May

19

Amongst the big three search engines there is MSN occupying about 10% of search traffic. It is a fairly straight forward search engine to optimise for and it reacts quickly and predictably. In a lot of cases it is easier to get on decent positions MSN than Yahoo or Google so this is a good one to get under your belt first.

First off!

Decide on your one top keyword. So you need to do some research on a generic keyword that fits your site , we will take “car hifi” for an imaginary site about car CD players, mp3 players, ipod connectors etc – this technique is only going to optimise your MSN for 1 particular keyword so think carefully. This does not mean that other keywords will not show up, but the one we shall work on we will make the highest value.

It is a well known fact that a click-back on the top of your header is a great usability factor for users to get back to the homepage – no matter where they are in your site. Make sure that your header click-back has an img alt tag with your chosen keyword – so we’ll put “car hifi”. The click-back should be pointing back to your homepage, so http://www.screamingstones.co.uk – note! This is not index.php nor default.asp – it has to be your real landing page hard coded.

Your header, complete with click-back needs to be on EVERY page, including your landing page.
Next we need to develop a strong text link of a similar form. If you don’t have one you should have a footer zone at the bottom of your page, every page. A lot of web sites like to put copyright notices in here, which is great. We can add a link in there too. So we will add a LINK called “car hifi” pointing to our landing page, like car hifi… This text-based link-back has to appear on EVERY page at the same position (don’t forget your homepage too – very important!). Again, the link will go back to your real landing page.

And that’s it! You’re done.

If the site is not already in MSN index go and submit it now.

In summary:

1) Add your keyword to the img alt tag of the header click-back, e.g. your logo .. and point it back to your internet homepage.
2) Add a text-based footer link on every page, which uses the name of your chosen keyword and links back to your internet homepage.

Oh, and be sure to have your keyword Car Hifi in your title tag - obvious really, but don’t forget!

In effect you are internally linking every page in your site back to your homepage using your chosen keyword. MSN loves this.

I have tried this technique on several test sites – and it never fails to get to the top of MSN on your favourite keyword. I did my own test by removing the footer reciprocal link and it began to drop in MSN within 7 days. After 2 weeks it had fallen past no 20. After 1 month it had gone down past number 100.

NB Google and Yahoo seem to exhibit no change with this technique at all. They work on different parameters.

Some people might comment that seems to be a bit “spammy” but it is no different than a sitemap click from every page, and then sitemap links back to the homepage.

SEO Advocate Avon

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