Search Engine Optimization

In the beginning, (not much more than 10 years ago), websites were relatively few, and finding content was not difficult. As the number of sites and the categories of content increased, panels of folks (human users) scoured the young “World Wide Web” to find, evaluate and index web content. They created “directories,” (Yahoo being the most famous), to which people could go to find collections of site links organized by relevance to particular interests. These human “web crawlers” also made editorial decisions, placing “better” websites higher in the directory listings.

As the web grew by leaps and bounds, it became increasingly impractical and then impossible for humans to seek out sites for manual categorization. The multiplicity of sites also made it essential that tools be provided web users for use in finding what they needed within the shear volume of information available.

Thus, “search engines” were born.

“Search engines” manipulate sortable lists of indexed entries that “live” on the machines of various companies, (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves, AltaVista, etc.). When you use Google to “search the web” for “sneakers,” Google’s engine does not actually look out on the web for a listing, but rather, returns a list of links from its own internally stored index. That list is created and ordered based upon a proprietary algorithm (each search engine has its own) that determines the relevancy of those links to your search term, (in this case, “sneakers”).

Now a search for “sneakers” is not likely to be too helpful, because it will return a list of more than 14 million links, (as of early 2007)! One might understandably wonder, how did Google know about all those places to go on the web?! The answer is from “spiders.”

Spiders, (also called “robots” or “bots”), are simple, text-reading programs that “crawl” the web reading content. They find their way from one resource to another by using readable “links” within the pages and are able to read the code and the copy of each page. (Importantly, spiders cannot at this time execute scripts or read Flash and other compiled programs, and so, will miss links hidden within these.) The spiders read your site’s content, they explore the links that lead from it and to it, and they “report back” to the engine, (e.g. Google), to provide the info for indexing. Unlike the human readers of the early, Yahoo directory days, spiders cannot decide whether a site has good content or strong relevance to a particular search term. They simply bring back the info to the search engine where a programmatic decision is made as to how the site should be indexed.

Web users can find your site by knowing its url and putting that directly into their browser, (www.yoursite.com). They may have learned it from a friend or seen it on your card or your advertising. They may also have clicked a link on someone else’s site that leads them to yours, (this is a good thing)!

However, the overwhelming majority of people who find their way to your site without prior knowledge of its existence will be led there by a search engine. (That is, of course, if the structure and content of your page has been deemed relevant to the search words the user put into the engine to start!)

There are three principals within the search process.

The user searching for information
The information/service/product provider (website owner)
The search engine

If all goes well, the desires of all three will be met, for each wants the interaction to produce a quick, efficient connection between the service/product seeker and those best suited to meet his needs.

Some important facts regarding the behavior of online searchers are worth noting here.

First, searchers tend to begin by searching broadly and then narrow their searches by refining their search terms, (e.g. from “sneakers” as above, to “nike sneakers” to “nike sneakers on sale new york”).

Second, searchers do not usually pay much attention to paid listings on search pages, (the ones in color at the top or along the side of the page). 80-85% of the time, searchers will only click upon the central, so-called “organic” listings. (These are the ones whose listing is an actual reflection of the search engine’s algorithm.)

Third, searchers will often not read beyond the first page of listings, and will rarely read beyond page two.

Fourth, searchers tend to believe that if your site is listed high, it must mean that you are “good” at what you do.

If, as we have seen, it is the search engines that drive most traffic to the less well known sites, (amazon.com does not need to worry about its search engine placement), then it behooves the site owner to do whatever he/she can to give both the reading public and the search engines what they want. The process of accomplishing this is referred to as “search engine optimization,” or SEO.

SEO is a huge topic and a burgeoning industry. There are books written about it and consulting firms that may charge millions for optimizing the websites of companies that depend upon web sales for their huge profits.

For the small to medium business, however, many important improvements to websites and their listings can be made quite economically. Success in such an endeavor will depend upon fruitful interaction between the site owners, the web developer and site writers/editors. Also, and importantly, some truths about the process must be accepted.

1. There is no “guaranteed way to get on the first page of Google.”

Individuals who offer such promises are charlatans who take money and
disappear or who use “black hat” SEO (see below) to get quick but damaging
results.

2. Successful SEO takes time and patience.

It often takes many months to begin seeing the fruits of one’s labors in this area,
and truly successful SEO involves ongoing changes to sites to highlight what
works and modify as needed.

3. “Black Hat” SEO must be avoided.

Schemes to fool the search engines, (e.g. hidden links, mirror pages, excessively
repeated content) are collectively known as “black hat” SEO, and often lead to
black listing of a site by the search engines. When Google or Yahoo think they are
being spammed, they will likely remove your site for a long time or forever!

1. Make certain that you have a “standards-compliant” site that is structured to be readable by the spiders. Javascript or Flash-based navigation will prove an impediment to proper indexing.

2. Put yourself in the place of your potential customer. What is he/she likely to be thinking when trying to learn more about your products or services? How is that person likely to search for you, and what sorts of terms might he/she use? Once you have a list of such word groups or phrases (known as “keywords”), CSoft can investigate to see how often searches are performed using them and how stiff the competition is for those keywords.

3. Once a keyword list is settled upon, your writer and CSoft will need to begin modifications to your site to incorporate the keyword content. This will need to be done in various aspects of the code as well as the readable page copy, but should be done in a way that leaves the text readable and effective for your human visitors! Every page of your site can be optimized, or certain “landing” pages can be singled out for change.

4. Once a preliminarily altered page is available and online, CSoft can analyze its content by comparing it to those of competitors who score high with the important search engines. By repetitive analysis, conclusions can be drawn about how to more effectively structure your page(s) without having to truly know the engine’s ranking algorithm.

5. Pages can be added to your site to improve its content for certain keywords and internal links placed throughout to the new page(s).

6. Pages can and should be altered to contain outgoing links to web resources the search engines are likely to find relevant to your search terms. Taking users to other sites that are ranked highly for your search terms can elevate your listing as well. (This obviously must be done carefully to avoid directing traffic to competitors.)

7. Even more important than outgoing links are incoming links. Your marketing/communications people and CSoft can work to secure quality links from other websites that are ranked well with the engines. This can often be facilitated by a so-called “reciprocal” link being placed upon your site.

8. Log analysis should be done periodically to review your site traffic and to see what urls and domains are making the most referrals. Seeing what pages are most and least used may help you to modify your site periodically to better “give them what they want.”