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| The Basics of Implementing an SEO Campaign by Hooman Moayyed |
| SEO Search Engine Optimization |
| We all aspire to establish a web presence that receives millions of hits a day and is an overnight financial success. We've all heard the glory-day dot.com stories of founders becoming instant millionaires. Much has changed in the not-too-distant past. Search engines are becoming increasingly difficult to manipulate when it comes to increasing your ranking. If you have established or are establishing a web presence and want to take it to the next level, here are some real-world tips that we recommend you take note of before expending valuable time and resources in hiring a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO). |
| How it all works |
| The purpose of a search engine or directory is to allow you to find web sites relevant to the search terms you entered. This means that it is the search engine's responsibility to ensure that if you do a search for "rain coat" you don't get a site selling tractors. If search engines allowed people to exploit them, it wouldn't be long before you would be forced to search through thirty pages of listings to find the one that benefits you. As a result, search engines struggle daily to refine their algorithms in order to ensure you find what you need quickly.
Naturally, your objective is to be #1 on all search engines and directories. The position your web site is in after doing a search is called the rank order. It should always be your goal to achieve #1-#10 rank order positions. The main factors that search engines consider when calculating rank order is relevancy and popularity. Relevancy has recently taken on a whole new meaning. In the past, search engines considered this as the primary factor for rank order. When a keyword such as "rain coat" was entered, the site would look at its database and determine which web site contained the word "rain" and "coat," then how similar the spelling was and how many times the word was repeated. Naturally, many search results may contain this text and the one that repeated it the most became #1 in the rank order. Today, relevancy is used concurrently with popularity to determine the rank order. Popularity refers to the number of times that other web sites have linked your web site. So if 300 web sites have links to "aceraincoats.com," this site's popularity would increase and supercede the other ones in rank order. Sites such as Google have taken this to the next level. Google examines the relevancy of the keywords, examines its popularity and then compares the relationship of overall popularity to relevancy. So if "therotaryclub.com" links to "aceraincoats.com," Google may not count this link toward the popularity calculation. Their objective is to raise popularity of the sites that have taken the time to form a community of relevant content such as similar trades, hobbies, interests, etc. |
| Search Engines vs. Directories |
| The term search engine is used somewhat loosely. Technically, there is a difference between a search engine and a catalog. A search engine allows you to request your web site to be spidered. When this request is made, a program called a spider visits your web site. The spider's job is to examine your web page for links, make a list of all the pages linked within your site and store the content of these pages into its database. Once the information is stored, it is available for people to search against it on the search engine's site. It is important that the web site is coded properly so that the spider can index all the linked pages. A site that is not search engine friendly can cause the spider to stop indexing prematurely. An example of bad coding can be a site using frames, no text links and dynamic content with unrecognized characters. Search engines often use relevancy and popularity to determine rank order. An example of a search engine is Google or AltaVista.
Directories are quite different. They do not use spiders and are much more difficult to manipulate. A directory is similar to your local yellow pages. If you want to be listed, you drill down to the category you would like to be listed in and request to be added within that section. Directories normally allow you to enter your company name, URL and a 25-word description. When searching on a directory, if you drill down to a category, the rank order is alphabetical. If you do a keyword search, the rank order is by relevancy. A keyword match is made only against the information you have submitted to the directory and nothing else. Therefore it is important that the information you have submitted contain keywords that people use to search with. Another important consideration is that a live person will review your submission so any attempt to manipulate the directory may result in deletion of your request or banning of your site. An example of a directory is Yahoo. |
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| New article on Search Engine Optimization available for download (pdf format) New article on the Anatomy of a Web Site available for download (pdf format) |
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