. However, if that misspelled word does not appear in your main body text, this strategy is generally a waste of time.

    Search engines use both keyword frequency and keyword placement in their algorithms. If you are putting a misspelled keyword in only one place, it's not helping your web page's relevancy because the keyword density for that one word is practically non-existent.

The Meta- Revisit Tag

The meta-revisit tag supposedly instructs a search engine spider to revisit a web page within a specified period of time. The HTML code for this tag looks like this:

 <meta name="revisit-after" content="14 days"> 

According to the instructions in this meta tag, the search engine spiders are instructed to revisit this particular web page every 14 days. I like to use this particular meta tag to quiz potential search engine marketers to see how knowledgeable they really are. I know that this particular meta tag is useless.

No one can tell a search engine spider what to do. You cannot tell a search engine to revisit your site every 14 of days. You cannot tell a search engine the language in which to index your site. In fact, on their submission forms, search engines do not even guarantee that your web pages will be listed. So don't use this tag. It is useless.

The Meta-Robots Tag

Some web site owners do not want search engine spiders to index the content of a specific web page. Thus, they use the meta-tag robots exclusion attribute. The following shows the proper HTML coding for this meta tag:

 <html>  <head>  <title>Green tea from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas</title>  <meta name="robots" content="noindex">  </head> 

Not all search engines honor this type of meta tag. Instead, they indicate that you should use the robot.txt file, which is discussed in the section titled "The robots.txt " later in this chapter.

Many search engine marketers like to instruct the search engines to index a page using this meta tag:

 <html>  <head>  <title>Green tea from TranquiliTeas Organic Teas</title>  <meta name="robots" content="index, follow">  </head> 

According to this meta tag, the search engines are supposed to index the text on the web page that contains this tag, and the search engines are supposed to follow the links on this web page. This is another useless meta tag. Search engines automatically index the text and follow links on a web page.

Alternative Text

Alternative text is the text that is placed inside graphic images in HTML code. Alternative text tells a browser that if this graphic image is not downloaded, show this text in its place.

The HTML code for alternative text looks like this:

 <img src="images/home.gif" height="25" width="60" alt="TranquiliTeas  Organic Teas home"> 

Here are the elements that you see in the code:

  • img is the HTML coding that tells the browser (Netscape or Explorer) to insert a graphic image into a web page.

  • src is the attribute that indicates which filename or URL of the graphic image you want to place on the web page. In this example, the image name is a GIF called home.gif, which is stored in the directory called images on a particular web site. The filename or URL must be enclosed in quotation marks.

  • width and height are your graphic image's dimensions, measured in pixels. Using the width and height attributes in your img src tag preserves the layout of your web pages. Also, web pages using the width and height attributes in their img src tags download faster than pages not using these attributes.

  • alt stands for the alternative text attribute. Alternative text must also be enclosed in quotation marks.

Alternative text appears in the place of graphic images if your visitors are using a text-only browser. Furthermore, some people might use devices such as screen readers. These devices translate the contents of a web page into Braille or into speech. Therefore, the only way that graphic images can be "read" is by placing alternative text inside your site's graphic images.

Search engine marketers and web designers often overlook this attribute. Some search engines index alternative text, thus making your graphic images another place to strategically place keywords.

In addition, if you are using Explorer as your browser, when you position your cursor over a graphic image, Explorer displays the alternative text message in a little box next to the cursor (similar to pop-ups).

For example, let's say you have a web site that offers graphic design services. One of your navigation buttons has the word "Services" on it. The alternative text for that graphic image can be this:

 <img src="images/services.gif" width="120" height="20"  alt="Services"> 

The word "Services" is not very descriptive of the type of services your site offers. Remember the question "What kind of ______?" Fill in the blank. What kind of services does your web site offer? If your site offers graphic design services, for example, a better phrase for the alternative text would be this:

 <img src="images/services.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Graphic  design services"> 

Many unethical search engine marketers try to stuff as many keywords as they can into a graphic image, a spam tactic called keyword stuffing . The following alternative text is an example of keyword stuffing:

 <img src="images/services.gif" width="120" height="20" alt="Graphic  design  graphic designer  graphic designs  graphic designing  services"> 

The keywords and phrases must be relevant and accurately describe the graphic image. Keyword prominence also applies to graphic images. In other words, the graphic images (containing alternative text) that your target audience views at the top of the screen are more important than the graphic images at the bottom of a screen.

Transparent Images

Many web designers use a transparent 1x1-pixel transparent image, commonly called a blank.gif or a clear.gif, to get elements on a web page to line up correctly. Because of current browser incompatibilities, there still is a need to use these types of images.

However, according to the search engines, when you place alternative text inside a graphic image, that text must be relevant: (a) to the actual graphic image, and (b) to the web page on which the image is placed. Hiding keywords or links inside a graphic image is considered spam.

Thus, if you must use transparent images on your web pages, do not place any alternative text in the graphic image. You can also place just a punctuation mark (such as an asterisk) as the alternative text. Search engines do not read punctuation marks.

URL/Filenames

Many search engine marketers believe that placing keywords in your domain name and your filenames greatly affects search engine positioning. In other words, this domain name:

www.tranquiliteasorganic.com/

should get a significant boost in search engine visibility because the words "teas" and "tea" are in the domain name. This domain name:

www.tranquiliteasorganictea.com/

should get a stronger boost than the previous domain name because this domain name contains more keyword phrases. The best domain name of all for this site would be this:

www.tranquili-teas-organic-tea.com/

Therefore, a page on the TranquiliTeas site should name its green tea page greenteas.html, as follows:

www.tranquili-teas-organic-tea.com/green-teas.html

As stated, some search engine marketers believe that this strategy gives a significant boost whereas others believe that the boost is miniscule.

Simply placing keywords in a domain name and/or a filename is not going to make or break top search engine visibility. Remember that search engines index text and follow links. If a web page does not contain keywords and does not have a link architecture for the search engines to follow, changing the domain name to a keyword domain will not cause your site to magically appear at the top of search results.

Keywords in the domain names and filenames are not as important as people are led to believe. Unfortunately, as soon as people read that an item has an impact on search engine positioning, they place far too much importance on it. Why focus your energy on a strategy that has miniscule impact rather than strategies that have true impact, such as web copywriting, site architecture, and popularity?

Keywords in a domain name give miniscule boost when all other factors (text, link, and popularity components ) are equal. A filename for a graphic image is important if you want your site's graphic images to appear in graphic image searches. Otherwise, do not obsess over file naming. Other items on your site are far more important.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is a measure of the number of times keywords occur within a web page's text, as shown in the following formula:

graphics/02icon01.gif


Search engine marketers calculate keyword density in different ways. Some marketers include all the words on a web page. Some marketers do not include stop words or filter words as part of the total word count. Regardless, you will hear many different numbers , depending on the search engine marketer with whom you speak.

A 250- to 800-word page (including stop words, but not including meta tags and alternative text) is a good benchmark because a page with this amount of text generally contains genuine content on a subject. When a page contains more than 800 words, your site's visitors have to scroll many times to view all your pages' content. In all likelihood , they will not read much farther down than the top of the screen.

Furthermore, if you cannot present sales copy in fewer than 800 words, you will probably lose audience interest. So make sure your pages contain high-quality , relevant content in as few words as possible.

Because keyword density can be artificially generated quite easily, search engines are placing less and less emphasis on it. Although it is important to use keywords on your web pages to show both the search engines and your target audience what your pages are about, I do not recommend spending a great deal of time on measuring the keyword density on every page of your site.

Foreign Languages

The major search engines tend to be U.S.-centric. Content from the United States tends to dominate the search results and highlighted news, even though the search engines do not officially have U.S. editions of their spiders. However, their search interfaces and search results are presented in English.

Generally speaking, if you have a U.S.-based company, your domain name should end in .com, .net, .edu, .gov, or .org. When you register your domain name, your official contact information should contain a U.S.-based address, phone number, fax number, and email address. In all likelihood, if you have a U.S.-based domain name, your company has a physical location in the United States.

If your site is written in English, it automatically is submitted to English-speaking, country-specific search engines. For example, U.S.-based sites show up in regional search engine results from Australia, United Kingdom (U.K.), and Canada.

If you feel that your target audience extends to non-English speaking countries , you will need to modify your web site to meet the needs of that target audience. To be successful in non-English search engines, you might need to purchase country-specific domain names and write the web pages in the appropriate language.

Having a domain name for a specific country is a key indicator that your site belongs in foreign search engines. If it is within your budget, I highly recommend creating unique web sites for each targeted country. If you do not want to create an entirely new web site for each country, you can create subdomains or subdirectories on a single main site.

For example, let's say our fictional TranquiliTeas company has a target audience in the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. This company might want to register the following domain names:

  • www.tranquiliteasorganic.com (United States)

  • www.tranquiliteas.fr (France)

  • www.tranquiliteas.de (Germany)

  • www.tranquiliteas.co.uk (United Kingdom)

These four domain names can all point to the same web site. On the home page, ask visitors to select a preferred language. When the appropriate language is selected, the link would go to a subdirectory (as shown in Figure 2.15) or a subdomain that is written in the appropriate language.

Figure 2.15. Varian, Inc. has a drop-down menu that enables site visitors to view pages in the language of their choice. Because Varian, Inc. has international offices, it is appropriate for them to have country-specific sections of their web site.

graphics/02fig15.gif

Country-specific web pages should always be written in the official language of the targeted country. Thus, if you are targeting France, your web pages should be written in French. Web pages written in French can be located in a subdirectory called France or fran §ais, like this:

http://www.tranquiliteasorganic.com/francais/

As an alternative, you can create a subdomain with pages written only in French. The subdomain can have this URL:

http://francais.tranquiliteasorganic.com/

When you submit your site to foreign search engines and directories, be sure to submit the appropriate domain name. For example, one of the most popular search engines in France is called Voil . The TranquiliTeas company might want to submit www.tranquiliteas.fr to Voil and any French-language directory. Likewise, www.tranquiliteas.co.uk can be submitted to U.K.-based search engines and directories.

Crawler-based search engines do not enable web designers to tell them what language is used on the web page. (Remember that no one can tell a search engine what to do.) Search engines can determine what language is used on a web page. Many major crawler-based search engines check pages for common words from specific languages. For example, if a search engine spider finds a common word used in the French language, the web page is tagged internally as being in the French language and will appear in French search results.

Special Characters

When writing for non-U.S. search engines, you often find that you use specialized HTML code to specify a letter in an alphabet. For example, in Spanish, if you want to write the word Ol in HTML, the code might look like this:

 Ol&eacute; 

It could also look like this:

 Ol&#233; 

Currently, the crawler-based search engines do not translate many foreign-language characters neatly into search results. Until the search engines become more effective with languages other than English, do not use any special characters in your title tags and meta tags. If you are using Ol in your title tag, you want it to appear in the search results like this:

Ole

You do not want the word to appear in search results as this:

Ol&eacute;

If you do plan to target non-U.S. search engines, write a set of targeted keywords and keyword phrases for each language, even for English-language search engines. For example, in the United States, we commonly refer to wireless telephones as cellular phones or cell phones. In the U.K. and most of Europe, these phones are referred to as mobile phones. Therefore, if you know you are targeting different countries, all keyword research should be country-specific.



Search Engine Visibility
Search Engine Visibility (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0321503244
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 111
Authors: Shari Thurow

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