Ask the Master Newsletter Archives

Welcome to the previous editions of the Ask the Master newsletter. On your left you will find links to tips and the how to’s of running a Virtual Assistant practice. We hope you enjoy your stay and if you have a question you’d like answered send it to submission@vatp.ca.

Maximizing Search Engines

Your web site can be an important marketing tool for your business. What are you doing to maximize it?

When we build our web site all of us want to be at the very top of the page of a search for all the search engines. Reality is this is very rarely the case and almost an impossible task to achieve. There are some tools and strategies you can use to improve your listing on a search however there are never any guarantees. While I certainly don’t know everything there is to know about search engines I will share with you what I do know.

I would like to acknowledge Max Kalles, Certified Professional Internet Consultant of WSI who donated his time and knowledge on a CVAN networking call and not only confirmed but added to my knowledge base on the subject.

Warmly,
Mary-Lou Ashton
Master Virtual Assistant

• What do I need to know about search engines?
• What do I need to know about the various tags used?
• What else can I do to get found on search engines?
• What search engines should I focus on?

Search engines use various tags associated with a web site however they don’t all use the same criteria for indexing sites. This is what makes maintaining a consistent ranking virtually impossible. Some search engines allow only words, some allow phrases, some may allow only 8 words others 20. What is consistent is the search for the number of times you mention key words or tags, in context, on your site. Ideally you want to appear on the first two pages of the search in order to have a chance of being viewed. .

Search engines use the meta description, keyword and title tags to index your site. Description tags provide a brief and concise summary of your page's content and description of your site, which can be used by search engines or directories. Keywords are a brief and concise list of the most important content contained on the page and contribute to your search engine ranking. Put your most important keywords first.

Unfortunately, so many unscrupulous webmasters have abused the description and keywords tags that search engines have had to reduce their importance so they are not a major factor search engines consider when ranking sites, however they should not be left off your site. This the most important piece of information used by the major search engines to determine the topic of your page, and thus the ranking of your page in their search results. The title tag is the most prominent piece of information displayed in the search results to viewers. For instance if you did a search under “virtual assistant training program” my web site would appear as “Virtual Assistant Training Program – VATP – making a difference” which is the title of my home page. Every page needs to have a unique title and clearly communicate the contents of the page to the viewer. The title of your page becomes the title of a bookmark when a visitor adds your site to their favorites menu. Think about whether they would need to edit the title of the bookmark so they know what it contained.

When creating keywords pick 5 to 10 words to optimize the content presented on the page. If you can't narrow your list of keywords down to 5-10 words, then the content on your page may not be focused enough. Update your site content regularly, particularly your home page, and submit to the search engines monthly.

Create a Google site map of all of the pages of your website and place it in the root directory on your server. Then go to your Google account and enter your webmaster area and get the code to add to your home page for this sitemap and submit it. This guarantees that Google indexes your pages regularly.

Another web site ranking strategy is pay per click. This is where you bid on ad words. If you win your bid you pay the amount you bid for every click onto your site from the search engine.

An important strategy to implement is being linked by other sites. The more sites that link to yours the better your rankings will be. It is also important that you have external links to popular sites on your website.

Google has 4 times more users than any other search engine right now so your main focus should be there. Yahoo and MSN round out the current top 3. Also consider AllTheWeb, HotBot, Ask Jeeves and Teoma.