GATEWAY PAGES INCREASE SEARCH ENGINE EXPOSURE
| Category: Search engines - Optimisation | Date: 2003-06-12 |
Gateway pages are the way to the top of the search engines Using gateway pages is the one main way to get your web site to the top of the search engines.
The search engines are trying to be more and more relevant every day. They are tired of the tricks people use to get visitors and they are catching on and penalizing the scammers by removing their pages altogether.
One great was is through gateway pages.
Gateway pages are pages that people use to enter your site other than through the home page. They are dedicated to one subject or item. From the gateway page you can send visitors to the home page, but the gateway is used to get them to the site to begin with.
For instance, we sell promotional items and have pages set up for each item. It works out that way for ordering reasons, but those are gateway pages. You should create gateway pages if you dont have them. We sell too many products to hope to get every visitor in through the home page, but as people search for certain items, they find them through our gateway pages.
We have pages set up for promotional pens, post-it notes, frisbees, sunglasses, golf items, and so on.
Now each page needs to be relevant to what the visitor is searching for. So when a person goes to a search engine and types in "3M post-it notes" or printed "golf balls", each page containing that content will show up. The more relevant it is to the key word search, the closer to the top of the search engine it will be.
This is a no-brainer for items like the above, but we have found that one of our largest sources of income is through family and school reunions. So we have a page or two dedicated just to reunions. And we are actually at the top of the search engines under "reunions," "reunion items" and phrases like these! According to our web page stats, the reunion gateway page is the third most popular gateway entrance page after pens and post-it notes!
So if you are selling real estate, for instance, how about setting up a page maybe on real estate insurance questions or mortgage questions or other related things that people are interested in?
If you sell pet supplies, how about setting up pages dedicated to each type of animal. Set up one page for cats, one for dogs and on and on. The advantage to this is that every page is a gateway page and the more gateway pages you have, the more visitors you will have to your site.
Each page should have navigation bars to allow the visitor to find the rest of the site. But getting them to the site is the main thing.
There are four important things that need to work together. If you use all four of these methods and intermingle them, then you should be at the top or near top of the search engines in no time. Most of your competitors are not doing this and you will be way ahead of the game.
1) CONTENT
The content has to be what the search words are pointing to. If the search word is "business cards," then the page must deal with business cards. Period.
2) TITLE
The title of the page must match the subject. For business cards, you could put as title: "Business cards, business cards printers, color business cards, calling cards, cards printers," and so on. Notice we use plurals. This is important. Use plurals so it covers all types of searches.
The title is what comes up at the bar on top of the page. Check out most web pages and see what shows there. Some go on and on, right off the page. That is ok.
A realtor could put: "Real estate, realtors, houses for sale, local realtors, rentals, condos," etc. See how this works?
Dont leave the title blank. So many web pages come up with "Page 1" as the title. What a waste.
3) KEY WORDS
These are hidden as part of the meta tags (we will go into meta tags in our next issue).
The key words are words that you would think people would be searching for to find your site. Search engines like Overture and Google offer key word suggestion tools and show what popular phrases or words people are currently using to find any certain item or subject.
For business cards you would of course repeat the words used in the title (this is important), but you would also use other things. Put phrases or words people might use like "personalized cards", even "biz cards", spell the words wrong if you think people will do that. We get more hits through "stationary" than the correct spelling of "stationery." Honest.
4) HEADINGS
The headings should match the title subject and words. Headings are created as part of the meta tags.
Headings should match the title words and key words. There is a theme here. All the important words should match.
Headings are seen on the page. You would indicate through the meta tags which words are the headings, but you would not be able to tell by looking at the page. The headings arent necessarily the headlines on the page, but the most important words.
Use the headings wisely and use them often on the page. Try to repeat them without being obvious. Search engines dont like repeating for no reason at all.
You could call the page: "Personalized Post-It Notes," and then go on to say: "We pride ourselves on printing personalized printed post it notes. Post its are the best form of advertising. We are proud to sell only 3M brand post-it notes. Order some post-it notes today!"
Get the headings to sort of blend into the page by using them rather than being so obvious like we do above. You could use the word "post-it notes" as headings simply by using it as part of a pricing chart and having "post-it note prices" be part of the heading.
Just use it as you would normally on the page, and in the meta tags, just make it a "heading." No one will know, but when the search engines crawl the page, they will find the word as a "heading" and use it as that.
We keep repeating the words post-it notes. Notice we use all different phrases from "post its" to "post it notes" and "post-it notes," with and without the hyphen. People use all types of spellings to find this product. This is important as part of the key words and also title.
If there are many ways that people would use to spell or find your product like "stationery" or "stationary" or "post its" or "post-it notes," then use them.
One good thing to do is at the very bottom of the page, add some key words in small type and make them a heading. They can be in 8 point type. The reasoning for this is that they sort of tie in the whole page. The page starts with the title at top, using the key words and goes through the key words in the meta tags, the headings, the content and finally the headings again at the bottom of the page. One tidy little package.
The search engines love this! This is a relevant page and when visitors are searching for the subject, this is what comes up, the exact subject they are looking for.
This will bring you to the top and keep you at the top of the search engines. All search engines are thrilled to have their visitors search for a certain subject and find it on the first try without having to go from site to site searching the list for what they want. This makes that particular search engine look accurate and right on, and it will bring you customers. It all works hand-in-hand.
Remember, search engines need relevant material for their visitors. They need you as much as you need them. What would a search engine be without content? Think about it.
By Tom Falco (2002)
http://www.thediscountprinter.com
About the Author
Tom Falco is editor of XpectMore.com Marketing eZine you can subscribe by visiting: XpectMore.com or ezine@xpectmore.com?subject=subscribe Tom also is Quiz Master of "American Pop Culture Trivia" Visit: http://www.xpectmore.com/pop.htm
support@xpectmore.com
http://www.xpectmore.com
The search engines are trying to be more and more relevant every day. They are tired of the tricks people use to get visitors and they are catching on and penalizing the scammers by removing their pages altogether.
One great was is through gateway pages.
Gateway pages are pages that people use to enter your site other than through the home page. They are dedicated to one subject or item. From the gateway page you can send visitors to the home page, but the gateway is used to get them to the site to begin with.
For instance, we sell promotional items and have pages set up for each item. It works out that way for ordering reasons, but those are gateway pages. You should create gateway pages if you dont have them. We sell too many products to hope to get every visitor in through the home page, but as people search for certain items, they find them through our gateway pages.
We have pages set up for promotional pens, post-it notes, frisbees, sunglasses, golf items, and so on.
Now each page needs to be relevant to what the visitor is searching for. So when a person goes to a search engine and types in "3M post-it notes" or printed "golf balls", each page containing that content will show up. The more relevant it is to the key word search, the closer to the top of the search engine it will be.
This is a no-brainer for items like the above, but we have found that one of our largest sources of income is through family and school reunions. So we have a page or two dedicated just to reunions. And we are actually at the top of the search engines under "reunions," "reunion items" and phrases like these! According to our web page stats, the reunion gateway page is the third most popular gateway entrance page after pens and post-it notes!
So if you are selling real estate, for instance, how about setting up a page maybe on real estate insurance questions or mortgage questions or other related things that people are interested in?
If you sell pet supplies, how about setting up pages dedicated to each type of animal. Set up one page for cats, one for dogs and on and on. The advantage to this is that every page is a gateway page and the more gateway pages you have, the more visitors you will have to your site.
Each page should have navigation bars to allow the visitor to find the rest of the site. But getting them to the site is the main thing.
There are four important things that need to work together. If you use all four of these methods and intermingle them, then you should be at the top or near top of the search engines in no time. Most of your competitors are not doing this and you will be way ahead of the game.
1) CONTENT
The content has to be what the search words are pointing to. If the search word is "business cards," then the page must deal with business cards. Period.
2) TITLE
The title of the page must match the subject. For business cards, you could put as title: "Business cards, business cards printers, color business cards, calling cards, cards printers," and so on. Notice we use plurals. This is important. Use plurals so it covers all types of searches.
The title is what comes up at the bar on top of the page. Check out most web pages and see what shows there. Some go on and on, right off the page. That is ok.
A realtor could put: "Real estate, realtors, houses for sale, local realtors, rentals, condos," etc. See how this works?
Dont leave the title blank. So many web pages come up with "Page 1" as the title. What a waste.
3) KEY WORDS
These are hidden as part of the meta tags (we will go into meta tags in our next issue).
The key words are words that you would think people would be searching for to find your site. Search engines like Overture and Google offer key word suggestion tools and show what popular phrases or words people are currently using to find any certain item or subject.
For business cards you would of course repeat the words used in the title (this is important), but you would also use other things. Put phrases or words people might use like "personalized cards", even "biz cards", spell the words wrong if you think people will do that. We get more hits through "stationary" than the correct spelling of "stationery." Honest.
4) HEADINGS
The headings should match the title subject and words. Headings are created as part of the meta tags.
Headings should match the title words and key words. There is a theme here. All the important words should match.
Headings are seen on the page. You would indicate through the meta tags which words are the headings, but you would not be able to tell by looking at the page. The headings arent necessarily the headlines on the page, but the most important words.
Use the headings wisely and use them often on the page. Try to repeat them without being obvious. Search engines dont like repeating for no reason at all.
You could call the page: "Personalized Post-It Notes," and then go on to say: "We pride ourselves on printing personalized printed post it notes. Post its are the best form of advertising. We are proud to sell only 3M brand post-it notes. Order some post-it notes today!"
Get the headings to sort of blend into the page by using them rather than being so obvious like we do above. You could use the word "post-it notes" as headings simply by using it as part of a pricing chart and having "post-it note prices" be part of the heading.
Just use it as you would normally on the page, and in the meta tags, just make it a "heading." No one will know, but when the search engines crawl the page, they will find the word as a "heading" and use it as that.
We keep repeating the words post-it notes. Notice we use all different phrases from "post its" to "post it notes" and "post-it notes," with and without the hyphen. People use all types of spellings to find this product. This is important as part of the key words and also title.
If there are many ways that people would use to spell or find your product like "stationery" or "stationary" or "post its" or "post-it notes," then use them.
One good thing to do is at the very bottom of the page, add some key words in small type and make them a heading. They can be in 8 point type. The reasoning for this is that they sort of tie in the whole page. The page starts with the title at top, using the key words and goes through the key words in the meta tags, the headings, the content and finally the headings again at the bottom of the page. One tidy little package.
The search engines love this! This is a relevant page and when visitors are searching for the subject, this is what comes up, the exact subject they are looking for.
This will bring you to the top and keep you at the top of the search engines. All search engines are thrilled to have their visitors search for a certain subject and find it on the first try without having to go from site to site searching the list for what they want. This makes that particular search engine look accurate and right on, and it will bring you customers. It all works hand-in-hand.
Remember, search engines need relevant material for their visitors. They need you as much as you need them. What would a search engine be without content? Think about it.
By Tom Falco (2002)
http://www.thediscountprinter.com
About the Author
Tom Falco is editor of XpectMore.com Marketing eZine you can subscribe by visiting: XpectMore.com or ezine@xpectmore.com?subject=subscribe Tom also is Quiz Master of "American Pop Culture Trivia" Visit: http://www.xpectmore.com/pop.htm
support@xpectmore.com
http://www.xpectmore.com
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