GMChost.com Webmaster Guide

Fire Up Page Generator for Some Fantastic Results
By Robin Nobles

It's a fact that the search engines don't like "machine generated" pages. Why? Some software programs simply swap out keywords to quickly spit out a bunch of low quality, near-duplicate pages. This creates little value.

Remember: Your pages must be of value to both the search engines and your human visitors. If they are, you're walking down the right path.

Page Generator is an often-misunderstood feature of WebPosition Gold 2 that allows you to create keyword specific pages. However -- and this part is VERY important -- those pages are not "machine-generated." Instead, YOU generate them, one page at a time, by reading the tutorials, adding your own unique content, and filling in the blanks. This is not unlike using FrontPage or another editor to create Web pages.

The key difference is that Page Generator knows what tags to insert that the engine likes to see. It also provides a wealth of tips and tutorials in how to create a top-ranking page. Its Wizard-style screens then step you through the process, which can be invaluable for beginners. However, even SEO veterans, such as myself, find the tool valuable.

For example, Page Generator goes into detail on how to create effective titles, heading tags, meta tags, and other key elements. It also includes detailed information on how to avoid accidentally spamming a search engine.

Do Page Generator pages all look alike?

Absolutely not. You enter your own graphics and text to build the page. You can even create a template based on your home page and use that to create new pages in a consistent style. You can use Page Generator to get rid of some of the design problems that create difficulties in achieving top search engine rankings. You can create very simple pages designed to pull in traffic through specific keywords.

Can Page Generator pages achieve top rankings?

Is a #1 out of 311,000 results in Google a top ranking? I would say so!

Using Page Generator, I created a very focused page for the keyword phrase, "search engine seminars."

http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/search-engine-seminars.html

At the time of this writing, some of its rankings include:

#1 out of 311,000 results in Google
#1 out of 84,905 results in AltaVista
#1 out of 94,600 results in Ask Jeeves/Teoma
#6 out of 116,880 results in MSN
#11 out of 531,505 results in Lycos and Fast
#6 out of 101,069 results in Inktomi
#1 out of 20,067 results in AOL Search

By using Page Generator, I was able to bypass some of the design strategies of the Search Engine Workshops site, such as mouseovers, that push the important keyword-containing text toward the bottom of the page.

By the way, the link popularity of the page in Google is 8, and it has a PageRank of 4. The next competing site has a PageRank of 8 with a link popularity in Google of 6,320. Yet, my simple page created with Page Generator is #1. Why? Because it's focused so strongly on the keyword phrase, and because the few incoming links describe the site using the keyword phrase, "search engine seminars."

Let's walk through how to use this handy tool to create your own pages.

1. Open WebPosition Gold 2, and choose File and then New Mission. Then, click the Page Generator button.

2. On the Page Setup tab, enter your domain name (www.searchengineworkshops.com in my example above), and name your page. Be sure to name your page after your keyword phrase, such as search-engine-seminars.html. The program will automatically determine the directory where your page will be stored, or you can choose the directory yourself by clicking on Select.

3. On the Engine tab, choose the engine that you want to focus on. I always choose the Generic Engine, because I like to create generic pages that will hopefully do well over several different engines.

4. On the Keywords tab, type in your primary keyword phrase. You can also choose a secondary keyword phrase here or even include more than one secondary keyword phrase, if you choose.

5. The Description tab is where you'll actually create the page and tags. You'll create a title tag for your page, remembering to include your keyword phrase and to make it captivating and designed to pull in traffic. For extra tips and assistance, be sure to click the help buttons found to the side of most of the input boxes.

   You'll also create a heading tag for the page, again using your primary keyword phrase. Insert your company name, choose a URL to link the page to, and use linking text that contains your important keyword phrase.

   Click on Select to choose a graphic for the page, such as a logo that's used elsewhere on your site in order to tie the page to your entire Web site.

   Then, in the body text area, begin writing your body text. Remember to use the keyword phrase toward the beginning of the text, then sprinkled throughout the text.

   If you have any problems with any of the blanks on this page, simply click on the various buttons, which will give you more information.

6. On the Meta Tags tab, create a captivating Meta description tag that uses your important keyword phrase and that is also designed to pull in traffic. Insert your text in between the two quotation marks that appear side by side:

   <META NAME="description" content="">

   Then, create the Meta keyword tag by inserting the primary keyword phrase, a secondary keyword phrase (if you used one), and synonyms for your keyword phrase. Don't go overboard here - four or five keywords in the Meta keyword tag is plenty. Again, insert the keywords in between the two quotation marks in the Meta keyword area of the page.

7. On the Options tab, you can choose which options to use with Page Generator that will remind you of various things you might have overlooked.

   "After Page Generator is Complete," I choose to "View Page." For the rest of the options, I leave them as "Prompt." In other words, I want to be reminded if I've forgotten something, so the program will prompt me if I have.

8. If you want to create your own template (a gutted out version of your Web pages, for example), you can select where the template is on your hard drive on the Template page.

   You'll notice that there are no canned templates included with WebPosition. This ensures that every page created with the Page Generator is unique. There's no way a search engine could identify your page as a "WebPosition" page.

   You can also point the program to your favorite HTML editor for further editing.

9. Click Generate, and your page is automatically created. How simple can you get?

10. From there, I highly recommend opening the page in your HTML editor and tweaking it. Make sure you like the tags and body text you created earlier, and make any adjustments. Add links to other pages on your site, or navigation links maybe at the bottom of the page. Add additional heading tags, and be sure to use link text containing your keyword phrase with some of your links.

    In other words, begin optimizing the page for your important keyword phrase. Once you're pleased with the page, run it through Page Critic and focus on the suggestions between the first two blue lines, as I discussed in my previous article.

That's it!

In Conclusion . . .

Page Generator is a great resource for helping you create your keyword specific pages. It's particularly helpful if you're new to search engine optimization and want some extra help in getting started with page creation. It reminds you of all the key elements that go into making a top-ranking page.

However, as I demonstrated previously, you don't have to be a "beginner" to use this program. I've created some very successful pages when using Page Generator.

Just remember what we said earlier: the pages must be of value to both the search engines and to your visitors. If they are, you're doing good!

Robin Nobles is a trainer with Search Engine Workshops, which presents on location workshops in search engine marketing at various locations across the globe. She is also the Director of Training of for OnlineWebTraining.com , which teaches online training in search engine marketing. For more information about the online training or on location workshops, visit our Resources page.

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition Gold. FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings. A free trial of WebPosition Gold is available from their Web site.