How to submit effective text copy to your web designer

Text should be submitted in an electronic (computer) format with as little formatting as possible.

The file format (ASCII) for the web is called html. It does not support most of the formatting commonly used in Office type word processors like Word and Word Perfect.

If you have not already formatted your copy with font tags, CSS, and Microsoft Word specific mark up.....don't! Just save it as a simple .txt or .rtf file. It saves you money if the designer does not have to UN-do unusable Microsoft office style formatting.

Here's an easy way to remove styles, meta files and other code (unusable on a web page) from Microsoft Word and WordPerfect:

Copy text and paste into Microsoft Notepad.
Copy from Notepad and paste into your web page.
- Notepad doesn't recognize text formatting except line breaks.
If your text file uses two non breaking spaces (<b><b> instead of <P>) for new paragraphs it will all get jumbled together, so copy it to Notepad a paragraph at a time for best results.

Effective textual submission in a nut shell:

Don't use font tags, tabs or Microsoft Word in-page CSS!
Save it in .txt or .rtf format.
Use simple paragraphs - no tab indents or justification.
Save it in PC format. If you send it in Macintosh format there will be an extra step here in replacing or removing certain Mac characters that display incorrectly on a PC.
If you send it on a printed page it will be scanned with an Optical Character Recognition program to return it to the state it was in before it was printed out. If this is all you have, send the cleanest copy you have. Faxes are famous for ragged text and adding OCR editing time.
A great way to send text is by plain text e-mail. Html e-mail will retain Microsoft Word

How to submit effective meta files

Your web designer or programmer cannot describe your business - you must!

When you send in a list of keywords do not use commas to separate them.

Search engines perceive these as speed bumps - your web designer will have to manually remove each one.
The more specific your keywords the better.

Use a keyword that would direct someone who has never heard of you to your site.

Use the free Google Key Word Suggestion Tool or WordTracker (paid service) to see if your choices are getting searched frequently. Bear in mind, though, if you have a rare product the right keywords will not be popular but you will get all the searches for it!
Descriptions are important:

When a search query is made your description is what shows up on the results read out (click below - "see how your descriptions are really used") . Write down a list of about 50 words that describe your site, off the top of your head. Then go to a major search engine a run a search on them to see what comes up. Check out some of your competitor's web sites and see how they compare to your site - it'll give you an idea of how you stack up! Next try combining words and do the same. Use these combinations in your description text.

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT KEY WORD METAFILES:

It has been widely published since the late 90's that Google DOES NOT recognize the keyword meta file tag. The tendency for less scrupulous developers to stack unrelated but popular search words in this metafile has transformed it into something akin to spam, as seen by the major search engine engineers.

Google, indexes key search words by your textual content - as do many others. No relevant text on the page? You are a Google stealth bomber! Remember, the internet is the "information highway".

Yahoo, and some others do read these meta tag keywords in addition to your title tag. So - make your keywords pertain to your title, or vice versa.

Yahoo's defense against keyword spamming is they must appear on the page. Phase one of a crawl - a bot sniffs out key words. Phase two - it either sees those keywords and proceeds or does not see them and moves on.

Should you go out and delete your keyword meta files? Certainly not! But make sure they appear on the page.

Next write a description- using - 25 key words in it, and/or another one with only 10. Your promoter (maybe yourself) will likely be asked for these shorter versions on some submissions.
Most search engines limit your description to 150 words - go over and the rest will be cut off - . Look at your keyword list and use them copiously in your site description.
Beware of software that claims to summit you to "thousands" of search engines with a single click:

Many search engines require hand entered category selections or other verification - when this "wonder software" fails to do this you are disregarded.

Nobody uses thousands of search engines anyway, they all use the same old few!

The "little guys" get the bulk of their listings from Google, Yahoo, etc.

Also Note: You need to get all the above refinements done BEFORE you start the submission process!

As always, these are just helpful hints to streamline your project. Send what you have and it will be edited to the correct format. These pages are a service to Internet Outsource Tampabay clients to save your valuable time and money. If you are a busy CEO and your office manager will be doing the leg work, have that person read these pages.