What we are trying to do is encourage these 'spiders' to come feed on keywords and 'content' of our websites, in hopes of getting a higher positioning in search page ranking. It is like trying to put your head above crowd and be noticed.

The experiment began with a new site that has been online a little more than a month [from time of this writing]. What was decided was to create best atmosphere for attracting Googlebot. A plan would be needed to attract Google and save time, effort and outlay of cash for a Yahoo! listing. Google was also needed to build a page rank. Starting from zero we had to have a game plan.

The conclusion was reached that time spent now would pay off ten-fold down road. The new site is a free cross content article directory for websites, ezines and a learning portal. Keyword search was preformed on every search term imaginable. Every site that could be found that remotely related to articles and article directories was reviewed. Some of these sites were exclusive to articles while some only had a directory of articles on site in a subdirectory. What they had in common was that all had a front page or top 10 ranking in Google and/or Yahoo! for 'articles'. Note: there were also 417,000,000 other sites listed for "articles" that were indexed that have never seen fringes of front page much less top 100. With that goal set, our task lay before us. The plan follows: 1.] A decision made on look and feel of site. This is important not for spiders [Google & Yahoo!] but for site’s future visitors. Reason? What good is it to have a site that no one will come back to because it is unpleasant or because of visual or navigation problems. The robots.txt file was set up so that it would invite spiders to crawl among selected pages and directories of site.

2.] The index page was designed making sure it had an accessible navigation plan based on suggestions of www.lighthouse.org and www.accessify.com/default.asp. These improvements continue to be added throughout site. Every link led to content using keywords in links and text anchors where possible. Optimized site using a selection of keywords that were relevant to site’s theme using Good Keywords and Overture. We were fortunate as we were building an article and content directory and we all know articles make excellent spider supplements. Like vitamins for body...

3.] A Site Map was created and linked from front page that provided visitor and spiders with a road map of site. Using www.netroglycerine.com/sitemap.html, as we did you can easily generate a full sitemap for your website. Enter your URL in space provided, hit enter on your keyboard and wait for links to be displayed. Save page from File menu and edit links to suit your requirements.

1. Know your potential customers. We can't tell you how many businesses we've met who simply pick keywords out of thin air. They don't talk to customers or hot prospects in order to determine what might be a useful set of keywords.

2. Start with core words. A core set of keywords - even if too broad - can stimulate creative thinking.

3. Look at industry. Examine industry trade group web sites and related newsletters to find potential keywords.

4. Study competitors. Some companies make a bigger deal of competitors' keywords than they should, but it's still a useful strategy. Invariably, a competitor will be using a strong keyword or phrase you don't want to miss. Often, however, they load their web sites with single keywords that aren't appropriate. If Internet users are seeking cookware, their search terms shouldn't be laundry-based words. Yet we came across that very example. Be careful which words you use.