It is possible to achieve Page 1 listings on search engines

without ever submitting your website.  If you follow the five

best practices for dominating the search engines that are

described in the two parts of this article, then you will

have a good chance of a high listing, although you will have

to adapt the information to suit your own particular website.

The first part, this one, explains the importance of website

design and the use of keywords. The second part will discuss

contextual relevance to the topic, commonly called LSI, the

importance of links to your website and the fact that you

cannot allow your website to remain static.  You must keep

updating it.

Before you can apply search engine optimization to your site,

you must understand how search engines view it. Let's discuss

Google, as being representative of a true search engine

rather than a website directory.  It is the most used search

engine, and also the one that appears to set the standards

for search and listing criteria.

Google does not list websites, OK?  Get that understood right

now.  Google lists web pages. Theoretically, ten of your web

pages could monopolize the first page for any particular

search term. This is important because it means that you

should make every single page of your website as attractive

to search engines as possible.  However let's consider your

home page as being representative of your website and the

page that Google finds first.

WEBSITE DESIGN IS CRUCIAL

So what are these magical five best practices? The first is

the design of your website. When the search engines check out

your site, they use algorithms, or mathematical formulae,

that apply statistical rules to what they find.  These are

commonly called 'crawlers' or 'spiders'.  I will use the term

'spiders'.  When you design your site, you must make it easy

for spiders to crawl around it.

Spiders are slaves, and follow instructions to the letter.

If you tell it to go to point A, it will go to point A. It

won't wonder if that's the best thing to do - it will go

right there. If it lands at point A and you tell it to go to

point B, it will do that as well.  Now, think what that

means.  If point A is another page on your website, and point

B is a page on somebody else's website, where does the spider

end up?  That's right, you've got it!

When a spider lands on your web page, it does so at the top

left of the first column in the first table.  It then crawls

along from left to right until it reaches the end of the

column, then goes to the next column and so on.  It then goes

to any nested tables, again from left to right and so on.

Using that information, you can draw a spider's web using

your HTML:  spiders are monolingual - they only read HTML,

not Java or Flash or any other script.

Using the information above you should be able to work out a

path on your website that will lead spiders to where you want

them to go. The easier a spider can scuttle round your site

the more pleased it will be with it.  However, as hinted

above, don't lead it off your site: it might just stay there!

There are ways to lock certain doors to spiders but that is

for Part 2.

KEYWORDS ARE SPIDER FOOD - DON'T GET THEM FAT!

Do you remember when you were told to use a keyword density

of 1% - 3% on each page?  Well forget it!  That's nonsense.

First of all let's look at what a keyword is.  Have you ever

used Google, or any other search engine, to find some

information?  Of course you have !  Did you do what I do, and

think of the best wording you can use in the box to describe

what you want and wonder if these were the best words to use?

You probably did, and like me either got what you wanted or

had to type in something else. Do you know what?  Each of the

search terms you used was a 'keyword'.  That's right, a

keyword can be a phrase as well as a single word.  A keyword,

in fact, is any term that a Google user enters into the

search box hoping to get the information they need.

Therefore, when you are adding keywords to your web pages,

you are adding words or phrases that you hope others are

using to find the information you have on that web page.

Remember that Google lists every web page separately.

What this means is that to maximize the traffic to your web

pages you have to figure out what keywords Google users will

use to find your website.  There are tools to help you do

that, such as the free Google Keyword Tool and Digital Point

Keyword Tool, and the paid for Wordtracker.  Check them out

and decide what suits you best.  Keyword research is a big

subject, far too big for this article, but that is a rough

idea of what is involved.

Use your keyword in your title and heading, once in the first

100 characters in the main body text, and once in the last

paragraph.  No more, though you can add it once every 500

words.  And that's it. More information on the use of words

that relate to your keywords will be given in Part 2.