First figure out what you want people to type into a search engine to
eventually find your site. "Music" is too general. "Folk Music" is better but still too general... "Female fronted folk" or "independent folk from New York" is good. These are your "key phrases".
Tips
This is another variation on the "misc" module and some useful tips when using the Karma Design Wizard.
A lot of website owners and new web designers ask how to get to the top of . Search Engine Optimization is a lot of trial and error and what is and is not effective changes all the time. If you read something on SEO that is a couple years old it might not even be valid anymore so you have to take everything you read with a grain of salt. That includes everything I say too!
Currently here are the big things you can do to make a difference in your search engine ranking:
Currently here are the big things you can do to make a difference in your search engine ranking:
Key Phrases
Content
Content is king. You will see that over and over. Enter as much content as you can on your site about what you want to be found for. Write articles and be sure to mention your key phrases as many places that fit well and make sense in the flow of your text.
Site Titles
Site titles appear at the very very top of your browser window. These are very important and you should have your name along with a short description (key phrase) of your page up there. You can change these in your Karma CMS admin area Here's how:
- go to main preferences
- Under Search Engine Optimization fill in the fields.
- click "set preferences"
- go to main preferences
- Under Search Engine Optimization fill in the fields.
- click "set preferences"
Inbound Links
Getting other relevant sites to link back to you as possible is a great boost. Each link back to your site is seen as a vote for your site that it's good. There is some evidence that getting any old site to link back to you that has nothing to do with you can hurt your ranking, but others disagree. Musicsubmit.com is a good service for getting relevant (e.g. other music sites) to link back to you. It makes no difference how many outbound links you have on your site.
Relevant Directories
Search for the key phrase you want to be found for. If any directories come up see what you can do to get listed on them. Often this is the biggest help in driving relevant traffic to your site. After all, it's quality traffic that's important — not quantity.
Visibility
5. Be sure search engines can index your content once they find your site. If you have a flash intro be sure to include the "skip intro" link. If your main links are in flash be sure an HTML version exists also.
Have Patience
6. If you haven't had your site up long and you've done all the above, be patient. You can "submit" your site to Google and the other major search engines, but as long as at least one site is linking back to your new site it will be found and indexed... eventually.
Things that have little or no effect
- Meta tag keywords. Once upon a time this was the way to go, but not any more.
- Meta tag description. This will be listed under your site title in some cases in a search, but most agree it has no effect on the search.
- Search engine submission services. It's a total waste of money. Don't do it.
There are things that you can do to negatively effect your ranking too but as long as you are not trying to game the system and put things where they shouldn't for the sole purpose of increasing your ranking, you won't have to worry.
