SEO Explained -
When talking to clients about marketing their business online I am often asked “How do you get to #1 on Google?” This article is not specially geared to how to become #1 – but I’ll explain what the process is and what is involved.
Despite our widespread acceptance and use of the internet – I am surprised by how many people really have no idea what search engine optimization (SEO) is all about. They instinctively know WHY they like to click on a listing in the search results; but they don’t have a clue how it got there. That’s okay, we can help.
I ask clients WHY they click on a specific listing. Most believe it’s the “best result” for the phrase they typed into the search box -and- it’s usually one of the first results or at least on the first page. However, they do not have a clue as to how or why it got there.
What is SEO?
SEO is the process of configuring a web site so that it has a chance to show up in a search result for a “particular phrase”. Using a particular phrase is our way of telling Google, Yahoo, or MSN what we think our site is about. Many of the search engines have a slightly different formula for how they determine these results. But the short version is that they look at different factors of each web site page, rank them and then give those results to you.
Why is SEO Important?
One word sums it up – competition. Depending on what study you read, there are as many as 20 billion web pages being indexed at any given time. The major search engines do their best to go through these pages and index them so that they can tell you about it if you use their web site to search. With so many web site pages out there competing for similar phrases it is absolutely critical to make sure you are using every tool at your disposal to make sure your customers can find you when they are looking.
What Should I Be Doing for SEO On My Site?
People often ask, “Why doesn’t my site show up for this specific search term?” Usually, it is due to the fact that they never mention that term or phrase on their site, in their page titles, in their descriptions or keywords. Please understand, when considering content for your site and researching keywords and terms for SEO – it is crucial to use the terms you and your clients use! No one knows your business better than you, so your input during this time is of utmost importance.
The good news is that doing SEO correctly is not complicated. The bad news is that it takes time and requires regular attention in order to maintain those results.
We follow these simple guidelines for best long-term results:
Good site structure -
As simple as this sounds many people overlook this. Every day we see sites with heavy flash animation, dated frame designs, pages that don’t work and broken links. The bottom line is that if you can’t easily navigate a site without problems chances are the search engines can’t either. And if a search engine can’t go through your site – you have absolutely no chance of showing up for a key phrase – no matter how pretty the flash.
Good meta-data -
Clients often draw a blank with this one. Meta-data is geek for the page titles, page descriptions and keywords that you enter for each page. Each page on your web site should have a unique title, description and keywords that summarizes what that page is about.
We often see 2 problems with meta-data. The first is that it is simply overlooked. I am stunned at how many sites have “Home Page” as the page title or www.yoursite.com for every page – that’s wasting prime online real estate.
The 2nd problem is spam. Putting in a page title or description that does not accurately match what the page is about is considered “spamming” a search engine. Doing this will get your page thrown out of the index and ruin any chance of showing up for a key phrase.
Relevant Content -
People seem to understand that good content is really what they are looking for when they search for something. By “relevant” we mean that the content is specific to the topic in question. Plus – we are seeing sites that have regular updates or blogs that show up higher in the search results than sites which have larger quantities of older or stale content.
Our recommendation is to add well-written, grammatically correct and spell-checked content to your web site on a regular basis. This ensures that, over time, your site will become a “resource” to those searching for the phrases related to your business.
Responsible link building -
This is perhaps the least understood part of SEO. In a nutshell search engines consider a link from another web site to your web site as a popularity vote. Think of it as power rankings for web sites. In general the more sites which link to yours, the better; as this shows your site is relevant to the given topic.
Link building, just like keywords and meta-data, have been abused by many site owners with schemes including link farms where sites are setup simply to link to other sites. We encourage careful and responsible link building with sites that are related to yours and through appropriate directories and articles.
So there you have it – SEO explained. Like most things it’s not really that hard, but it does require discipline, careful consideration and maintenance. If you would like help with SEO for your web site, or other online business needs we would love to hear from you.
