Search Engine Optimization

One of the foremost questions I am asked by website clients is, “How do I get my site to show up in Google when I type in _________?”

This is a seriously loaded question and not one that can be answered in a couple of minutes at the end of our meeting. You are right to be concerned about whether or not your site shows up in the search engines; the best designed site is useless if visitors never see the page. Website developers dedicate a lot of time and research learning the methods of search engine optimization. In the past several years, company after company has sprung up online dedicated to this purpose alone: To get your site ranked on the first page in Google. But before we dive into the discussion of “How”, let me explain the “Why”.

Why do I want my site optimized for Google?

There are a lot of search engines available on the internet right now; below is a list of the most commonly used:

Google: Is the most utilized search engine several years running and shows no signs of losing that coveted title anytime in the near future. Google has earned its well-deserved reputation as the top-dog of web searchers. It is a crawler-based* [1]service and provides both comprehensive web coverage and high relevancy. It has a wide range of features and in addition to unpaid editorial results; Google operates the cost-per-click AdWords program that places ads on Google and its partners.

Yahoo: Was launched in 1994 and is considered the Web’s oldest directory. Yahoo previously used only human editors to organize its websites into categories, but in October 2002, it began moving towards a shift to crawler-based listings for main results. You may notice category links below some of the site lists in response to keyword search. When offered, these are sites that have still been reviewed and approved by a human editor. Commercial sites pay a fee to be included in Yahoo’s listings and must meet editor approval before acceptance. Non-commercial content is accepted free.

Microsoft Live Search (MSN): Also uses crawler based technology to power its search listings. You don’t have to submit your site to be indexed by the MSNBot crawler.

Ask.com: Formerly Ask Jeeves; gained its popularity in 1998 and 1999 as the “natural language” search engine that allowed users to ask questions and responding with an answer rather than typing in keywords. Technology wasn’t what made it perform though; the company had about 100 editors at one time to monitor search logs. Today, Ask also depends on crawler-technology using an algorithm called ExpertRank. Paid listings on Ask come from Google’s AdWords.

AOL Search: Provides users with editorial listings taken from Google’s crawler-based index. The main reason for use of AOL is if you are an AOL user. The “internal” version of the AOL Service provides links to content only available within the service, while the external version lacks these links. However, many of Google’s features, such as cached pages are not available through AOL Search. AOL duplicates the editorial and ad listings shown on Google. Get listed with one, and you’re listed with both.

AltaVista: Search results and listings come from Yahoo.

Lycos: Search results and listings come from Google. Paid listings from Ask, which also pulls from Google.

Netscape Search: Uses Google for its main listings. Netscape will also list some of its own content at the top of search results. Duplicates paid ad listings from Google AdWords.

Open Directory Project: Uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Not great as a search engine, but the directory compiles and submits their information to other search engines.

After reading the above list, you should already have the answer to that “Why” question clear in your mind. Not only do many of the Web’s search engines pull information and listings from Google, but Google is also the most used engine on the Web. It only makes sense to optimize your site towards the standards of the engine that has the greatest potential to bring visitors to your site. If your site can’t be found by the search engines, you miss out on opportunities available to those sites that do pull up via search- people who want what you have visiting your site and calling your number. Search engine traffic can make of break a company’s success, especially a web-only based business. Targeting site visitors can bring you publicity, revenue and exposure like no other form of marketing. So you know you want to optimize your site to Google and you know why, now let’s talk about the “How.”

So what’s the secret to ranking with Google?

There are a lot of search engine optimization companies, books, seminars, etc out there that will claim to know the “SECRET” to getting you a first page rank on Google. And the secret is… drum roll please…

There is no secret.

The only people that truly know how Google’s search algorithm works are the engineers at Google. It’s been speculated that there are over 100 separate components in the algorithm that determine how a site will appear when a user enters a certain keyword.*[2]  The better Google understands your site, the higher your chances of getting a good spot in the index. Make sense? An informed search engine optimizer learns what to do to a site in order for Google to properly recognize and categorize your site to achieve results through trial, error and continual research. There is no magic wand that you can wave over your site, no mysterious code or extraordinary tricks that you can use to increase your page rank with Google. Search engine optimization is a time-consuming, ongoing effort that requires dedication and hard work. You are NOT going to get a 1^st page ranking with Google on a brand new site overnight. It takes a little patience and application to get your site top rankings, especially with a brand new website, which can take up to 6 months to show up in the listings at all.

SEO firms that guarantee rankings are usually your first indication that you’re dealing with a firm that has a certain moral flexibility. No SEO can guarantee search engine rankings, because the search engines are responsible for the results; which, along with the methods in which they get the results, are constantly changing. Like those breakthrough weight loss programs you see on TV at 3am, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. High rankings in reputable engines come from having a great site with quality links and information. No sleight of hand or bunnies in hats required.

This is far from a definitive guide to SEO. It is an overview compiled from several online authorities and our personal experience on the subject of site optimization to give you a basic idea of how to get started. Search engine technology is constantly evolving and improving to bring the most relevant results to web users, but this in itself can be a double edged sword for SEO. The right techniques will bring visitors to your site, the wrong ones can bury your site so far down the search list that you’ll be hard pressed to ever find it. With competition online increasing, the companies that invest their time or revenue in SEO will be the ones that gain an advantage to reach customers.

Most of the options and tips I present in this article focus on “organic” rankings; options that are not pay-per-click or sponsored through paid advertising with the search engines. As a website developer, we can integrate any and all of these options into your website. Check our website under Search Engine Optimization for a list of services and pricing.

There are also SEO options that you can buy through Google’s AdWords program and companies that specialize in intensive optimizing; both of these can come with a slightly elevated price tag however. I’ve included some information and links to Google’s AdWords program and a few reputable SEO companies at the end of this article.

Organic Options for Search Engine Optimization

1)      Certain types of site navigation (the way visitors move through your site) may prevent search engines from being able to reach your content. Remember the crawler technology that we talked about? Search engine spiders crawl the web and use your navigation and hyperlinks to find changes to your site and decide which to revisit. For instance, pages that re-direct before showing content are often marked as cloaking and may actually be banned by Google for using this tactic. Pages more than three clicks deep away from the top navigation may also be ignored. If the page cannot be accessed from the homepage where most spiders begin to crawl, then it’s probably not going to wind up in the search engines.

2)      Document analysis: Search engines use this component to decide the relevance and popularity of a website or page according to the keywords or phrase being typed into search. The relevance of a page increases if the terms or phrase appears multiple times and shows up in the title of the work, important headlines or sub headers. This is document analysis. The best way to achieve strong document relevance is by providing your visitors with content, content and more content. The more you have to say about the product or service that you are selling, the more opportunity there is for that product or service to show up on a keyword search. This may sound very simple and straightforward, but it can be very time consuming to build a great deal of useful content into your site. Slogans and buzzwords will only get you so far. Artificially stuffing the site and Meta tags with keywords is an outdated and now frowned-upon tactic, search engines wised up to this technique and now filter site content through hundreds of different checks and measures before ranking their relevance.

3)      Link analysis: the importance of the page is also measured by citation, that is, it checks to see how many other works reference your page. The same way the academic world often measures the importance of a work- the credibility and popularity of that document increases with every other document or work that references it. Links have to be legitimate references to content. Link farms* [3]will get you blacklisted (dropped from the search engines completely) as such. Don’t be tempted by offers from Link Farms or other such companies with little content to offer. You’re better off with a couple reputable links than 100 shady ones. When Google does link analysis, they not only look at the number of links pointing to a site, they check the validity of the sites those links come from and rank your site up or down accordingly. For instance, if a link to your medical site is found on mayoclinic.com, your page rank will go up because this is reputable site. Conversely, if you are linked from buyviagracheap.com, it’s likely that Google will lower the ranking of your site. Solid, reputable site content and only partnering with other sites of similar high standards, is the best way to achieve this objective. Find other sites and people in which to enter into a symbiotic relationship and build your site’s reputation and content to achieve useful links that will earn you visitors rather than a spot on a banned list.

4)      Keyword Research: From your standpoint as a website owner, there are a couple of things you can do to improve the results of keyword research for your SEO or site developer. This step is where the search engine optimizer sits down and determines which search terms or phrases are most relevant to draw a targeted audience to your website. You don’t want hundreds of visitors coming to your page for plumbing supplies and tubing if your business focuses solely on selling decorative ceramic tile. Brainstorm beforehand and think of what your potential customers would likely type into the search engines if they were trying to find your product or service. You can also survey customers to expand this list and include as many terms and phrases as possible. Remember to consider alternative spellings, wordings, synonyms, plurals, etc. This will help to give both yourself and the web developer an idea of what keywords and phrases should be the best drivers of traffic to your site. The developer will then take your list and further analyze your keywords/phrases to determine those that should yield the best conversion rates*[4]- for example, the search term “gray squirrel” may get 600 searches per day, while “red squirrel” or “brown squirrels” only garner a few click-throughs. You’ll want to try and focus on one or two unique phrases on a single page at first. As the site grows and you gain legitimacy across the web, it will be easier to target multiple terms per page.

5)      Determine your target audience. I can’t stress this enough- when choosing search terms or phrases for your website- ALWAYS go for the specialized keywords that cater to a niche in your target market. This is especially true if your business caters to a regional, city-wide or otherwise localized audience. While search engine traffic for the term “boat” or “lake” may be considerably higher than “Lake Ozarks boat”, a searcher for the latter term is much more likely to become a customer than one simply searching the terms “boat” or “lake.” This greatly increases the conversion rate possibilities for your keywords, by placing you in a level of competition that is much more manageable.

6)      Accessibility: Keeping your site updated and in good working condition is another critical piece in the success of crawler’s ability to index and rank your site for search engines. If these components are faulty, both crawlers and site visitors will leave your site for a competitor’s instead.
- Avoid broken links. Make sure that your links on your site to other areas of the site or to external sites are kept updated and checked on a regular basis. Otherwise, visitors and search engines will not have access to the content that the link points to.
- Too much info: Try to break information out into individual pages, rather than grouping it together. Pages over 150K, are often not fully indexed and valuable content may not be picked up by the search engines. Smaller file sizes also means faster loading for your visitors.
- Keep content search friendly. Flash sites with lots of animations may be pretty look at, but they suffer greatly in the area of SEO. Spiders cannot read text in Java applications, Macromedia flash files, in images, or via a submit form or similar action. This means that any text in these formats can’t be found by the search engines!
-Sneak tactics can get you banned. NEVER try to hide text by making it the same color as the background to stuff a page with keywords. This is what’s called a “black hat” technique and your site may be reported for spamming. If the search engines catch it, your site will be de-listed entirely.
- Keyword stuffing (forcibly repeating a word throughout the text of a page) is no longer a helpful trick for increasing search engine rank. So there is no need to write ridiculous, unnatural sounding paragraphs that repeat the name of your service or product to exhaustion. Keep the text on-topic and high quality. Search engines use a refined lexical analysis to find quality pages and sites as well as researchers to identify elements of high-quality writing. Great writing, not stuffing keywords into the site every which way they will fit, is what provides benefits to rankings… and your visitors.

7)      Site Architecture: Search rankings can be affected by the navigation and structure of your website. Ease of navigation can also make or break a site in regards to visitor usability; if the site is difficult to move through or visitors cannot find information, they will leave your site for one in which they can.
- Sitemaps are an area graphical representation of a site’s architecture; they help improve search engine optimization by making sure that all the pages can be found. This is especially crucial for sites that are purely Macromedia Flash or use a navigational structure other than HTML links, such as JavaScript menus. Sitemaps also help with large sit