Just like Yahoo, Google and every other search engine, MSN uses crawlers to build their index of sites and “crawls” the web to find new and altered information. Complex algorithms are then used to find the sites that are the best “hits” or more relevant to the search keyword inputted on the search box. This process is strictly mathematical and has fixed rules on how to rank the results of the searches. The results are ranked according to relevance, but there are also some special specifications for a website to get a top ranking on the results page.
The big difference between Yahoo!/Google and MSN is that it does not have too many attributes in giving a site a high ranking, and mostly considers change in content. Once your site is picked among the results of search, it is indexed by MSN and when your site changes content, it is re-indexed, and would probably appear on top of the list once the same search query is inputted. Google and Yahoo apply age criteria to both domains and links requiring a longer period of time before the full effects of your efforts are realized.
Another perk of implementing search engine optimization for MSN is that MSN users are more likely to purchase a product or service online than the users of other search engines. This is according to comScore media, a marketing data company.
What then are the rules for SEO for MSN? As with all the major engines, there are two areas that need to be considered to get high or top rankings. The first being onsite SEO, and the second being offsite SEO.
These are some of the onsite SEO factors that are part of the formula of the algorithm used to determine site rankings: Web page content and the number of appearance of keywords and key phrases, site maps, website menus and how the pages of your site are linked together and the number of pages in your website and the relevancy of the content of those pages to your main subject, product or service
The content of your web pages must be relevant to the main subject of your website. It should also at least match the main concept of your domain name. And also, in order for your website to have an appeal to search engines, your pages should also algorithm and mathematically friendly. You have to have content that is clearly understandable for your visitors and you have to write your content in a language that is clearly understood by human and machine. Correct grammar and punctuation should always be observed. Your content should also appeal to your target market and your website should be a valuable and reliable source of information regarding your main subject.
The density of your keywords and key phrases is what appeals to search engines mathematically, as it makes sense that algorithm deals with numbers. Unfortunately, the number of times keywords should appear on a website, as a rule of thumb, cannot be determined unless you use a keyword density analysis tool that you would have to run for your website and those sites that appear on page #1 of the SERPs for your main keywords and key phrases. Keyword density is not as popular as it used to be and you have to be very careful not to “stuff” extra occurrences of keywords into the text – that will hurt you.
Your website should be linked together in a way that visitors and web crawlers should be able to navigate through your website smoothly and easily. If your site has an image or script-based navigation it is important to also use text links either in your content, in a footer, or both. Text links are easier to follow for crawlers, and more importantly, these text links can “tell” the crawlers what your internal pages are about. This also allows you to add more frequency to the appearance of your keywords and key phrases outside of the general text areas. The use of site map is also recommended as this provides a table of contents to your website for easier site navigation.
MSN’s main goal is to provide their visitors specific information about what they are looking for. So, to get a higher site ranking for MSN, your site should have an ample number of pages containing information about your website’s main subject, product or service. All of your website content should be relevant to your main subject, rather than having too much information about various topics that are not at all related to your main idea. Worse, web pages with cluttered ideas and not having a main point of view will not rank high with MSN.
The one important thing when optimizing your website for MSN is building quality website content. The more information about one focused idea, the more pages you can provide with the information, the better. Adding blogs and forums to your website is another technique to increase the number of pages in your website that contain information about your main subject and are relevant to your main topic.
It’s easier to deal with offsite factors with MSN as compared to its competitors. MSN gives full credit to a link to moment it picks it up. Link building, either non-reciprocal or through link exchanges, though time consuming, is rewarded by MSN quicker than the other two major search engines. There are two major factors in link building that you have to consider in optimizing your site for MSN. First is relevancy. The website linking to your website should have similar or relevant information to your content. Second is the quality of the website containing your links. It is still better to concentrate on getting non-reciprocal links than reciprocal links as these links are well-integrated into a website’s content and the relevancy is much more evident.
Search engine optimization or SEO for MSN is relatively easier and lighter as compared to that of Yahoo and Google. You will find that your efforts in link building and updating your website content regularly are rewarded much quicker and the end results are achieved much faster.
