01/02/07

Search Engine Optimization

Many clients ask, “How can we improve our search rankings with Google and Yahoo”. This question is very common among nearly anyone who owns, runs, or manages a website. There are several key factors in improving your search engine rankings, the best and most concrete answer we continually advise is; Relevant High Quality Content on your website is the key to Search Engine Optimization. Remember, the goal of a Search Engine is to provide the user with the most Relevant Content they are searching for. If your website is indexed with search engines and has the most Relevant Content pertained to a specific keyword search phrase, your search ranking will naturally be high. Create content that users want and will share with others. Additionally, create your content for Users and not search engines; ultimately it is they that will benefit from it. In creating your website content, ask yourself, “Does this help my users?”
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Other major factors taken into account with search engine page rankings are:

  • Make sure other useful sites link to yours, as well as linking to others
  • The relevancy of your keywords to your content
  • Images in your website are descriptive
  • Be sure your website does not contain broken links or duplicate pages
  • Be sure your website contains no deceptive optimization tactics

Be Cautious of Some Search Engine Optimization Companies

“No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google”, quoted directly from Google, link to article. Beware of SEO companies that allege to have “special relationships” or claim to have a “priority” submit with Google or Yahoo. There are two ways to submit to Google, and they are Free; Add URL and Google Sitemaps (BETA) program. Yahoo provides several ways to submit your website, mobile content, media, RSS feed, product search, etc. Submit to Yahoo.

Below are a few tactics deceptive SEO Companies use:

  • Solicitations via email regarding your website not submitted to major search engines
  • Number one rankings guarantees
  • If SEOs wont explain what they fully intent to do regarding search ranking enhancement
  • SEO requiring a link from your website to theirs (this practice can be an attempt to add your website to their linking popularity schemes)
  • SEOs offering users the ability to type keywords directly into a browser.
  • Do not be told your SEO dollars goes to search engines to improve rankings, Google nor Yahoo never sells keyword rankings. These engines have two separate rankings listings, One; the rankings to natural top listings to the left main area, and Two; Advertising listings that appear on the top, right and footer areas of the search results that are Pay Per Click Advertising, and the are clearly labeled “Sponsored Links” or “Advertisement”.

Don’t emerge in deceptive practices to increase your search engine ranking

Search engine ranking technology constantly changes and is updated with ways to sort out dishonest tactics used to deceive their ranking mechanisms. The term “Blackhat” tactics are various forms of methods used to try to deceive the ranking technology into raising search rankings. Using such tactics will definitely get your website banned or “Blacklisted” from the search engine directories, ultimately it could destroy the livelihood of a website that may rely on internet-based traffic to drive revenue. Common tactics are:

  • Creating pages for users and also pages for search engines, a method known as “Cloaking”
  • Link popularity schemes, having websites link to yours and vice-versa improves ranking, participating in linking schemes can actually hurt your ranking as these sites can exist on a “Blacklist”; additionally, their content may not have any relevancy to yours, therefore, it is pointless to participate in
  • Creating duplicate web pages, or pages with content automatically generated
  • Hidden text or hidden links
  • Sneaky redirections to other pages or websites
  • Doorway pages that contain little or no relevant content

There are many more, the above are the most popular; as advice… Avoid Them and SEO companies that use them!

In Conclusion

Moreover, be careful in choosing a SEO company. Another common question from our clients is, “You have given advice about SEO, does your company offer SEO services?” We currently do not specialize in search engine optimization services; therefore do not offer the service exclusively. We do offer advice to clients whom websites we build as well as implement SEO initiatives when building client websites, such as:

  • Advise our clients to offer Relevant High Quality Content that human users will want, need and genuinely want to share with others
  • Encourage genuine links that come in and go out to useful content and information
  • Applying accurate descriptions in the ALT and TITLE tags of images. ALT and TITLE tags are used to describe an image because search engine programs store only text and not images when ranking your site
  • Although some search engines do not factor META data as part of their ranking scheme, we still fill the fields with data, keywords and content relevant to the page
  • Encourage clients to write blogs, newsletters and press releases
  • In writing a news blog, your RSS feed can be automatically generated, thus allowing your site content to be pulled into RSS readers. Really Simple Syndication “RSS” is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs and podcasts.
  • Great web design with solid structure, navigation, usability, and user experience
  • When all these “Whitehat” tactics are satisfied, we can submit your website to Google and Yahoo

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Helpful resources for Search Engine Optimization Guidelines:

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Yahoo’s Search Content Quality Guidelines
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-18.html