Article: Hungry Search Engine Spiders

What Does a Good Webmaster Feed Hungry Spiders?

-Dyanna Culp

The answer varies depending on the search engine and whom you ask. Some engines still rely heavily on html meta-tags. Others focus strictly on the web page content itself and some utilize a combination approach- analyzing both the Meta-tags and the page content. You want to cover “all” of your bases; developing killer tags and content designed to reel in those spiders.

HTML Meta- tags influence your search position and ranking in many top search engines. These tags include the Meta-title, Meta-description, and infamous Meta-keywords. Website names and descriptions, seen after performing an engine search, come either from the Meta-title and Meta- description or are pulled directly from the Webpage text. The results differ depending on the engine used.

The HTML Meta-Title Tag:

The Title tag should begin with your most important keyword. Keep in mind that the search engines display the Title tag when they display the results of a person’s web search. Although the general rule for maximum characters is 62, some engines display fewer characters- so the first line is of the utmost importance. Remember your title needs to be attractive to both the search engines and the people doing the searching.

The HTML Meta-Description Tag:

Just like the title tag, both search engines and potential Website visitors view the description tag. When you perform a web search the short Website descriptions you see are pulled either from the Meta Description tag or the top of the Webpage text. If a web page does not have a Meta-description then search engines use the first few lines of text found on the Webpage. This is why you see some very odd Website descriptions when you perform a search. This is unfortunate because many of those sites may be very relevant to your search, but how are you to know that when presented with nonsensical descriptions pulled randomly from a web page. After reading these descriptions searchers determine which sites to visit. To receive top ratings from both search engines and humans include your top keywords and descriptive text in the description tag.

The HTML Meta-Keywords Tag:

It is possible to receive high ratings on some search engines without having any keyword meta-tags because many engines are now scanning the actual text on the Webpage. But about half of the search engines still look at keywords. Some compare the Meta- keywords to the page text and some look only at the keywords tag. If you want to benefit from all of the engines you must have meta-keywords. If your Website is composed of images, as in Flash or Adobe files, the keywords become even more critical since search engines do not read image text. Avoid spamming penalties by not using a keyword more than three times.

Searches may also be case sensitive- meaning if I search for Persian Cats versus persian cats I may or may not get the same results. This depends on the search engine, some are smart enough to provide the same results for both searches, some aren’t. If you have a keyword that people tend to capitalize, then include it in both the lower and upper case forms in your keywords. Don’t forget to add misspelled words for hard to spell keywords; for example Mississippi restaurants, and the misspelled Missisippi restaurants & Mississippi resterants.

Exceeding the maximum allowed characters for html tags may result in rejection for spamming or an engine acknowledging the tags only up to the acceptable character limit- meaning they won’t even read the tags that go beyond the limit. When counting the characters you must include spaces and commas. Commas are actually not even necessary. An easy way to do this is to write your Meta-tags in Word. Highlight the tags, go to the Tools button on the page task bar, and click on word count. It’ll tell you the number of words and the total number of characters. Excessive repetition of Meta-tag words is considered spamming and may result in spamming penalties or permanent search engine rejection.

General rules of thumb for maximum Meta-tag length:

62 characters for the title
161 characters for the description
874 characters for the keywords

Remember just because you’re allowed 874 characters doesn’t mean you have to use them all. Keep your tag words relevant to your content.

Keywords should be “grouped” in categories within the Meta-tags and on the page text content. If you want visitors looking for restaurants in Seattle then restaurants and Seattle should be placed together in both your tags and on the web page content. For example use Seattle restaurants together between commas or spaces but do not separate them. The farther apart key terms are the less emphasis search engines place on their association.

Search engines use the position of a term in the Meta- tag to rank its importance. Let’s say you’re a Seattle restaurant. The Meta-title “Seattle Restaurant: savor LaTruffles five star French cuisine” is 61 characters, just under the 62 limit. Seattle Restaurant is placed at the front of the sentence meaning it is of the highest importance. Note that the restaurant name and French cuisine (other important search terms) are also included. This is much more effective than the meta-title “ LaTruffles is an award winning restaurant in Seattle that offers fine French cuisine in a relaxing environment.” This is too long at 103 characters (spam penalty) and the terms most likely to be used by searchers such as Seattle restaurant & French cuisine are not positioned for top ranking.

Keywords in the meta-tags must be present in the accompanying web page text to avoid spamming penalties. In other words, you can’t have FREE or designer labels in your Meta-tags and not have anything free, or about designer labels, in the actual web page content. Search engines frown upon this.

Research your HTML Meta-tags for current popular search terms relevant to your business. Target your audience as you develop your Meta- tags by selecting terms as relevant as possible. If your Website is on “Pain Issues for Women with Cancer” use terms like womens cancer pain, cancer pain, etc. not women or pain alone. There are millions of websites about women and about pain. You want visitors looking specifically for women with cancer pain.

A very useful online word research tool is Word Tracker at http://wordtracker.com

Develop Meta-tag titles, descriptions and keywords for each major page within a web site, not just the home page. When you do a search on major engines such as Hotbot, Yahoo or Google many of your results link to a page “within” a web site, not to the home page. For instance many visitors to my site arrive at the main Computer Help URL rather than through the home page menu. The Meta-tags on my computer entry page focus on computer and technology key terms. Development of tags and appropriate page content for all WebPages multiples the possible points of entry for visitors from search engines. Always give a guest coming from the search engines an opportunity to click over to your home page through a hyperlink.

The first and final meta- tag keywords are critical promotion tools. Always have the first keyword be your company name and the final keyword be your Website URL.

The page text is even more important than your meta-tags! Evaluate your web page content for search engine optimization. Not only does the content affect the search engines; it determines whether a site visitor stays around or clicks away to an easier to read, more useful site, elsewhere. Dissect the text and insert as many key terms as possible, but keep it natural. Your site guests should not be aware of your search engine intentions when they read the text. Your content must be relevant to the specific needs of your users, be well written and easy to navigate.

Tips for Web Site Text

Break up text with bold headings.
Use spaces to emphasize text.
Use paragraphs; remember rules from high school English composition.
Bold or italicize important points & key phrases.
Use bullet and numbered lists.
Get to the point; don’t ramble.

Some search engines don’t read the Meta-description or title tags but pull the description and title directly from the first visible text on the Website. If your Webpage title is an image then have a descriptive text sub-heading just beneath it. If your entire Webpage is an image (such as a Java, flash, or Adobe page) then the engines will assume you have no title or description and the first line of available text will probably be the small print at the bottom of the Webpage. I have a big national client who had this problem. They were appearing in search engines but their description said: This site is best viewed with Internet Explorer 5.0 or above. If you were looking to buy a product would that description lure you in? Needless to say their competition (with proper descriptions) was receiving all of the traffic.

Keywords must be strategically placed throughout your content. Search engines give higher priority to terms found in Webpage titles, headings, bulleted items and bold text. The same keywords you researched for the Meta- tags need to be used in writing your page text. But avoid excessive use of the same term, for instance saying Restaurant 25 times on a page that only has 100 words would be excessive at 25% of the total page word count. This triggers the search engine algorithm and your site gets rejected for spamming before it ever even enters their database.

What does a good Webmaster feed hungry spiders? A varied diet rich in both html Meta-tags and Webpage content “flavored” with the same specific subject matter or message. Feed those spiders well and they’ll deliver many visitors to your Website door.