Career & Business

The Power of Search Engines

Advice from Paul Backalenick

Excerpt from our book Presentation Power Tools For Fine Artists from the chapter titled "Promoting Yourself With A Website"

Paul Backalenick, founder and President of Nexxite, (www.Nexxite.com) has 15 years experience in Information Technology consulting and has focused on Internet marketing, information architecture, website design, and writing website content. He has built websites for many creative entrepreneurs. (See Resource section of the book for his contact information.)

Paul offers this sage advice:

If you have a website, you will want people to find it on search engines. A Search Engine is a web site, such as Google, that offers its visitors the ability to search the content of numerous web pages on the Internet. Researchers say that 85% of new visitors to a website arrive there via a search. Therefore it is vital to get ranked as highly as possible on the major search engines. When people type a word or phrase in a search engine looking for your kind of work, you want them to see your website listed in the resulting search listings.

Many factors influence search engine results. These include proper keywords, quality in-bound links, good titles and meta-tags, and careful submission to the search engines and directories.

There are techniques for enhancing your chances for good search listing placement. Here are ten tips: (Hint – Pay close attention to Number 3.)

1. If starting with a brand-new site, choose a domain name that best fits your brand. (The domain name itself need not be rich in keywords. It should however be meaningful, as short as possible and difficult to misspell.)

2. Start out by optimizing just the home page. Choose keyword phrases wisely. A keyword is a word that search engines users might use to find relevant webpage(s). The phrases you think might be perfect for your site may not be what people are actually searching for. To find the optimal words for your site, consider using a research tool such as Wordtracker. Decide on one-to-three highly targeted phrases that specifically reflect your business and that people are likely to search on. Never choose general keywords such as "travel" or "vacation" as they are rarely (if ever) indicative of what your site is really about.

3. Write approximately 200-250 words of visible text copy based on your chosen keywords. This is a crucial component to high rankings and a successful Web site. The search engines need to "read" keyword-rich copy on your pages so they can understand how to classify your site. Write the copy based on your keyword phrases, and not the other way around. Don't be afraid to use your phrases as many times as it makes sense to do so. The optimal number of instances will vary by search engine, the number of words on your page, and also by how well the copy actually reads to a person. Simply sticking keyword phrases at the top of the page or only in headlines probably won't suffice.

4. Create a strong Title tag. Title tags are critical because they are given a lot of weight with all of the search engines. You must put your keyword phrases into this tag and not waste space with extra words. Do not use the Title tag to display only your company name, or to simply say "Home Page." Think of this tag more as a "Title Keyword Tag" and create it accordingly. It should reflect exactly what your page is about, using the keyword phrases people might be using at a search engine to find your company.

5. Make your site "link-worthy." Other sites linking to yours is a critical component of successful search engine optimization, as major search engines place emphasis on your site’s link popularity. If your site has wonderful, useful information other sites will naturally link to it without you having to ask.

One this subject Paul gives more advice in the book Presentation Power Tools For Fine Artists. Find out more about the book and how to order.

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