Producing Online Heritage Projects
3. Getting Ready to Launch
3.2 Search Engine Registration
Since search engines are widely used, you should think about search engine registration when planning to inform the world how they can find you online.
Remember to List
Launching your Web product without registering it with the appropriate search engines is like printing a book, then tucking it into a library shelf without telling the librarian. Browsers moving through the stacks may stumble upon it by chance, but it will not show up in the card catalogue.
It will take a couple of weeks following registration for your site to be listed with the search engines. Before registering, ensure that your Web product is working at its intended URL, such as www.museumname.ca.
When your virtual exhibition, interactive game or other online heritage product is live (no longer password protected on a development server) you can:
- register and have the official launch a few weeks later; or
- have the launch and register with the understanding that it will take a few weeks before your product will be showing up on the search engines.
Search Engines: The Internet's Cataloguing System
There are hundreds of versions of cataloguing systems on the Web - directories compiled by people, indexes and databases assembled by spidering robots, speciality subject indexes, and indexes of indexes. They provide ways to search and find information. Most search engines do not provide the criteria by which they catalogue or search, so that people cannot gain unfair advantage when registering their site.
Search engine spiders, or robots, visit or crawl through Web content by reading a page and then following links to other pages within the site. The spider returns to the site on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Everything the spider finds goes into the index, or database, creating a giant library that contains a copy of every Web page the spider has found. The search engine uses ranking software to sift through millions of pages recorded in the index to find matches to a search and rank them in order of what it believes is most relevant.
Everyone Wants Page One
From the perspective of visibility, high rankings on search engine result lists are important, particularly if you are selling products, marketing information, or publicizing places, events or issues through your Web product.
Consider these facts:
- Searching is the second most popular Internet activity next to e-mail.
- Most Web users do not look beyond the third page of search engine listings; many do not look beyond page one.
With an average of 500 million Web pages indexed by each major search engine, having your Web product appear on the first page is a tall order. It helps to have a narrow niche—a specialized topic, a geographic focus—that limits the competition for your ranking. In most other cases, getting listed on page one—or even page five or fifteen—can be a challenge.
Buying into top search engine rankings
Increasingly, site owners wishing to guarantee optimal search engine rankings have paid for top positions in the search results of every major search engine. "Featured Listings" and "Sponsored Links," which appear first in search results, are a form of paid online advertising. They result when site owners bid on key words or phrases they wish to appear, and agree to pay a designated amount for each time a Web user clicks on their listing. The cost of the listing is related to the popularity of the search term, and may range from a few cents to several dollars per click. Pay-per-click search engines share their listings with all major search engines.
Aside from pay-per-click, another form of paid listing offered by some search engines is the paid for inclusion listing. These services offer inclusion of the link in an index and are usually priced per-URL for a fixed time period. Paid listings appear quickly, provide high visibility and are particularly suited to commercial sites marketing specific products or services. Most major search engines continue to accept submission of non-commercial sites at no charge. Nevertheless, cultural and other non-commercial sites may wish to consider this approach for targeted public relations campaigns, special revenue-generating projects, or whenever high visibility is crucial.
You Don't Have to Get Carried Away
The competition-related secrecy of search engine ranking criteria and algorithms has spawned an entire industry of professional Search Engine Optimizers, who try to second guess the major search engines, and achieve high rankings—and big profits—for their mainly corporate clients.
But unless you have a commercial site and a high-profile product with an international market—not to mention deep pockets—leave the fancy optimization footwork to the big players and rely on common sense to design Web content that is search engine-friendly.
Content is King, Relevancy Rules
After years of cat-and-mouse games between search engines and savvy programmers, a clear trend is emerging:
Search engines tend to give prominence to Web products with:
- good content that delivers what it promises;
- easy navigation within the site; and
- links from good, content-related sites.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Search Engine Optimization
- Before writing your Web text, identify the key words and phrases that are related to your content. Remember the point is to ensure good flow, but try to think like a Web user: include popular, practical words that are likely to be searched.
- Pay special attention to the text that first appears on your Web pages, and most importantly, the text that first appears on your home page. This is the text that will be spidered first by a search engine, which is what determines your initial listing. Some search engines may even use this text as the site description in search engine listings. Further "spidering" of other pages in your site may not take place until the search engine re-visits your Web product.
- Design a content-rich Web product that is logically organized, uncluttered, and easy to navigate.
- Draft a short HTML <TITLE> tag for each page of your product describing what the page is about, clearly and concisely, using your most important keywords. (Rule of thumb: up to 75 characters.) This <TITLE> appears as the clickable title in a search engine listing and in the title bar of the Web user's browser. Example: <TITLE>Inuit Culture: Canadian Inuit</TITLE>
- Draft an HTML <meta name= "keywords" content=> tag for each page of your Web product that lists the key words and phrases that appear in the content of the page, placing the keywords in order of importance. (Rule of thumb: some sites may list up to 100 keywords; 10 to 20 are probably sufficient.) Example: <meta name="keywords" content="Inuit, Inuit Culture, Inuit, Eskimo, Eskimos, Eskimo, Eskimos, Arctic Territory, Inuit Territory, Inuit language, Eskimo language, syllabics, syllabic characters, Inuit hunters, Eskimo hunters, Inuit food, northern food, harvest studies, Inuit families, Inuit communities, Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Sedna, Kayak, Peter boat, self government, animal rights, country foods">
- Draft an HTML <meta name= "description"= content> tag for each page of your Web product, summarizing the main theme of the page and expanding the message in the <TITLE> tag. Some search engines will use the contents of this tag as the description in search engine listings. (Rule of thumb: maximum of 100 words. May be limited to display of the first 20-30 words.) Example: <meta name="description" content="Inuit Culture: A site devoted to the Canadian Inuit. Learn about the language, economy, family life, and history of this 5,000 year old culture.">
Use relevant keywords for your HTML file names (with the exception of index.html or main.html). Use relevant names for folders as well. Look at Web sites with similar content that places high in search engine results. Look at their metadata to develop your own. Consider approaching owners of related sites to exchange reciprocal links. Some search engines give an extra ranking boost to products that have attracted links from other popular sites.
When your Web product is launched and functioning optimally, submit your index page to all major search engines. Trying to follow the submission steps included in the Web sites of individual search engines can be both time-consuming and limiting. Consider using a reputable, fee-based, online search engine submission service that will submit your product's URL, contact information and meta tags to hundreds of search engines and directories. Most submission services operate on a subscription basis, re-submitting your Web product at regular intervals for a fixed time period (for example, every 45 days for 2 years). Some search engine submission services are free.
Expert Advice
When choosing keywords to weave into your Web product title, meta-tags and text, you may want to verify the word(s) in a free "Current Bid" tool of a pay-for-placement search engine. This will measure the popularity of your search term. The higher the bid, the more popular the word or phrase.
Give your search engine ranking a boost:
- Buy your own domain name, and place it on a respected, reliable paid hosting service.
- Choose a domain name that includes your most descriptive key word or phrase.
- Avoid slow-loading index pages, as the spider may time out before it finishes indexing.
- Do not "SPAM." Avoid excessive use of keywords, inappropriate or irrelevant keywords or hidden text.
- Use plain text links instead of, or in conjunction with, graphic buttons to link pages within your Web product.
- Include ALT attributes for images, containing the relevant keywords.
Your heritage product is now online!
