Search Engine Optimization

Tuesday, February 21, 2006 | Tagged as optimization, search engine, seo

In last month’s article we took a look at the foundational steps of creating a new Internet presence, and out of that article came a number of questions related to building your Web site so that it shows up in the top 3 listings in search engines, namely Google! This question came up a number of times either because someone has been approached by an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) consultant asking for lots of money for “guaranteed” top rankings on Google, Yahoo, and other search engines, or because their organization has been able to gain top placement but has continued to fail.

First, let me address the question about search engine optimization consultants. There are a number of reputable search engine optimization consultants in the industry. However there are many who promise guaranteed submission to 600,000 search engines and directories and instant top rankings. Be very cautious of any company who promises you these types of results; in fact, run! It is impossible to guarantee instant top rankings unless you are the creator of that specific search engine, or unless you have the one unique key phrase that no one in the entire world uses but your company. A reputable search engine consultant will spend the time to talk with you and inform you of what it will take to increase your visibility on search engines since ultimately it�s the search engine who decides your placement. The reputable search engine consultant will know how to make your Web site more visible to search engines so it can be ranked well.

Now let’s begin discussing some simple strategies you can implement within the next week that can increase your visibility to search engines.
Each Page is Individual

Now you’re probably asking yourself, what does that mean? I’m glad you asked! Many times when businesses are submitting their Web sites to search engines they are saying, “I want my Web site to be ranked high in the search engines.“ However, there is a much stronger way to look at your Web site - look at each individual page as its own submission to search engine. Each page has its own important content.  This means people doing a search on Blue Widgets, for example, will see http://www.firstcompany.com/bluewidget, and those people searching for Orange Widgets will see http://www.firstcompany.com/orangewidget in the search engine results.

People typically are not searching by the company name (unless they already know you); rather, they are searching for a specific product or service. So this means if you have 10 products and 5 services, you have a potential of being located in 15 different ways instead of just one!  This makes your Web site very powerful!

Search Engines Read Like Humans

When was the last time you opened a Web site and scroll immediately to the bottom of the Web page and started to read from the bottom up? Probably not too often. Well, search engines are similar in their thinking; they start at the top of the page and work their way down. They are also working off the assumption that your most important content is on the top of the page while your least important content is on the bottom of the page. With this in mind, take a look at your Web site and note the most important part of the message you want your audience to read.
Write Descriptive Page Titles

By making your page titles simple yet descriptive you are going a long way to help search engines understand what each page is about. Remember, the most important content is at the top of the page, therefore, the title is one of the first things search engines will see. Some people will even tell you this is the most important element of your page. I often see companies that want to include the company name in the title of every page, and so this is telling the search engines that each page is exactly the same as the rest. I have found the following structure to work well:

Page Title - Section Name - Site or Company Name (Company Name Optional)

Remember to give each page a descriptive title, and to not duplicate the page titles. Additionally, if you think people would find this page by searching on blue widgets, add blue widgets to your title.
Write Good, Descriptive Content

When I am asked to improve the visibility of a client’s Web site I first learn how people would find this company. So let’s continue using our example of the blue widget. Next, I start looking at the content and the number one thing I find is that the words blue widget are no where to be found on the page or on the site. If you are expecting people to find your company using blue widget it better be used in your content. You will want to use blue widget a number of times on the page (not abusively, but enough so that people know that this page is about blue widgets).

A second problem I often run into is that the content is too short and too simple. Your content needs to be useful to the people reading your Web site, and good content brings visitors back to your site.

Finally, good content also means keeping your content fresh. If you content is not fresh people will not want to waste their time visiting a site that is constantly out of date with no new information.

No matter what, you cannot have good search engine visibility if your content is lacking. Content is king!
Use Descriptive Links

Search engines examine the way you write your links, and take high value in the way you write your links. So if you are linking to a page about blue widgets and you write the following:

“CLICK HERE”

Guess what? Search engines are going to look at this and not know what to make of it, but if you write the link this way:

“Click here for Blue Widgets”

Now search engines will know that you are linking to a page about blue widgets. To also improve the visibility of your page, consider naming your page the same as the search phrase.

Blue Widgets - http://www.firstcompany.com/blue-widgets

Get Linked To

Incoming links to your site is very important for search engine optimizations. Search engines look at the number of sites linking to you as a way of judging if this site has valued content.

Submit Your Site

You do not have to submit your site to every search on the Web. It is really crazy how search engines work because there are some search engines that only read the results of other search engines. So it’s important to submit your site to few large search engines:

Also, it is important to not try to fool the search engines by using keyword manipulation, cloaking, alt text spamming, link farms, and other questionable methods. Each search engine is smart enough to detect these methods and each have their own ways of dealing with these sites.

In Summary

You might be looking at your site and already be thinking of a few things you can be doing different immediately that can effect your visibility to search engines. If you are interested in learning more about this topic here are few Web sites that provide a wealth of information about search engine optimization:

If you are interesting in having Synergema assist your company in their search engine optimization, please contact us.

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