Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basically comes down to two factors:
- Making your pages friendly to the technical needs of the search engines, and
- Making your page content lead the search engine to catalog your site correctly.
Setting Goals
Tricks, like search-specific jump pages, hidden text, spoofed metatags and other techniques meant to "trick" the search engines are rarely useful, yield only short term results and can get you banned.
As Danny Sullivan, Editor of Search Engine Watch and the leading expert in optimization says, "search engine spamming attempts usually center around being top ranked for extremely popular keywords. You can try and fight that battle against other sites, but then be prepared to spend a lot of time each week, if not each day, defending your ranking. That effort usually would be better spent on networking, keeping your site up to date and becoming a leader in your industry."
Instead of making it your goal to simply be listed on the first page of a general term, make it your goal to be listed for searches that will do you the most good. Think about what your customers will be searching for, maximize your site's relevance to those customers and your rankings will fall into place organically.
Metatags
To accomplish these goals, there are both hidden and visible considerations. The hidden considerations are "metatags" - a section of page code that gives the Search Engine the name, description and keywords that match your page.
Content
These metatags are important, but they are secondary to the main factor that determines where and how you are listed - content. What your pages say, the words that are used and the frequency of those words are the main tools that will determine how your page is categorized, matched to user searches, and displayed.
"Optimizing" your page for search is a process of creating metatags and content that form a synergistic whole in defining what your page is about. Know what search terms your customers will use, build your pages around relevant content that is responsive to those searches and you'll see your search engine ranking move up.
What the Search Engines look for on the Page
Google, which is currently the largest of the search engines, appears to factor in a number of things when deciding which pages are the most relevant to a given search term. The top-ranked pages in Google share a number of common factors:
- The Page Title (what appears in the top bar of the browser window) contains the word or phrase that matches the search term.
- The text content of the page shows significant use of the search term.
- The search term appears near the top of the page's content (and ranking may also be influenced by whether the term is a headline or appears in a larger, bolder font, or is in italics, appears as a link, etc.).
- Meta Tags such as Keyword and Description contain a match to the search term.
Off the Page Factors
Most large search engines have adoped Google's practice of employing a "wildcard" that balances against page-specific factors. The wildcard is looking at inbound links from other pages. If a large number of other sites with content related to the search term link TO your site, it will raise its ranking.
The best example of how important this wildcard is to Google can be found in the search term "pizza." The number one ranked website is Pizza Hut. Their home page breaks every optimization rule possible - there is little text, the word "pizza" appears infrequently on the page, their metatags are nothing special. Their top ranking in Google is virtually 100% a result of having thousands upon thousands of in-bound links (store websites, news stories in the archives of MSNBC, CNN, etc., city directories across the country in the "pizza" category, thousands of yellow pages listings, thousands of email addresses published across the web...you get the idea.)
This off-the-page factor is obviously crucial. Encourage your customers to link to your site. Get listed in directories. Visit discussion industry-related boards, post often, and have a link to your site in your "signature." The more in-bound links you have from related websites, the higher your listing.
Ongoing Optimization
Specifications for Search Engines change from time to time, often as a response to those who try to "cheat" their way to the top of the page. Idea Bank Marketing continually monitors the changes in these specifications and for an additional fee, we can arrange to manage your SEO in an ongoing manner.
Alternatives
While waiting for optimization to do its magic (which often takes several months), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising can fill in the gap. These listings reliably place you on the front page of selected keywords in sponsored search positions. Research shows that experienced web users give more weight to the paid sponsors than to search results. Why? Because they realize that you have paid to be listed under that search term, so you probably offer something relevant to it.
