Search Engine Optimization and Submission 101

by Bill Cooper www.toolsandtemplates.com

Let's review... you have put META tags on your site and have started asking folks to link to your home page. You are well on your way...

Next comes optimization of your site. Before you start to submit, you need to:

1. Verify ALL links on your site work - Sounds simply, but we have all been on a site where we click a link and get the "Page Cannot Be Found" message. Nothing makes a site look more unprofessional and this is a HUGE issue for search engines.
   
2. Proofread, proofread and proofread again - Spelling mistakes will kill you, not necessarily on the search engines, but as you start to get listed and start to get visitors, nothing will turn off a visitor more than a misplelling... I mean misspelling.
   
3. Add a ROBOTS.TXT page to your site - Some search engine robots will look for a simple instruction page on your site. This is a simple text document placed on the root level of your site. It will help to instruct the search engines as to what pages and directories on your site they should and should visit.  Click here for a robots.txt generator.
   
4. Place ALT IMAGES tags on your site - Every image on your site can and should have a text "alternative" (thus ALT IMAGE). For example if you view the HTML code of your page, you might find something like <img src=" yourimage.jpg"> . This is an image tag. What needs to be added is the text alternative. So your <img src=" yourimage.jpg"> would become <img src=" yourimage.jpg" ALT="This image has something to do with my page's content" > . The text inside the quotes should describe your images, but you can also use this area to place a few strategic keywords or phrases.

Drum roll please... you should now be ready to submit your site!