Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) (Optimisation in some countries)

Overview

Search engine optimization (SEO) has gained credibility and is now vitally important in a company’s effort to conduct business online, to build traffic and increase revenues.

SEO is also known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Positioning (SEP) and various other titles. Search Engine Optimization is a service that “optimizes” or prepares your web site in order for it to be spidered, indexed and ranked by major search engines. Over 400 million searches are performed EVERY DAY on the various engines, and business owners today are seeing that they need to take a piece of that action and be prominently listed to be found by the potential customers performing these searches. Not being ranked prominently literally means giving business to your competitors that are ranked!

The following report is designed to share information with you about the service, techniques used and questions you must ask any Search Engine Optimisation company before working with them. Become an educated consumer will help you make the best possible Search Engine Optimisation decisions.

Search Engine Optimisation services have many wonderful benefits, and a long term commitment to a correct Search Engine Optimization campaign, done properly with targeted keywords and ethical techniques can produce great returns on your investment.

Search Engine Optimization Firms

There are hundreds of Search Engine Optimisation firms out there today, all varying in skill level as well as experience. Our goal is to help you learn what is important in an Search Engine Optimization company and to know what questions to ask to compare services and benefits to you.

There are Search Engine Optimisation companies that focus only on SEO, and some say that targeted focus will deliver the most benefit to you. We disagree with that opinion and feel that your best bet is with a Search Engine Optimisation company that can look at your big picture and help in other important areas, such as web design and maintenance, other marketing techniques and technical help. True, the company must have experience in all areas and should be able to provide references, case studies and samples of their work to earn your trust and respect. The main fact to remember here is just because other people in the company have the ability to help you in other areas, does not mean that your SEO consultant will be any less focused on their task at hand. A company that has staff experienced in other areas can only maximize your potential online and they work with on various other projects.

Be very wary of companies that promise results that seem to good to be true, they usually are. Companies that assure you they can gain numerous top 5 or top 10 rankings within days are most likely using less than ethical techniques that can actually harm your site and result in you being banned from the engines in the future. It is realistic to expect numerous top 20 rankings within a period of a few weeks to 4 months (depending on past ranking history, site SEO readiness and various other factors).

Be sure to ask any Search Engine Optimisation company what methods and techniques they use to achieve your rankings, and when you can expect to receive them by. Read further to see an overview of acceptable techniques.

Content is King

Good content sells a product but content is also an important part of SEO. Ask yourself the following questions. Does your copy convey the message you wish to get across to your visitors? Is it compelling? Does it lead your visitor through the sales process? Have others review, critique and edit your copy to insure it is delivering the intended message. 

Then ask yourself the following questions:  Does your copy contain all of your keywords from your HTML meta-tags?  Is each keyword repeated at least ten times?  Have you made sure that you have not over-saturated your copy with your keywords?  If a keyword is repeated too many times the search engines will penalize you for 'keyword spam'. 

Always double check your spelling and grammar. Not only will poor spelling and grammar drive away your customers it will also drive away the search engines particularly if you have mis-spelt one or more of your keywords. 

These simple rules will go a long way toward the improvement of your website and most importantly, turn visitors into loyal customers and search engines into friends.
 

Software

You will encounter many automated software services that will claim to submit you to thousands of engines and gain you so many rankings, this has become a popular and confusing trend – as companies see the opportunity to automate the process and gain profit for little work. These software packages appear attractive, due to their ease of use and low cost. The old saying, you get what you pay for is true once again. Without the proper education and understanding of the SEO process, you are limiting your success – you need to know what criteria the engines have in place to ensure your site’s SEO readiness, you need to know when to submit and how often to submit (and this varies from engine to engine). Over submitting can harm you and under submitting does not really benefit you. Also submitting a site that does not meet their basic criteria, will not gain you the rankings you are looking for. With that being said, I'm sure you can see that the investment in the software or automated service actually didn't benefit you and could potentially jeopardize your ability to be ranked in the future.

Page Rank

Another Google PageRank update appears to be underway or near completion. What that means for search engine optimization is a matter of debate inside the industry. But along PageRank toolbars, ranking has increased for lower ranked sites while it has decreased for previously higher ranked sites. This indicates that there is something to PageRank, even if the industry aficionados don't always agree on what. The general consensus, however, is that PageRank is not as important for your site, as it is for other sites linking to your site. That is, if a highly ranked and trusted site links to yours, you get more credibility. Ultimately that can mean higher search result rankings for competitive keywords. PageRank, therefore, seems to be only a very small (but somewhat important) part of the overall equation. PageRank is judged primarily on a website's link volume, link age, and link value. Most authorities in the SEO industry, including both individuals and companies have denounced the once mythical status of PageRank. At one time, PageRank was so valuable that companies were willing to pay to increase their website's PageRank (through link buying). As recently as a couple of years ago, high PageRank meant high rankings nearly all the time. Hundreds of posts in the more popular SEO forums and blogs, though, have shown that the PageRank update has had ranging effects. Like all PageRank updates new websites are seeing increases in PageRank. Most new websites we see are being indexed anywhere between PR1 to PR5. Many sites previously ranked PR3 or PR4 have seen a one point increase.

Paid Inclusion

Paid inclusion refers to fee based listings in engines and directories, such as: Yahoo!, LookSmart, Teoma, Ask Jeeves, Alta Vista, Lycos, Inktomi and FAST. Fees range from a per URL cost of $20-$50 for each page of your site you want included to an annual fee of $300-$500 for a directory listing.

When looking into paid inclusion programs, you'll always want to know some of the recent history with the search engine or directory. Be careful not to put yourself in a situation where you are liable for higher fees than you agreed to, or where you can be automatically transferred to a PPC model. It is best if your Search Engine Optimisation Company will handle these paid inclusions for you. You are often still responsible for the fees, but your Search Engine Optimisation Company should handle the submission process for you.

Consider very seriously Google.  With Google Adwords   you can get an advert for you site into the Google search pages and also onto thousands of other sites and only pay if someone clicks on the advert to go to your site.  THIS CAN BE VERY COST EFFECTIVE because YOU decide how much you are willing to pay for the click.  Most people who use Google Adwords pay more for clicks on the search engine and a much lesser amount for clicks on other websites.  TIP: Start with a very low amount and gradually increase this until you are getting the traffic you need.

Service Components

SEO services have evolved into a complex process that involves staying aware daily of the changes in the engines and their criteria and utilizing many optimization techniques to ensure the best possible rankings.

Aside from optimizations, it is important to have the basic key elements of your site meet the engines criteria – essentially ensuring that your site is “SEO ready” or “SEO friendly.”

If you take 2 sites – one SEO friendly and one not, optimize them both identically and submit them at the same time – you will see better rankings faster on the site that is SEO friendly. The engines require that your site be valid from a SEO friendliness perspective and reward with higher rankings for compliance with their criteria. Criteria is subject to change and an effective SEO Company will stay informed daily about the most current information.

Current criteria is as follows; your copy should be high in keyword rich text, and there should be at least 5 pages (Content Is King – relevant keyword rich text is their most important criteria), your site should be static and not have dynamically delivered content that the engines can't read, header tags and ALT tags also draw spiders attention to your site, Flash and over usage of graphics also pose a problem for the engines, sites in frames can often not be read, as well as various other criteria.

Keywords

Keyword research is the first and most vital step in the SEO process. Keywords are the foundation for your campaign and can make or break it.

You will want a company that is thorough in it’s research, a company that asks your input, researches your competitors and gives you final approval on their recommended list.

It cannot be emphasizes enough that TARGETED keywords are the only way to go. Your keywords must be relevant to your content and should attract the kind of traffic you can actually convert into customers. Let this example illustrate for you the benefit in targeted keywords.

If you sell diesel, and you select the following keywords: diesel, cars, (name of specific) ________ diesel, and maintenance – what would you expect from those keywords? People often think that (in this example) the keywords cars and maintenance are a big coop. Think of all that traffic. Now let’s look at this way, what good is traffic if it isn't targeted? Sure you may catch the attention of a few people that accidentally wander onto your site – but what are the chances that someone who types cars into an engine are actually looking to purchase diesel. Can you see that you have essentially wasted a keyword here? Whereas, if you select (name of specific)_________ diesel as a keyword – can you see where, yes you may get less traffic but that traffic would actually be looking for exactly what you offer – therefore that traffic is automatically more valuable to you.

The point of our little tangent is simply that the keywords you select are key (no pun intended) and the proper energy, time and experience needs to be used to select these words.

Body Text

Body text is THE key component in the your Search Engine Optimization strategy. Your text MUST include the keywords and phrases that tell about your business, its products and services. Be sure your SEO Company will analyze your body text for keyword ratio and relevancy. Without this very important correct ratio of keyword rich text, you will not see the results you are hoping for and could be achieving, no matter how talented the SEO Company is.

Title Tags

The title tag is one of the most important components of SEO since it is given great consideration by all the search engines. The title is also important because it is usually the hyper linked sentence that leads to the site from the search engine results pages and users must be enticed to click on it. It is crucial to include your company’s top key terms within the title tag.

Hidden Text

Hidden text is another spamming technique that is easily detectable. Often people change the font color to the same as the background, and then SEO companies can fill the pages with enormous amounts of key term text that some believe is appealing to the search engine spiders. This will result in you being banned from the engines – do not allow your SEO company to employ this method.

Cloaking

Cloaking is a spamming technique that uses specific software programs to send search engine spiders to alternative pages that are not seen by the user. These pages mislead the spider, allowing it to deliver the results based on these pages rather than the actual pages the public sees on the site. Spamming/cloaking is a very serious offence in the eyes of the engines, and usually results in your site being permanently banned.

Doorway/Gateway Pages

Doorway or gateway pages are highly effective when created properly. They are keyword rich static pages that work behind the scenes – they are not cloaking and they are not unethical – as they are created properly. They must contain relevant information, and be static as well as keyword rich. They are basically simple content pages )that your users will most likely never see). The reason they are legit, is that they are openly linked from your site (usually with small dots that your visitors don't click on, but it is still considered a valid link by the engines) and are relevant to your site’s content.

Promotional Domains

Promotional domains are used as a secondary, yet integrated domain location for the engines to visit and rank. If the primary domain is not SEO friendly, or the owner does not want the original site altered, this is an effective technique. You must ensure that you own the new site and optimizations and that they reside on your server.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are the descriptive terms used within the HTML code of a web page. Your meta tags act as a summary of the content a search engine spider might find on that page and were once one of the main factors behind great placements. Current algorithmic studies have shown that the meta tag is no longer such an important part of your optimizations. Although most engines don't use meta tags in their ranking algorithms, they do display them in the results which can help with getting people to click onto your site. Overall, the engines are unpredictable and criteria changes, so keeping the meta tags strong, relevant and descriptive of your content is too important to forego.

Reporting

Ensure that you are receiving a detailed and easy to read and understand report from your SEO Company at least once a month so you may track results.

Submission

Your submissions to the top engines should be done manually and based on each engines time frame. This is very important.

Conclusion

There are many SEO companies, and techniques that should and shouldn't be used. Stay informed, ask questions and be involved in your campaign. Best wishes for your success online!

Below are some questions you should ask any SEO firm before you proceed with their services.

1. Do you have any initial or set up fees? How much and what are they for?
2. Are there ongoing fees and how much are they?
3. Is a monthly follow up necessary?
4. How long is my term of service?
5. Do you offer a Guarantee?
6. Are there any services you provide over and above your packages?
7. Do I own the work you do for me? Where does it sit?
8. Do you provide regular reports and how often are they provided?
9. When will I start seeing results?
10. What engines do you submit to?
11. What about foreign search engines?
12. Do you assist in converting traffic into buyers or solid leads?
13. What's more important in your strategy, free submissions or paid submissions?
14. What about past results? Do you provide references and testimonials?
15. What techniques do you use to optimize my site?
16. Do I have access to anyone on your staff, so I receive personalized service and can ask questions at anytime?
17. How do I know my site will be kept up to date and current with the latest criteria and technologies?

Glossary of Terms

Directory
A server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing Internet web pages and returning lists of pages, which match particular queries. Directories are normally compiled manually, by user submission and often involve an editorial selection and/or categorization process (such as at LookSmart and Yahoo).

Dynamic Content
Information on web pages that change or are changed automatically, e.g. based on database content or user information. Sometimes it's possible to spot that this technique is being used, e.g. if the URL ends with .asp, .cfm, .cgi or .shtml. It is possible to serve dynamic content using standard (normally static) .htm or .html type pages, though.

Hand Submission
The manual delivery of a site to the major search engines to help increase site position. The submission process is handled by a technician rather than through an automated software system.

Index
Refers to the database of web pages maintained by a search engine or directory.

Keyword
A word or 2-3 word phrase that forms (part of) a search engine query.

Keyword Consultation
A thorough analysis of your best possible keywords. As well as research into your competitors to help select the keywords for your campaign.

Keyword Density
An indication of how often a keyword appears. Some search engines use this property for positioning. Pages can then be produced with the similar keyword densities to those found in high-ranking pages.

Link Popularity
A measure of the number and quality of inbound links to a particular site. Many search engines are increasingly using this number as part of their ranking algorithm. The number and quality of inbound links is becoming as important as the optimization of page content.

Optimization
Changes made to a web page that improves the positioning of that page with one or more search engines.

Placement / Positioning
The process of ordering web sites or web pages by a search engine or a directory so that the most relevant sites appear first in the search results for a particular query.

Relevancy Algorithm
The method a search engine or directory uses to match the keywords in a query with the content of each web page, so that the web pages found can be ordered suitably in the query results. Each search engine or directory is likely to use a different algorithm, and to change or improve its algorithm from time to time.

SEO
Search Engine Optimization (Search Engine Optimisation)

SEO Friendliness and Site analysis
Site analysis is a report we deliver outlining problems with your site and suggest changes in order to meet the engines basic criteria. It may involve suggestions in the following areas: design/layout changes, new text for the title-tags, meta-tags, alt- attributes, headings, and changes to the body text.

Spamming
Spamming is the term used to refer to the manipulation of the search engine submission and indexing process in order to maliciously control the outcome of a query entry.

Spider
That part of a search engine which surfs the web, storing the URLs and indexing the keywords and text of each page it finds.

Title
The text contained between the start and end HTML tags of the same name. This text is associated with (but not displayed in) the web page containing these tags, and is displayed in a special position (usually at the top of the window) by the web browser.

Don't confuse this text with heading text within the web page, which often looks like the title. Usually this will be rendered either using the HTML heading tags or just rendered with a large font size.