Welcome to
The DFN Weekly

Crash Course
in Building SE Pages

By Rhino

of
TLA's Webmaster 101

1) Think about phrases a surfer would use to find 'exactly' the type of content YOU offer inside YOUR site (not what you might have access to, what they will find if they go inside your site).

2) Decide what SEs you want to target (hint, default browser SEs are best for newbie traffic - and that's the traffic you want, that you can sell IDs to). FIND OUT THEIR INDIVIDUAL RULES FOR SUBMISSION, PAGE LIMITS, ETC. AND FOLLOW THEM WHEN YOU ARE READY TO SUBMIT YOUR PAGE(S).

3) Visit the search engine, and do a search for your search terms, and note the results... not results 1-10 (that's where you'll see the tricks, page swappers, bouncers, leveraged pages, etc)... and look at the source code for results 11-20, and look at all of those results. (Remember, 1 page can be a fluke!!)

4) Now, try to picture the source code as being on a transparent overlay, and put results 11-20 on top of each other - you're looking for patterns here, as well as the actual words and word groupings, and match that to the phrase you used for the search.

5) Rebuild your page with those things in mind.

Hints as to what to look for:
1) Title tag - Where/how much of the phrase is in the title, length of the title, and it's relation to what is on the page.

2) Meta tag use - keywords, and description... same relationship as #1

3) Use (or not) of java comments with key phrase(s); any other tricks, i.e. invalid/nonstandard meta tags and keyphrase repetition, and again the relationship to the page content.

4) Page layout, positioning of key phrase and concepts, use of "H" tags for emphasis, linked keyphrases...

5) Use of images, and descriptions (alt=""), small images, etc.

That's a monkey see, monkey do approach, but it does work to a point, and only requires 1 domain. A lot more you can do, if you have multiple launch points, domains, etc., but think you get the idea.

Word of caution, especially starting out... resist the urge to save and resubmit the same/very similar page from your domain (not saying you or anyone else would, just AWTTW to save some grief). Several reasons - legal, ethical, and practical.

Legal
Copyright issues, if you didn't write it yourself it's not yours to use unmodified.

Ethical
If the page doesn't truly represent the content available at your site, even after you get the traffic, you may not get the sale. Surfers tend to get pissed if they got there looking for something you don't offer, and the sale is that much harder (retention is even harder).

Practical
Lots of money in this business, and it all comes from converting traffic to sales, so many people watch closely how their existing pages rank in the SEs, and don't take kindly to someone taking their work for themself... and most of those have verrrrry long memories (and short fuses), plus the ability and resources to take direct action (both legal and otherwise) against page thieves.

Check out the info available from the traffic resource sites (searchenginewatch.com, among others), and the promotion software sites. Most of the commercial programs are (IMO) crap, and inflate their claims by including LL and FFA sites to make you think their product is great. Mostly BS, as 85% or so of the SE traffic comes from 10-12 of the biggest SEs, but they usually do give away valuable info if you can read between the lines, and discount their self-motivated hype.

Submit by hand!!
If you are challenged, one program really worth looking at is DumpTruck as it will save time and does work, but it is limited. And keep records of what you've done... and be patient.

Hope that helps... could build a site on traffic building, and many do - usually to sell something, but there's enough to get you going.

Biggest hint/tip - once you get traffic, any amount of traffic, recycle it yourself - for yourself.

Rhino