Search engine optimization (SEO) is a detailed process initiated to improve the amount of visitors and quality of traffic to a web site from the various search engines. To assist with this process, most of the search engines have provided guidelines on how to improve your ranking on each of their prospective search engine results pages. These guidelines aren’t a big secret, nor are they given to the “chosen few”; the search engines provide free instructions, and sometimes tutorials, to anyone tasked with the job of optimization. If you haven’t read the guidelines yet, it’s a good idea to become familiar with them before you start your optimization project. Follow the links below to the popular search engines’ guidelines:
Google Webmaster Central
Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines
MSN Live Search Webmaster Center Help
Whether you are improving the optimization of an existing web page or starting from scratch, one key thing to remember is that optimization is an ongoing process. Search engines are constantly changing and improving, algorithms are constantly being updated and new search keywords and phrases are created at lightning speed. To keep up with these frequent changes, search engine optimization needs to be a top priority for any business seeking a strong web presence.
Smart marketing practices have taught us that we need to have a consistent brand that people will recognize, but with optimization we have the opportunity to continuously reinvent ourselves, while building that consistent brand.
Understanding Ranking
The term “ranking” measures a web site’s popularity according to the various search engines. This measuring system determines both the quantity and quality of incoming links to a website and is a major factor in the search engine’s ranking algorithms. Search engine ranking refers to the position at which a website appears in the results of a search engine query. A site is said to have a high ranking when it appears at or near the top of the list of results. Ideally, web-based businesses strive for the #1 spot, but being on the first page of a search is a good objective. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on any of the search engines, so beware of SEO agents that claim to guarantee rankings or allege a "exclusive relationship" with specific search engines. To be ranked number 1 in any search result, you have to follow the rules of optimization.
To see where your page ranks, follow this link to Mandarich Media Group’s SEO page Mandarich.com. Under “Search Engine Optimization Tools” you will find a free tool that will tell you where your site ranks on Google.
Keywords, Phrases and Research
One of the most well known terms in SEO is “keyword search”, also known as “keyword research”. Keywords are the foundation of optimization. Keywords and phrases are what Internet users type into the search field to find answers to questions, or to find specific services or products. It’s a fact that web users will likely access any one of the top 10 sites that appear on the results page, and often won’t bother with any sites not on the first page.
What this means is that our initial step in site optimizing is ensuring that we are using keywords and phrases that best match our web content and the type of business we conduct.
How to conduct a keyword search:
The first thing to remember is that people describe things differently based on their own perception; the way you describe your business can be quite different than the way your customer will describe your business. With this in mind, you have to not only consider the keywords you would use to describe your business, but also think like your customers; what words would they use in searching for your service or product?
Compile a list of all the words that you would use to describe your business; next to your initial list, write their synonyms. Now you have a working list to begin your keyword search. There are a myriad of free keyword suggestion tools on the Internet, but one of our favorite, and the one that yields high results is Google Keyword Tool. Using this tool is simple, but depending on your list, can take a bit of time. However, spending the time to research the most common search terms for your business will make a huge difference in not only the amount of traffic, but also providing targeted traffic and higher conversion rates. We use up to 4 different keyword research tools to get a comprehensive result for what we are trying to target.
Know Who Your Competitors Are
There are literally billions of web pages on the Internet, and undoubtedly there will be others competing for business. While you are conducting your keyword search, you can find out exactly who ranks high on the search engine results page. Broaden your research to include all of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL); your main competitors will be listed on the first page of your search results.
Once you identify your competitors by using common keywords and phrases, you need to learn how to make your keyword list more focused to your business. Also, as we mentioned earlier, algorithms and search terms change continuously, and by keeping track of your competitor’s URLs, you will know how people are conduction searches and you can modify your words as well.
Meta Title Tags & Meta Description Tags
Meta Title and Meta Description tags also play a major role in keyword selection. Understanding the difference between the two will help you in your keyword selection and placement:
Meta Title-Tags: An HTML tag with text describing a specific Web page. The title tag should contain strategic keywords for the page and be constructed following specific guidelines. The title tag is important because it usually becomes the text link to the page found in search engine listings, and because search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing pages.
Meta-Description Tags: Code placed in the HTML of a Web page, providing information that is not visible to browsers.
Titles and descriptions appear in search engine results exactly as they appear in your website’s html code. Often people don’t realize this fact, and their titles and descriptions are not ‘reader-friendly’.
Creating Compelling Content
Creating compelling, relevant and useful content will likely have the greatest impact on your website. Users know what they are looking for, and with good content, you can make sure they find it! The one thing we know for certain is that when an end-user can find what they are looking for quickly and they like what they find, they will probably tell others about it.
What is relevant content?
We all know what the two words mean individually, but together they prove to be a powerful force in search engine ranking. “Relevant content” is the connection between your search terms and the content on your website; these two should always correlate and deliver to your target audience precisely what they are searching for. For instance, if your business were palm tree trimming, you wouldn’t include information on how to trim a Christmas tree. Your content would be relevant to palm trees; you could include where to buy one, how to care for one, and infirmation on your trimming and disposal services.
There’s nothing more frustrating when you are searching for something specific than being led to sites that are unrelated to what you are looking for.
Using your keywords in your content:
Effective Internet searching today requires that keywords accurately reflect what a site is all about. Using your keywords and phrases will help build your site's reputation with both users and the leading search engines. Copy needs to make sense and it needs to be easily readable. If a keyword is used a dozen times, the content may be boring and the reader may believe that you just want to attract traffic to your site rather than provide quality information. A natural tone is appealing and readers will stay on your website to read your material if you remain focused on quality writing.
The popularity of content-related keywords can be a double-edged sword. Keywords become popular because they’re used by hundreds of web sites. However, because of that, your ranking on popular keywords may be low simply due to competition. Don’t let this discourage you; use them anyway, knowing you may not rank well in the beginning. Be patient and watch your rank improve slowly.
Avoid the Tricks of Black Hat Marketing
Successful SEO is pretty straight-forward; follow the guidelines that are set by the industry leaders and your site will gain in its ranking. Like anything else in life, however, getting to the top faster and getting rich quicker is very alluring; you need to be very careful what techniques you employ...and realize that you could innocently fall for some dirty little tricks called Black Hat Marketing. These underhanded techniques aren't illegal, but they are highly unethical and search engines recognize them really very quickly...and the penalties could kill your Internet presence altogether!
So here's a quick look at the common tricks of the black hat trade:
Hidden content: Hidden or invisible text is basically lists of keywords on a website in the color white (or the background color) so that they cannot be seen on the page. By using invisible text, it is possible to feed through lots of rich content to search engines and users.
Keyword stuffing: This is an old-school tactic and is essentially repeating a keyword or phrase, excessively throughout your page, meta tags, alt tags, titles, links and more; this is easily recognized by search engine cops!
Doorway (gateway) pages: Doorway or Gateway pages are pages designed for search engines and not for the end user. These pages are little more than invisible pages that are only seen by search engine spiders and are used to increase SEO ranks.
Link Farming: A link farm is any group of web sites that all hyperlink to every other site in the group - whether they are relevant to your product/service or not; simply put, this is web site spamming. Link farms can be created by hand, but most are created through automated programs and paid services. Since search engines rank based on relevancy, this is an easily detected form of cheating.
Search Engine Optimizationis not just about following guidelines, its about creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to search engine spiders.
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