When search engine spiders visit your website, they don’t see the pages the way you see them. Instead, they read the HTML, PHP, XML or any other programming language used to code your pages. The search engine spiders also read text. But they can’t see images, whether still or animated.
That is why a page that is made up of images is like a blank page to a search engine spider. The same holds true of a Flash page, which may look visually pleasing, and may be highly interactive, but is invisible to the search engine spiders.
It is therefore important that you keep the following three tips in mind if you want your site to be indexed by search engines:
1. Text: This is the most critical element. All search is text-based. So, make sure that you have text on your page that can be indexed. The search engine will examine keywords, placement of keywords and density of keywords. Based on this, the search engine will allot a page weight.
2. Picture pages: These are like magnets, and invariably draw heavy traffic. But how do you make web users find picture pages?
An important way to do so is to provide the image tag. The image tag should be a word that is popular, and should be the subject of the photograph. For instance, if you have a photograph of Amitabh Bachchan getting down from a helicopter in Tirupati don’t use helicopter as the picture slug. Instead use Amitabh Bachchan.
Further, do not leave the alt text (alternative text) field blank. Provide a five to six word description. For instance, if it is a photograph of Amitabh Bachchan in a helicopter in Tirupati, make sure that your Alt Tag says: “Amitabh Bachchan getting down from a helicopter in Tirupati.”.
Also, make sure that your caption is descriptive and includes keywords. These keywords ideally must be the same that you have chosen for the image tag or the alt text field.
3. Links: Links, especially incoming links, go a long way in influencing search engine rankings. They are indicators of the popularity of your website, and the search engines want to capture this when they allot page rank.
You must, however, remember that search engines are not blind. They don’t allocate points for every incoming link. The link should belong to a website that is either well-known or whose content is similar to the content published on your website.
There are several link farms on the net that happily provide incoming links – for a consideration, of course. The consideration can be in cash or kind; kind being exchanging links.
Avoid linking to such link farms. Search engines are very wary of them, and do not hesitate to blacklist websites that connect to them.
Your objective should be to build links with those websites whose content is similar to the content on your website.
For instance, you stand to benefit greatly if your website is on media issues, and several media sites link to your site. Each such link translates into several votes for you, and pushes your page higher in search rankings.
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