How can you design a web page that will rank high on every search engine for several keywords?
You can't. Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. I suppose it could happen--but it's highly improbable.
It's unlikely that you can develop a page that will rank well on all engines for several keywords or keyword phrases because each search engine ranks pages differently. For example, a search for "Internet marketing" on one engine can produce entirely different results on another engine. Some engines support META description and keywords tags, some don't; some index ALT text, some don't. Are you beginning to see why it would be difficult, if not impossible, to pull this off?
But Mirror-Pages can help you rank high on each engine for different keyword searches. Mirror-Pages are specially designed to rank high with a particular search engine for a particular keyword or phrase. Instead of using a "one page fits all" approach, you narrow your focus.
There are several ways to implement Mirror-Pages, many of which are downright sneaky. For example, suppose you develop a page to rank high for "song lyrics" because you've heard it's a popular search term. But what if your page isn't about song lyrics at all? What if your page has to do with the raging debate over whether to use wide rule or college rule notebooks? Everybody loses in this situation. The search engine loses searchers' confidence, the searcher loses because he was tricked into visiting a page he thought was on another subject, and you lose because even if you rank high and get lots of hits, these people will click away when they see the material on your page is irrelevant to the search performed.
Don't delude yourself into thinking that your page is so fascinating that the errant visitors will become engrossed enough not to leave. If you want visitors so badly that you're willing to stoop to this behavior, your search engine rankings are the least of your problems.
LESS WEASELY APPROACHES
There are several other weasely ways to use Mirror-Pages, but what I want to concentrate on is what I call the "side door" approach. This modified version of Mirror-Pages benefits my visitors AND me.
Let's say I want to rank high on searches for the phrase "small business." I create a page just like any other page in my site, EXCEPT I optimize the page for that phrase (the specifics of how I optimize the page depends on which engine I'm targeting). On that page, I have an article or other information relating to small business. No one can tell it's a gateway page just from visiting it, but there are several minor modifications that I've made.
Though the exact method of optimization depends on the search engine targeted, in general, some or all of the following techniques are used:
- Include the keyword in several key areas: the URL, the page TITLE and between the tags.
- Include the keyword in the META keyword and description tags. This can be tricky. Some engines rank your page higher if your repeat the keyword x number of times, some rank higher if it is present only once in the keywords tag. One thing you DON'T want to do with a gateway page is to try and target more than one keyword or phrase per page; you don't want the page's targeting ability diluted.
- Densely pack the page text with keywords. This is also vital. Again, the optimum number of times varies with the engine.
After you've optimized it, your page for still needs to look normal to visitors. For example, if you're optimizing a page for "corn dogs," you don't want your page to read like this:
"The Corn Dog Page of Corn Dogs - Say, Have you had a corn dog today?
"Corn Dogs are great, aren't they? CORN DOGS--boy, I love 'em! What did the coRN dOG say to the other CoRn DoG? Knock, knock. Who's there? Corn DOG. CORN dog who? Corn Dog, COrN Dog, Korn Dog, Kornn Dogg, Corn Dogs, by the way, did I mention Corn Dog?"
Site designers often use splash pages--which have nothing but a graphic and usually directions to "Click Here To Enter"--as Mirror-Pages that redirect visitors to the real site. I would caution against doing this because it annoys many people. Also, it forces visitors to make an unnecessary click, and with each extra click, you could lose some.
Instead use side door pages, which look just like any other pages on your site. Everyone wins with this approach. Visitors are provided with information relevant to the searched for keywords, your traffic increases, and the search engine isn't serving irrelevant results unknowingly. No one is tricked and we all are happy.
There is no quick and easy way to set up side door pages. Just like other things in life, the good way takes more work and more time, while the not-so-good way is quick and easy. It will take time and effort on your part to develop a good page that is both informative to the visitor and optimized for the search engine and keyword you're targeting.
There are numerous ways to find out what factors affect ranking in a given search engine: You can check the information pages at each search engine, or you can subcribe to our Sure Shot Members Only Site which has several free software titles that will rank your pages and optimize your site..
One powerful software title is Search Spy. It displays actual searches being done in real-time on popular search engines. This allows you to get an idea of exactly how people phrase their searches and how you could better optimize your site. It's just another example of the helpful tools available in our Members Only Site.
However you build them, I think you'll see a high return for the time invested in crafting a few Mirror-Pages. Unlike many other forms of advertising, this one will only cost you a little time.