New! Help optimizing your website for search engines
Achieve top rankings in search engines & attract more visitors to your website
Content
Introduction
Most traffic to websites is generated by search engines. That’s why it’s so important to optimize your website for search engines (search engine optimization (SEO)). The aim is to improve your website's ranking in Google & Co., making it easier for potential users to find your website.
We often encounter SEO related questions in our knowledge community MAGIX.info. For this reason, we’ve decided to compile some important facts concerning SEO on this help site.
SEO measures
How search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. work
Internet search engines use large numbers of robots that search the web for new website content (text, images, videos, etc.) and index it. These robots are primarily interested in links that they use to reach websites.
What does this mean for your website? It means that hyperlinks on other websites leading to your website are equally as important as posting good content and links on your website. This is due to the fact that Google considers websites that have many incoming links from other websites to be very important.
Consequentially, the so-called page rank and the related ranking position of your website in search engine results increases.
In short: Many direct links from other websites, communities, web portals, web forums are good for your SEO work.
Optimize your own website
- Before you start optimizing your website for search engines, you should think about which key words potential users will use to find your website and which combinations of keywords they will most likely enter in search engines. Try to anticipate the keywords your website’s visitors will use and write them down. Compile your website’s content with these keywords in mind and try to use different combinations of words.
- Search engine robots process your meta tags such as website title (approx. 60-70 characters), description (approx. 150 characters) and tags (max. 5 keywords), and display your website in the search result pages whenever the corresponding keywords are used. For this reason, you should use meta tags that are meaningful and related to your website’s content.
You can also use the Internet service Google Insight to find out which keywords are currently googled the most in your region.
To add meta tags to your "MAGIX Website Maker" Flash website, open the "More" menu in Website Maker, select "Settings", and add your meta tags.
In MAGIX Web Designer, you add meta tags via "File/Publish website/Website".
- Besides using these meta tags, please also add meaningful navigation titles.
Note: Despite the Flash® technology used in Website Maker, we have programmed a special solution, enabling search engines to "read" all pages and content. The content from an .XML file is placed below the flash object, enabling search engines to find and process the content.
- The importance of having a personal domain cannot be overestimated. Google considers a domain whose name includes frequently used keywords that are related to your website's content to be very relevant. How old a domain is, is important as well. Therefore, you should set up a domain as soon as possible and have some patience. Unfortunately, improvements won’t happen overnight.
- Search engines are always in search of news and up-to-date content.
For this reason, you should update your website with new texts at short intervals.
Ideally, set up a web blog to do so.
- HTML editors, in particular, can be optimized for search engines. Repeat the keywords you defined above in the H1, H2, H3 headings and describe graphics in the alt attribute in the "img" tag.
- Use viral effects for your website and integrate "Recommend" functions into your site. This way, visitors to your website can forward it to friends and acquaintances. Ideally, this will trigger a snow ball effect. A ready-to-use "Recommend" object is available in "MAGIX Website Maker" in the "Object Manager" in the "Other" category.
- The MAGIX website catalog also lets you categorize your website, enabling search engines to index it. Open the "More" menu in MAGIX Website Maker, select "Settings" and enter your website into the website catalog. This way, search engines and other users can find your website.
Create backlinks from other websites, communities, blogs, web catalogs, web forums, etc.
Keep in mind that backlinks are very important. Google, in particular, attaches great importance to the number of links from other websites to your website.
- Blog are very important and should not be ignored. Search engines consider blog content to be very up to date and important and therefore quickly index it. Create a blog with WordPress, blogger blog etc. and write something in your blog everyday, ideally something containing links.
- Create a profile on highly frequented online communities such as Facebook, MySpace, StudiVZ, mein VZ, etc. Post information about your website and add links leading to your website. Don’t forget to add a lot of friends so they know about your website.
- Communicate via Twitter by posting current information and links related to your website. The importance of Twitter will increase in the years to come and its results increasingly will be integrated into search engines as well.
- Create exciting web videos about your website or related topics and publish them on YouTube.com and other video portals such as myvideo, vimeo.com, etc.
Tip! MAGIX Movie Edit Pro is an ideal software package for creating videos.
- Post your website address in discussion forums such as www.gutefrage.net and participate in discussions.
Additionally, you should register your website with search engines. See Google
or web catalogs such as Open Directory Project www.dmoz.org
Social bookmarking
Social bookmarks (or "common bookmarks") are bookmarks of web addresses that other users save and exchange among each other. This makes it easier to search for and find your website. Search engine robots also search these online services. There are several providers where you can save your website: www.delicious.com etc.
A good overview can be found at http://www.addthis.com
Friends & acquaintances
Friends and acquaintances are a good way to make your website known. Convince your friends to post links leading to your website on their websites, blogs, community profiles, forums, etc. Make it easy for them and write the texts including links yourself and send them via email.
Your SEO checklist:
- Compile keywords that are related to your website's content.
- Enter title, description, and tags for your website.
- Synchronize your meta tags with your website's content.
- Register a real domain and use a name that includes important keywords.
- Regularly post blogs incl. links on your website and communicate via Twitter.com.
- Post your website on other websites, forums, communities, blogs, etc.
- Register your homepage with search engines, web catalogs, and web directories.
- Create community profiles on Facebook & Co. and try and make many new friends.
- Create a lot of social bookmarks for your website.
- Convince your friends to post links leading to your website on their websites, blogs, community profiles, forums, etc.
Additional links
Find questions & answers from other users at magix.info – the Multimedia Knowledge Community. Plus, there's numerous blogs and forums about this subject. Just google them, they work hard to be found by you ... ;-)
