Reaching a Desirable Rank in Search Engines

What works best for great ranking in one search engine may differ from that of another search engine. Yahoo, Google, and MSN are currently the top searching sites used by Internet users.

Yahoo isn't in and of itself a search engine, rather, it is a directory, and therefore, a site's rank is not primarily influenced by the words that are on your pages. The words that matter are those that are on the listing that you submit. Search results come from a few sources including those in the Google database, sites in the Yahoo index, and Yahoo categories that match a query. Just because your site may show up in the search, doesn't mean it is indexed by Yahoo. If Yahoo doesn't have it indexed, matches from Google are displayed.

To get listed and achieve a high rank with Yahoo, there are some tips to think about:

• Construct an aesthetically pleasing website
  
• Choose the most appropriate category for your website
  
• Include keywords in the title of your site

Yahoo and many other search engines offer a new search engine marketing method called "Paid Inclusion." The company charges fees to a website owner for a guaranteed inclusion of the website in the search engine's index. Depending on the search engine, a pay-per-click fee may also be charged. Yahoo mixes paid inclusion with results from web-crawling to determine rank. Controversy is alive about paid inclusion. The argument remains that the most economically well off sites remain at the top of the rankings, rather than the most relevant of sites to a specific search. There is a great deal to consider before using this tactic, primarily a close look into your budget and intentions for your website.

Google has its own unique criteria for ranking websites. One way to stand out is to utilize a Google Sitemap. Visibility is improved because you are able to log in and inform Google of changes made. This allows for fresher search results for Internet users. You can also inform Google about how often a page is changed; this all helps to improve the ranking of your site. Another way to increase your ranking is to grow the number of high quality sites that link to your pages. Use rich and accurate content that utilizes vocabulary appropriate for your site and its intended users. Don't get bogged down in repeating certain words throughout the pages. Google goes beyond how many times a word appears by looking at all aspects of the page's content and the content of the pages linking to it. Together, it is determined if and how important and relevant they are to a specific search query.

Aside from tactics used by other search engines to determine rank, MSN uses various "web catalogs" for its search results. Along with specific algorithms (or criteria the engine uses to rank) applied to your page, a ranking is given to your page for the search engine.

Regardless the search engine, there are motions a web owner can make to help them stand out in rank from their other counterparts such as link development, an extremely important part of getting your site recognized. You need to have quality sites linked to you, and you need to link to quality sites.

HTML META tags help engines determine what your page is all about and can therefore help increase your visibility and rank when accompanied by other SEO tactics. These tags must be carefully made so that they fit the parameters of the algorithms specific to the search engine. Always use the best keywords possible in making tags. This will help ensure that work being done behind the scenes to do with your META tags is to your advantage.

SAMSA can help you achieve great ranking in search engines with our Internet Marketing and Copywriting Services.