Web Tips

June 2004

Web Tips
By Janet Bran

Search Engines and Your Web Site

Getting people to find your web site can be challenging. When you are looking for a web site you probably go to a search engine like Google, MSN, Yahoo or whatever is your favorite. Ever wonder what makes some web sites appear on the first page of your search, while others appear on page 10? It's called Search Engine Optimization or SEO, and every web site needs it.

SEO can get time-consuming, complicated, and sometimes expensive. But let's start with a few basic tips on how to optimize your web site.

Search Engine Registration

Register your web site with Search Engines. You don't have to register your web site with every search engine, but start with the big ones like Google, Yahoo, and DMOZ. Most other search engines list the web sites that are already registered with the big ones.

Register with Google at http://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html and read "Submit Your URL."
Register with Yahoo at http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html and click "Submit Your Site For Free." Yahoo requires that you register a username to use this feature.
Register with DMOZ at http://www.dmoz.com/add.html. Read the instructions carefully and take your time to do it right.

Meaningful Title Tags

Put your service or product name in your Title tag. HTML uses tags to identify your web site and help search engines know what your web site is about. A search engine will look for your web page Title tag to learn about your business. The Title tag is embedded code that won't appear on the web page. It appears in the Title bar of your browser but most people do not pay attention to that so it is more important to focus on its value for search engines. Use words in your Title tag that tell the search engine about you such as "technical writer san francisco" or "web page editor."

Unless your name is Condeleeza Rice, using your name in the Title tag won't help you very much. People who search for your business on the Internet will search for your type of product or service, not your name. So be sure to use a Title tag that tells the search engine what you do. The following is the HTML code for a Title tag; it appears at the top of your web page within the <head> tag:

<title>web page editor</title>

Cool Web Sites

Ever wonder what it would be like to pop a water balloon in outer space? Well NASA wondered. Check out their experimental results at: http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/balloon/blob.htm

The first printed book ever: http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/homepage.html

Janet Bran is a web designer and technical communicator. She is founder of www.BeautifulWebSites.com, a web development company that creates web sites to help you make money.