Search engines have gotten incredibly sophisticated over the past decade. They each use complex and slightly different algorithms to determine the ranking of pages relevant to the key words or terms being searched. Think about it, there are hundreds of millions of pages on the Web. Imagine how difficult it must be for a search engine to determine which page is most closely related to what you're looking for.

Each search engine performs the deed a little differently; however, the fundamentals are the same: the page that has the most content about what is being searched, combined with the most traffic from other people interested in the same information, wins.

Content

The best thing you can do to help your Web site be listed high on a search engine's list of relevant pages is to make sure your headers and subheads accurately reflect what you sell or want to be known for. If you sell kites, for example, put a few headers and subheads on your pages that have the word kite in them.

You can also help your relevancy by using links and alternate text that use the words and terms a Web surfer is most likely to type into a search engine to find a product or service like yours. Of course, make sure there is plenty of body text about your product or service also.

Links

If your site and your competitors' sites have roughly the same amount of content relating to a specific search, the search engine can't call it a tie. It has to choose one over the other to list. As a second measure of a Web site's relevancy, a search engine looks at human behavior, as well; if humans value one site more than another, that site gets listed higher.

The search engine determines how much humans value each site by looking at how much traffic each site gets and how many people link to that site. They figure if humans like the site well enough to visit it and link it to their own content, then that's probably a pretty good endorsement.

Swapping links with other Web sites is a really good idea, not only to drive traffic to the site but to show your relevancy to a search engine.

Meta Tags

When search engine results are returned, the title of your Web site listing is whatever you've entered in the <title> HTML tag for your homepage. The blurb below the title is whatever you've put in the description <meta> tag.

In Figure 6-2, you can see that Into The Wind Kites is the title in that page's HTML tag for the company's homepage, and the meta tag says, "Hundreds of classic, sport and power kites, accessories, building materials, flags, windsocks and . . . "

Figure 6-2: Meta tags define and describe your site to a search engine.

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You use meta tags to control the presentation of your Web site listing on search engines. So, be sure to add meta tags to your homepage -- and all the other pages of your site as time permits -- to ensure you're being shown in your best light.

Meta Tags for Search Engine Placement

The keywords meta tag is very important, too. It's a list of words and phrases relevant to your Web site. A search engine spider indexes all of the text on your Web site along with the metadata, but there are probably some words or phrases relevant to your site that aren't explicitly mentioned on any of your Web pages. Include those terms in the keywords meta tag. Also list more obvious keywords, such as string for the previous example. It's best to be thorough.

Keep your keywords meta tag to a reasonable length, and keep those keywords relevant to your Web site. Otherwise, your site might be removed from search engines. Don't put your competitors' names in your keywords meta tag in hopes of luring their customers away -- that's a big no-no.

Using meta tags appropriately can help your Web site relevancy for appropriate searches, and ensure the way it's listed is how you like it. In the next section, you'll learn how to advertise your site without breaking the bank.