Search Engine Optimization Simplified

Chances are good that at some point in your life you ran a search on an online search engine and instead of one hit you received pages and pages of possible hits. Have you ever wondered if the order the websites appear on search was just a random grouping or if they had been placed in a specific order that just appeared disorderly to you? The answer is that there is a very elaborate system used to determine where a website appears during an internet search. The process is something called search engine optimization.



Search engine optimization is the science and art of making web pages attractive to search engines.



Next time you run an internet search look at the bottom of the page. Chances are good that there will be a list of page numbers (normally written in blue) for you to click if you can't find exactly what you are looking for on the first page. If you actually look farther then the second page you will part of a minority. Studies and research have shown that the average internet user does not look farther then the second page of potential hits. As you can imagine it's very important to websites to be listed on the first two pages.



Webmasters use a variety of techniques to improve their search engine ranking.



The first thing most webmasters (or website designers) do is check their meta tags. Meta tags are special HTML tags that provide information about a web page. Search engines can easily read Meta tags but they are written with special type of text that is invisible to internet users. Search engines rely on meta tags to accurately index the web sites. Although meta tags are a critical step in search engine optimization they alone are not enough to have a web site receive top ranking.



Search engines rely on a little device called a web crawler to locate and then catalog websites. Web crawlers are computer programs that browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawlers are also sometimes called automatic indexers, web spiders, bots, web robots, and/or worms. Web crawlers locate and go to a website and "crawl" all over it, reading the algorithms and storing the data. Once they have collected all the information from the website they bring it back to the search engine where it is indexed. In addition to collecting information about a web site some search engines use web crawlers to harvest e-mail addresses and for maintenance tasks. Each search engine has their own individual web crawlers and each search engine has variations on how they gather information.



Most webmasters feel that proper use and placement of keywords helps catch the attention of web crawlers and improve their websites ranking. Most webmaster like to design their websites for ultimate search engine optimization immediately but there aren't any rules that say you can't go back to your website at any time and make improvements that will make it more attractive to search engines.

Read More

Search Engine Optimization and the Knight

On October 15, 1881 a baby by the name of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (Plum to his friends) was born. In 1996, one hundred and fifteen years later, a brand new internet search engine would be named in honor of him, sort of.



P.G. Wodehouse was an extremely popular English writer who had a flair for comedy. Magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and The Strand serialized his novels while he spent time in Hollywood working as a screenwriter. P.G. Wodehouse had an incredibly prolific flair for writing. His writing career officially started in 1902 and ended in 1975. During that time he wrote ninety-six books, several collections of short stories, screenplays, and one musical.



When he was ninety-three years old, P.G. Wodehouse was made a Knight of the British Empire. Two of Mr. Wodehouse's most famous characters(or perhaps infamous, depending on your point of view), are the bumbling Bertie Wooster and his long suffering valet, Jeeves.



P.G. Wodehouse will always be remembered for his comedic approach to writing.



In 1996, when Garret Gruener and David Warthen needed a name for the internet search engine they created they choose the name of Wodehouse's fictional valet. The website was called Ask Jeeves. Jeeves remained the search engines mascot until the company retired him on February 27, 2006 a decision they announced on September 23, 2005. Jeeves retirement prompted the internet search engine to create a page titled "Where's Jeeves", that listed a variety of creative activities, including growing grapes and space exploration, the valet planned to do during his retirement. With Jeeves retired the search engine simply became Ask.com. During his reign at Ask Jeeves, the valet was always impeccably dressed in a beautifully tailored black suit, shiny shoes, and red tie. Although his posture changed almost yearly on the company logo he always had the same amicable smile.



When it was first created the idea behind Ask.com (back then it was still Ask Jeeves) questions would be posed in regular language and answers would be hunted down and provided. The creators of Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com) hoped that internet users would be drawn to the intuitive, user friendly style.



The growing popularity of keyword search engines like Yahoo! and Google prompted the powers-that-be at Ask Jeeves to overhaul their search engine to include keyword searches in addition to answering questions. Because Ask.com was not as quick to index new websites as some of its competitors its was not bogged down with computer generated linkspam., when users were unable to find usable web pages on the three most popular internet search engines, they turned to Ask.com who still had viable pages readily available.



Today, Ask.com uses the ExpertRank algorithm to provide its users with search results. Ask.com uses link popularity and subject-specific popularity to help determine rankings.



Ask.com has sold technology has been sold to additional corporations including Toshiba and Dell. A variety of web destinations, including country specific, sites such as; Germany, Italy, Excite, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, IWon.com, Bloglines, and Ask For Kids are owned by Ask.com.

Read More

Search Engine Marketing-How it Differs from Search Engine Optimization

Search engine marketing is a set of marketing methods used to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages. Types of search engine marketing include; search engine optimization, pay per click, paid inclusion, and social media optimization. Search engine marketing differs from search engine optimization which is the art and science of making web pages attractive to internet search engines.



Non-profit organizations, universities, political parties, and the government can all benefit from search engine marketing. Businesses that sell products and/or services online can use search engine marketing to help improve their sales figures.



Some of the goals of search engine marketing are to develop a brand, generate media coverage, and enhancing a reputation, and to drive business to a physical location.



If you do not feel confident enough to try your own search engine marketing there are several companies that will be able to help you out for a price. If you decide to go with a search engine marketing company take your time and shop around, find a company that really suits your own businesses search engine marketing needs.



Stay away from companies that promise top rankings. Most companies that promise tope ranking are more interested in your money then they are in keeping your business. Quite often this type of company will charge you top doller, spend a few days making sure your website has a few basic requirements and that is the last you hear from them. This type of search engine marketing company is not really interested in repeat customers.



Tread carefully around companies that promise first page rankings on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo. Make sure these companies are talking about sponsored listings and not just natural listings. Companies that are only after natural listings traditionally charge a large monthly fee, using a small portion of the money on sponsored listings, and pocketing the remainder.



The false promise most commonly used by shady search engine marketing companies is the money back guarantee. Generally if you read the contract very carefully you will lean that these companies have a very strange idea of major search engine. Companies that have a money back guarantee typically don't deal with the search engine movers and shakers like Google and Yahoo, instead they use small obscure search engines that are hardly ever used.



The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) was created in 2003 to offer the public educational resources about search engine marketing and to also promote search engine marketing. Currently SEMPO represents over 500 global search engine marketing companies. Sempo is happy to offer their resources to the public for free. SEMPO has offers search engine marketing training courses for any and all interested parties who would like to expand their knowledge of search engine marketing. SEMPO's objectives are to teach search engine marketing strategies, techniques, and successful practices, to increase the availability and quality f its professionals, and to offer training courses that will help to establish a benchmark for search engine marketing. The cost of a SEMPO training course can range anywhere from five hundred dollars for a fundamentals of search marketing class, to over two thousand dollars for an advanced search advertising course.

Read More

Why is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Important?

The Internet has provided ways to revolutionize how we live our daily lives. It has crawled into the different dimensions of human lives- business, communication, information dissemination, personal relationships. People have made a paradigm shift towards using the Internet to aid them in their daily activities.



With this context in mind, many people are continuously struggling to get noticed in the world of the Internet. Websites are growing like mushrooms everywhere, every time. How can one’s website get past the millions of other websites and eventually be noticed by its target audience?



Search engine optimization aims to achieve the goal of getting more visitors to a website by helping it get higher rankings in the search engines. This simply means that search engine optimization’s goal is to make a website appear on the first pages, if not the first page of a search done through the search engine.



There are two ways to be able to get noticed by search engines. One is through pay-per-click-advertisements. A good example of a pay-per-click system that is employed by search engines is the Google Adwords system. It has created a hype and has given Google around 5 billion dollars in terms of revenue per year. Webmasters can place their bids to be shown when a keyword is searched by a surfer. The highest bidders will get their sites to appear first when the search is being done.



The second way of getting high rankings from search engines is through organic searches. Search engines evaluate websites by using what they call “spiders.” These programs scan the websites and collects information about them. They then collate the information and pass it on to the search engine. This area is primarily the main arena of search engine optimization. It utilizes a set of methods to be able to get search engines to list the website on high ranks.



Traffic



The main purpose of search engine optimization is to increase the traffic generated by a website. Websites are built to be seen by Internet surfers and search engines can help it achieve this goal.



The power of the search engine should not be underestimated. It is one of the building blocks of the foundation of the Internet. A survey showed that 90% of all Internet users employ search engines to aid them in their Internet-related activities. Google, the dominant player in the search engine industry, generates 70% of all search-related Internet activity.



People and Search Engines are alike



Search engines behave like people. They like websites which contain substantive information about a certain topic. The best sites usually appear first in search engines because people like them as well as the search engines.



Search engine optimization does not only generate traffic, it helps maintain the traffic. The behavior of the search engine is indicative to the behavior of the people who visit the website. Search engine optimization leads to the optimization of a webpage or a website. It will lead to a website which is more organized and a website which contains substantive information.



Target Audience



The use of the search engine to be able to target one’s target audience is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies. It is not like other on-line marketing techniques (such as email marketing) which can lead to a lot of leakages in terms of targeting the right audience.



Search engines segment the market and connect the right people together. People search for topics which they are interested in and this is the main strength of search engines in connecting markets together.



Cost Effectiveness



One can do search engine optimization under the assumption that he knows what he is doing. Search engine optimization is a full-time job and has a very long learning curve. This is why most people would resort to out-sourcing the job to experts who are good at what they do. One should be cautious, however, in hiring a search engine optimization company or consultant. Factors such as pricing and service should carefully be assessed before signing a deal. If done properly, search engine optimization is a very cost effective way of getting more people to know about one’s products or to know about a certain issue or event that a website is disseminating.



SEO is very important for websites since it determines the position of the website in comparison with its competitors. It does not only generate traffic from the targeted audience but is also a cost-effective way of optimizing the website.

Read More

Newer is not Always Better When it Involves Search Engine Optimization

We live in a world where everybody wants the latest and greatest, somewhere along the way we have come to the conclusion that the newer something is the better. If we are buying a CD it has to be the latest release from the new one hit wonder, we don't care if the song writer couldn't tell melody from harmony or that the singer is incapable of carrying a tune, all that matters is that it's new. Each fall hundreds of people scramble to get to car dealerships, frantic to drive the next years models, barely capable of waiting for them to be unloaded off the truck, it doesn't matter if we are six months behind on car payments on last years model which is in perfect running condition, we're blinded by all the bells and whistles that the new cars have to offer. People will stand in a long line, overnight, in an electrical storm to simply to spend an unhealthy amount of money on the latest electronic gadget just because it is brand new, we don't care that in just a few months it will be a fraction of the cost, we have to have it now.



Even internet service suffers from the right now syndrome. For years we were content with dialup service. Sure it was slow but it was that or nothing. Heck we hardly noticed that it took hours to download a simple, days to upload a couple of pictures, download a video... that was practically unheard off. We didn't know any better. Now that the world has found out about all the new options for internet service we have to have that. It doesn't matter that it is double the monthly cost or we have to default on are student loans in order to purchase the necessary equipment. If it is cordless, faster, and designed with the latest technology we have to have it...right now.



We don't care if the old stuff is made with better materials, last longer, and is cheaper. In our minds old equals junk.



Search engine optimization is one spot where we should force ourselves to shed our weird inhibitions about old stuff. When it comes to search engine optimization, age rules over youth.



Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to the search engines. The more attractive a web site appears (search engines are attracted, not to beauty, but to repetitious algorithms) the higher it ranks in the search engines search result. A low ranking could potentially be the kiss of death to an internet based business because studies have shown the internet users seldom look past the second page of hits.



Search engines use web crawlers to determine a websites ranking.



Older websites and the webmasters who manage them have had more time to develop and maintain their algorithms. They are already itemized and ranked by the search engines, in some cases it can take three months for a web crawler to get around to spidering a brand new website that has been submitted to the search engine, old sites are already appearing and gaining customer recognition. If an older site has been around long enough to have earned a loyal customer base, even if a shuffle in the rankings causes the aged web site to be bumped from prime ranking position, loyal customers will still look for it.

Read More

Natural Search Engine Optimization or Pay-Per-Click

The internet is literally like having the world at ones fingertips. Not only does it provide families a cheap way to stay in touch (e-mail and instant messaging), it allows students to cram for finals and write last minute papers in the middle of the night, long after the library has closed, but the internet is suddenly a way for the smallest business to break into a global market.



Let's pretend that you are the owner of a small novelty store in a small rural town in the Midwest. Most of your merchandise is handmade trinkets and crafts created by the residents of the small town (on commission so the up front cost of most of your merchandise is minimal). Although business is slow during the winter months during the tourist season you turn a tidy profit. One day as a Chicago tourist purchases a photo of the late afternoon sun glinting off a herd of sleeping cattle she mentions that she wishes you had a website so she could purchase quaint Christmas gifts for her family. As she leaves the story, her wrapped photograph tucked under her arm, you stare at your computer.



The internet could be a cheap way to increase your profit margin. You already have your physical business, a website would simply be an addition. You look at all the pretty knickknacks arranged throughout the store. If you expanded your business to include a website you could sell mid-western trinkets all over the world. It wouldn't take that much time. You have a friend that would design and teach you how to manage a website for free. You could answer questions during the slow times when you're not doing anything anyway. It would be a win-win situation.



In theory you're correct. A website could be a lucrative addition to your business.



It is possible to design website, register a domain name, and submit it to a website. But what happens next. Just like the physical shop the website will not do any business if there isn't any traffic. No one will visit your online store if they don't know about it.



The chances are good that your regular customers will probably check out your website, the ones that made items you have featured will probably tell their friends and families about it, but the chances are good that they won't buy anything, why should they pay for shipping and handling when they can drive a couple of miles and purchase it directly from you. Your tourist customers might buy from your online store but only if they know about it and since you probably waited until the slow season to create your website it will be months before you can tell them.



You could look into search engine optimization.



You might even want to consider something called pay-per-click.



Pay-per-click is a search engine that bases its rankings on something that is called a bid position. A website owner bids for an elevated position in the ranking when a certain keyword is typed into the search bar. The higher the bid, the higher the ranking.



Businesses that use pay-per-click prefer it to natural search engine optimization because it's an easy efficient way to improve a sites ranking and increase its traffic. Pay-per-click also lets webmaster maintain control over the search engine campaign.



People who for go pay-per-click to natural search engine optimization say that the cost of pay-per-click is too high.

Read More

How Title and Meta Tags are used for Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to title tags and search engine optimization there are a few question website owners typically ask. Does each individual web page need a different title? Is there a maximum length for title tags? Is there a title tag limit? Are title Meta tags a good idea?



The World Wide Web Consortium requires that every single HTML document must have a title element in the head section. They also state that the title element should be used to identify each individual pages content.



The title tag plays four separate roles on the internet.



The first role the title tag fulfills is what librarians, other webmasters, and directory editors use to link to other websites. A well written title tag is far more likely to get faster reviews then one that is sloppy or incomprehendable.



The title tag is what is displayed on the visitor's browser. By displaying the title tag in the visitors browser the web user knows exactly where they are if they have to return to the site later on. Internet Explorer typically tires to display the first ninety-five characters of the title tag.



Search engines display the title tag as the most important piece of information available to web searchers.



A good title tag should be able to clearly indicate the webpage's contents to the web user. A clear title tag is more likely to be placed in the user's favorites list. The normal length for a good clear title tag is normally under sixty-five characters long. Title tags should be typed in the title case. Headers should also be typed in the title case.



When it comes to search engine optimization, the home page title is normally the first thing the web crawlers look at when they are ranking a webpage. Your website is introduced by your homepage title.

It is important to make sure that your title tag sounds credible.



Every single page of your website must have its very own unique title. A Meta tag is a special HTML tag that provides information about a web page. Meta tags do not affect the display of a webpage. Although Meta tags are placed directly into the HTML code, they are invisible to web users. Search engines use Meta tags to help correctly categorize a page. Meta tags are a critical part of search engine optimization.



It is important to remember that Meta tags are not a magic solution to making your website a raging success. The most valuable feature Meta tags offer to website owners is the ability to control (to a certain degree) how their web pages are described by the search engines. Meta tags can also let website owners prevent having their website indexed at all.



Meta tag keywords are a way to provide extra test for web crawler based search engines to index. While this is great in theory several of the major search engines have crawlers that ignore the HTML and focus entirely on the body of the webpage.

Read More

How Google's PageRank Determines Search Engine Optimization

Some internet search engines are set up to look for keywords throughout a webpage, they then use a mathematical equation that takes in the amount of time the keywords appears on the webpage and factors it with the location of the keywords to determine the ranking of the webpage.



Other internet search engines use a process that judges the amount of times a webpage is linked to other web pages to determine how a webpage is ranked. The process of using links to determine search engine ranking is called link analysis.



Keyword searches and link analysis are both part of a routine internet search engine procedure called search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the art and science of making a website attractive to search engines, the more attractive a website appears to the search engine the higher it will rank in searches and in the world of internet searches ranking is everything.



As 2006 faced its last weeks, Google was the internet search engine that most internet users preferred. Approximately fifty percent of the times a consumer turned to a search engine for their internet needs they turned to Google. Yahoo! was the second favorite.



Most of Google's popularity is credited to its preferred form of search engine optimization, a trademarked program Google dubbed PageRank. When PageRank was patented the patent was assigned to Stanford University.



PageRank was designed by Larry Page, (the name is a play on his name) and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University as part of a research project they were working on about internet search engines.



PageRank is based on the link analyses algorithm. PageRank is described as a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weight to each individual element of a hyperlink set of documents. The purpose is to measure its relative important with the set. The numerical weight assigned to any element is called PageRank of E. PR(E) is the denotation used.



PageRank operates on a system similar to a voting booth. Each time it finds a hyperlink to a webpage, PageRank counts that hyperlink as a vote that supports the webpage. The more pages that link to the page, the more votes of support the webpage receives. If PageRank comes across a website that has absolutely no links connecting it to another webpage then it is not awarded any votes at all.



Tests done with a model like PageRank have shown that the system is not infallible.



The HITS algorithm is an alternate to the PageRank algorithm.



Google's powers that be take a dim view on spamdexing. In 2005 Google designed and activated a program called nofollow, a program they designed to allow webmasters and bloggers to create links that PageRank would ingnore. The same system was also used to keep spamdexing to a minumum.



Google has designed PageRank to be an eight-unit measurement. Google displays the value PageRank places on each website directly beside each website it displays.



It has been proposed that a version of PageRank should be used to replace ISI impact factor so that the quality of a journal citation can be determined.

Read More

Finding a Search Engine Optimization Company

When it comes to business some people like to get their hands dirty and iron out every little detail of every little deal and transaction. Others like to handle the parts of the business that they know and are comfortable with, leaving the bits and pieces they are unsure about to people who know what they are doing.



Before you start looking for a search engine optimization company sit down and consider your situation. What goals do you have for your website? What are your priorities? How much can you afford to spend, remember that you pay for quality, the lowest price isn't always the best deal.



When it is time to submit your web-based business to a search engine their are search engine optimization companies who, for a fee, will be happy to optimize the websites for the business owners who do not feel comfortable doing it themselves.



Search engine optimization is the art and science of making a website attractive to search engines. If you don't know where to find a reputable search engine optimization company try looking in search engine optimization forums, references or articles on reputable websites, ask friends for recommendations, ask other webmasters if they used anyone to optimize their sites and if they did ask which company they used and if the experience was pleasant.



The first thing you have to watch out for when you're selecting a company to handle your search engine optimization is scams. The first thing to do is avoid any search engine optimization companies that are listed in the black hat directory. Black hat search engine optimization is not really optimizing but really just spamdexing, most search engines penalize websites that are caught spamdexing. Also avoid any company who guarantees a ranking before they even look at your site. Make sure the company you are considering is actually going to do something besides add doorway pages and meta tags.



What is spamdexing?



Spamdexing is using methods that manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine, usually in a manner that is inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system. A lot of times spamdexing is done by stuffing a website full of keywords, web crawlers (the programs search engines use to rank websites) read the web sites they read lots of the same keyword and assume that the sight is content rich. Based on the web crawler's findings the website is given a high rank. Allot of the time the keywords are stuck at the bottom of the document where the internet user can't see them. Keyword stuffing is considered content spam.



The other common type of spamdexing is link spam. Link spam is spamdexing that takes advantage of link ranking algorithms causing search engines to give the guilty website a higher ranking. Link farms, hidden links, Sybil attack, wiki spam, spam blogs (also referred to as splogs), page hijacking, buying expired domains, and referrer log spamming are forms of link spam.

Read More

Controversy Lends a Helping Hand to Search Engine Optimization

It is always wonderful to hear good news. Hearing good news makes us feel good about ourselves, the people around, our dog... heck the world is a better place when we have good news.



Good news might make us feel good about ourselves and the world but there is something deliciously appealing about bad news, especially if it is about someone other then ourselves.



Bad news makes good news copy. Celebrities know that. I once watched an interview with a well known, highly controversial, singer/songwriter, and performer. The newspapers are always full of articles and stories about his exploits (he and I share the same home state so I think the papers I read have probably double what papers in the rest of the country print). The interviewer asked this singer about one of his recent escapades. The singer kind of chuckled and shyly admitted that while the episode had happened it had been blown out of proportion. When the interviewer asked why the singer did nothing to correct the allegations the singer bluntly replied...money. Each time someone accused him of doing something awful kids started to rush to the stores to buy his CD's, partly because his name was being splashed all over the airwaves and was fresh in their minds when the perused the music department, but also partly because their parents were trying to ban his music from the house. When he was on his best behavior he didn't get any media attention and his record sales plummeted. So, since the singer is anything but stupid and he has a deep appreciation for the things money can buy, he goes a little bit out of his way to perpetuate his bad boy image.



Bloggers are another group of people who understand how swiftly controversy spreads. They know that if they write about something that is controversial there will be a flood of readers reading their bogs and leaving feed back. Before you know it a dialogue has started, sometimes it isn't a peaceful dialogue but it's a dialogue just the same.



The same thing can be true about websites and search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the art and science of making a web site appealing to search engines. Search engines determine the attractiveness of a website by sending out web crawlers that look for algorithms placed throughout the website. The more algorithms a website has the higher it gets ranked during a search.



A second thing several search engines look for is something called link analysis. Web crawlers look for how many links lead back to the website. The more links leading back to a website the higher that website will rank.



Controversy is a way to get a lot of links to your website fast. For example a breeder of Ball-headed pythons went to an exotic pet show to purchase some more snakes for his store. While he was at the show the police stormed the pet show, using excessive force to remove several of the exhibitors. You snapped several graphic pictures of the event, photos you later post on your website where you sell the snakes you breed. Others see the controversial photos posted on your site, they tell their friends and customers. To simplify things the owner of the second pet store posts a link on his site that attaches directly to yours. As more and more people hear about your photos, more and more links to your site are created. The next thing you know you are ranked on the very first page of the search engines hits.



In addition tot the boost in your ranking you have also sold nearly all of your saleable snakes. Controversy really does sell.

Read More