Although there are billions and billions of pages on the World Wide Web, and it’s arguably one of the most diverse and democratic ideas our culture has ever produced, it’s still dominated by a few big boys. And none of those big boys is bigger than Google — the 800 lb. gorilla of the online world, whose search engine is the gateway to the Web for much of the world.
Because of Google’s dominance, as well as the presence of many lesser search engines, success in today’s online-centric world is often directly relatable to just how high you can climb up the rankings of the world’s most powerful search engine. Doing this, however, can be a tricky proposition because Google is awfully tight-lipped about how the ever-changing algorithm behind its search engine works. This has given rise to a discipline called Search Engine Optimization. SEO, as it’s often called, is the art and science of making Web sites, or particularly Web pages, more friendly and accessible to search engines. When done right, it can touch nearly every aspect of your site, from the programming and code to the design and writing.
Let’s examine this issue by asking, and answering, a few key questions.
Question One: Why is SEO important?
It probably goes without saying that the highest-ranking searches returned by Goggle or other search engines receive the most click-throughs. But what is startling is just how top-heavy those click-through results are. When an Internet user searches using keywords, the visibility percent is listed as follows for the top ten results:
Rank 1 100%
Rank 2 100%
Rank 3 100%
Rank 4 85%
Rank 5 60%
Rank 6 50%
Rank 7 50%
Rank 8 30%
Rank 9 30%
Rank 10 20%In other words, less than half of searchers ever see a site listed 8th on the page. A mere one-fifth see the site ranked 10th.
Thus, the higher the rank, the greater the chance an Internet user will choose to visit your site. As for those sites ranked outside the top 30 for any particular keyword search, they might as well be invisible. Research has shown that users hardly ever go beyond the top 30 search engine rankings for a single search (according to Forrester Research Inc.). It is estimated that the top 30 results receive over 90% of search traffic.
Question Two: What on-the-page factors influence my ranking and how can I improve them?
Keyword optimization
All search engines rank as an index by keyword. Thus, when you are optimizing your site, you optimize for a particular keyword, sets of keywords, or phrases. Keeping that in mind, a question such as "How does my page rank on Google?" is a meaningless musing. A valid question would be "How does my page rank on Google when someone queries XYZ". Therefore, be wary of people promising to "increase your rank on Google". Without any more qualifications than that, making your page rank at the number one spot for "Turbid Hamster Sunday Jet Race" would both fulfill such a promise as well as introduce your site to a new and interesting — and utterly worthless — demographic.It's important to note that the rules for ranking pages constantly change. In point of fact, the old reliable methods of stuffing meta tags and repeating keywords have become not only useless but detrimental. Google and others now view such efforts as intentionally deceptive and, more often than not, will reduce a page's ranking for a gross over-playing of keywords.
So, how do you improve your site's ranking? While there are entire books written on this subject, there are a few core concepts that are guaranteed to increase your pages' rankings in relevance to its target keyword(s).
Create good content
No, really. Many people are actually surprised to learn that the most effective way to have a page rank higher for a particular keyword, is to have content that is relevant to that keyword. For optimum consideration, copy should be written with a keyword weight of around 5% and should consist of about 300 words per page.Choose the right keywords
Not all keywords are equal. Once the content for your site has been created, the appropriate keywords for that content then need to be assigned. A good measure of such keyword effectiveness is the KEI, or Keyword Effectiveness Index. The KEI compares the number of times a keyword appears in your copy with the number of competing Web pages, to determine the viability of a particular keyword for your site. "Baseball Bat" is different from "Baseball Bats", which is also different from Baseball Bats, without quotes (adding quotes searches the two words only when found together on the page, whereas a search without quotes will return results that merely contain the two words anywhere on the page).There are several tools available to calculate the KEI for a particular site, which are inexpensive and readily available.
In general, more descriptive phrases, such as "Iowa Flood Insurance Company" are more beneficial than less descriptive, more competitive phrases like "Flood Insurance".
Place the keywords appropriately
The keywords for your site can find usefulness not only in your body copy, but in other areas such as between header tags and within title tags. In fact, Google in particular is very structured in its identification of text, so even placing keywords within bold tags can help a page rank higher for a particular keyword or phrase.Expose your navigation
Make sure that all your important pages are accessible by clear text links. If your site utilizes javascript-based or flash-based navigation, you must also provide a means of reaching these pages through common text links. Creating a sitemap page can assist with this, as well as a variety of secondary navigation techniques.Include some out-bound links
Pages that are optimized for Google will score best when there are at least a few links to outside sites that are related to similar topics, because this establishes a page's reputation as an authority. Even if these sites do not link back to yours, they can still increase the page ranking.Pay attention to your sandbox
"Sandboxing" is an algorithm of indexing a site's pages by the frequency of its updates. Pages are ranked higher when they are more frequently updated. Inclusions of highly-updated content such as blogs and news posting can significantly increase a site's ranking.Question Three: What off-the-page factors influence my ranking and how can I improve them?
There are many factors a site can employ that do not exist on the site itself.
In-Bound links
A large contribution to a site's ranking is attributed to how many other sites with similar content link back to that particular site. When more sites of similar content and of a high page rank link to your site, the higher your rank will be. Getting others to link to you is possibly the most cost-effective way to increase the page rank. Often, it merely takes a simple "Link to me and I'll link to you" phone call. It's a win-win that most people don't reject.Submitting to Directories
It helps to let people know you exist. Submitting your site to Google will ensure your site gets indexed. Above and beyond that, however, there are directories to which you can purchase an inclusion. In fact, the two directories, Open Directory Project and Yahoo! can help your page's visibility and ranking. Directories such as Yahoo! are actually reviewed by humans and are largely trusted for their relevance.Because the directories are compiled by humans and for humans (unlike the search engine listings which are compiled by robots for humans), the relevancy of directory results is very high and search engines know that. Almost any search engine spider starts its regular crawl at a directory like Yahoo!
Additionally, directories themselves have high Page Rank values (as a rule). Thus, when the directories link to your site, that counts as a high-ranking site linking directly to you.
It is possible to get listed in Yahoo! for free. Submitting for free does not guarantee a site will be included, but if the reviewers think the content is worthwhile, they will include it in the directory. Otherwise, there is a cost for submission.
Question Four: Does everyone need Search Engine Optimization?
If your business relies on your Web site to generate leads or make sales, then SEO is something you should be doing on some level. Doing all the things listed above may be overkill if your Web site is just a small part of your marketing mix, but some simple SEO has value for nearly everyone.
Of course, no amount of SEO can take the place of good offline marketing. Search engine rankings are always a response to a consumer’s request and therefore can’t build brands, raise mass awareness or change consumer behavior. Those things require an integrated effort aimed at building a brand over the long term.