How search engines and directories can help your site

Don't repeat keywords
Repeating keywords -- whether in the title tag, in the <META> keyword tag, or hidden against a colored background -- has long been a popular ploy to convince search engines to list a site high on keyword searches. The tactic worked when search engines were unsophisticated and judged a word's relevance only by the number of times it appeared on a page. Now, most search engines are hip to the trick and count only the first few occurrences of a keyword or phrase. Thus, hundreds of repetitions of "Pamela Anderson" on your celebrity models Web page will probably have no greater effect on the search engines than would ten repetitions. Search engines also rely more on word density (frequency relative to the total size of the page) or distribution (how well the word is spread throughout the page) than on the number of occurrences when they judge relevance. Some search engines, such as Lycos, even penalise your page (by placing it further down the list or not listing it at all) if they suspect you of repeating words to improve its ranking.

Put the important stuff first
Some search engines, such as Lycos, give precedence to text near the top of Web pages. If some of your must-see content is located far down on a page, move it up, put it on a separate page, or make sure the appropriate keywords from the text are in your <META> keyword tag.

Set out Web page "buoys"
While repeating keywords may no longer score you points with search engines, setting adrift multiple versions of Web pages still works. This can be particularly useful if your site features a mix of interests. Let's say you are a Web designer with expertise in both Java and Photoshop. Search engines will give you more exposure to both audiences if you create one page with the title and <META> tags heavily slanted toward programming and another page with tags slanted toward graphic design skills.

Register via submission sites and services
Sure, you could register with search engines and directories one by one, but there's a better way. At free sites such as Submit-It and Add-It, you fill out one form with your Web site's title, URL, keywords, and other pertinent information. The sites guide you through the submission process for the most popular search engines and Web directories, filling in the appropriate fields in each form. All you have to do is click Submit buttons to send your information.

If you're not satisfied registering with the dozen or so sites that account for 99 percent of the searches on the Web, you can use fee-based submission sites and companies to register sites with hundreds of specialised search engines and directories. These services, some of which are high-powered versions of free submission sites, submit your site even to niche search engines such as ChurchSurf, TextileWeb and Curioscape.

Register via Web promotion software
Web promotion software is similar to online submission sites: the program asks you for the information required by a slew of search engines and directories, then goes online to submit that information. As with fee-based submission Web sites, paying for this software gets your site listed in many more search sites than a free submission site would. Most of the applications offer free updates, so you can keep up when new search engines go online and existing search engines change their formats.

Register multiple pages from your site
Registering the URLs of more than one page from your site is a good idea. Search engines vary in the depth to which they'll catalogue your pages. Some, such as HotBot, are thorough, following all available links and cataloging each site in its entirety. Other search engines, such as AltaVista, go down only two or three levels of links before stopping. If your site has important pages that are more than a couple levels down, register them separately.

Part one: Measuring the successs of your Web site
Part two: Harness other Web sites' popularity