Understanding Search Engine Optimization

noreply@blogger.com (Sean D.) — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:59:00 +0000

If you've reached this page more than likely you are interested in at least one of the following:

Discovering what the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to
Understanding what criteria should be used in choosing a company that provides SEO services
Learning how to use SEO tactics and tweaks on and for your Web site instead of paying large sums of money to people that know nothing about you and your business/organization.

Before we get started, please understand that I am selling nothing on this site. All the information is provided gratis. You may be able to find some of this elsewhere, but I hope my explanation makes it easy to understand SEO. And if you find the information useful a donation via PayPal is greatly appreciated. A Donate button is provided at the end. Thanks.

A Brief Introduction

In a former life I developed and taught a course on search engine optimization to Federal, state, and local government web content developers, and non-profit organizations. The information that follows could, one way or another, save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Seriously. So here we go...

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEO refers to the process of making your Web site relevant to specific search engine queries. In other words, it is the process of making your Web site ready to be found by the major search engines' automated indexers (robots, spiders) in the ways you wish to be found. For example, if your Web site sells custom cat litter boxes, you want your site to show up reasonably near the top when a Web surfer uses Google or another search engine and types in litter box. And the only way that happens is for your Web site to be optimized for indexing.

By the way, we'll keep referring to this litterbox company to illustrate various points about search engine optimization.

SEO sounds simple enough? Well, it is. And it isn't. But it is. You'll see what I mean in a little while. But first a little history. It's important and will help... really!

Note: You will see few mentions of Yahoo! in the little history lesson for the simple fact it started out as a directory ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_directory ), not a search engine. However, Yahoo! does have a search engine now, and it is the 2nd most used one behind Google.

When Altavista, Lycos, and Excite Were Kings

Back in the early, innocent (!) days of the Internet, Altavista, Lycos, Hotbot, and Excite were the main search engines on the Web. And these search engines primarily relied on the behind-the-scenes data contained in Web pages in determining how to index them. Each Web page, regardless of how it is generated, contains metadata - data about the data contained in the page. The majority of this information is contained in HTML Meta tags located in what is called the Head of the document. Search engines of the day read the information contained in the Meta tags called "title", "keywords", and "description". So Web designers simply added information into these meta tags that matched what the page was about, and also to anticipate what Web surfers would type in when they searched.

So for our fictitious litter box company, inside the HTML Head of the document we could have seen something like this:

<title>Custom Cat Box Company - Litter box furniture, supplies, and more</title>

So this, along with going to a search engine's home page and requesting your site be listed, was about all you could do. And companies were constantly tweaking their keywords and descriptions, copying one another's words and phrases, in hopes of becoming #1 in the search engines for any particular search query.

Then, some savvy or stupid folks (just depends on how you look at it) started putting in keywords that had nothing to do with the actual Web page content, hoping to show up in search results for pretty much anything. Much of this was driven by the hot topic of the week or month. So Web sites selling books, or broccoli ice cream, or whatever would show up when Web users searched for Britney Spears, or free beer, or...

Then Search Engines Started Looking at the Actual Page Content

After a while, because of these "abuses" of the system, the major search engines started examining page content - the actual text of the page - as well as the metadata (meta tags). Google was first, if I remember correctly, and started doing this around 1999. This change in indexing provided better search results for Web users and more predictable search engine placements for page owners and designers.

Then, crafty web designers started loading up their Web pages at the very end with tiny font text that was the same color as the page background color, with lines of keywords over and over again. Why? Simple... the more a particular word or phrase appeared on a page, the closer to the top the Web page would appear in search engine results. Because the page and text are the same color all these words are invisible. Eventually the search engines got savvy to keyword loading and began to ignore this hidden text. In many cases Google would drop the Web page waaay back in search results in order to penalize the page owner or designer.

Modern Times

Ok, history lesson over, mostly. Let's move to the present day and beyond. Google is king, all hail Google. But there are other players too such as Yahoo! and Ask.com. Anyway...

Google set the bar by developing much more complicated and potentially more accurate ways to index the Web. And in truth it was Google's methodology that spurred the whole paid search engine optimization service industry. It really is an industry. Do a search for SEO and see how many firms out there are selling it.

So seeing that you are probably wondering "Can I really do this myself?" The answer is yes. But if you don't have the time or inclination, I hope at the very least this information can help you in making an informed decision about hiring a search engine optimization firm or individual.

The Essentials of DIY Search Engine Optimization

SEO - It's Still About Keywords

Google introduced two concepts that make a lot of sense: keyword relevancy, and keyword density.

Keyword Relevancy = a measurement (the formula of which is not made publicly available) where the HTML meta tags for title, description, and keywords are compared against the actual page text. If your Web page meta tags contain terms not found in the text, the page's relevancy takes a ding.
Keyword Density = a ratio of how many times the meta tag stuff shows up in the page text compared to the total number of words on the page.

Now as you might have already seen, and probably guessed, crafty Web designers and search engine optimization specialists found ways to manipulate this system too by dumping keywords into text. This is why you can find Web sites with content that looks like this:

"The SEO process is difficult and keeping up with search engine optimization tactics time-consuming. You might think SEO services are expensive but search engine optimization is well worth the money for any Web site owner concerned with SEO and search engine optimization."

or even auto-generated junk like this:

"SEO makes search engines with SEO optimized with search Google SEO sites and search engine optimization optimized for SEO results."

The Importance of Links

In response, Google began placing more and more importance on incoming links - what the links say that point to a Web site. The thought process here is that if there are many links pointing to a Web site that use the same or similar text, then that Web site probably has something to do with whatever the link says it is. For our running example of the Web site for the custom litterbox company, you might find links on other Web sites like this:

Custom Cat Box Company
Check out this neat hidden cat box that looks like a liquor cabinet
Litterboxes that look like furniture

So when a Web user would search for "liquor cabinet litterbox" (maybe someone, somewhere??) Google would return the Custom Cat Box Company Web site near the top of the results.

And yeppers, this got abused too via the infamous Googlebomb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb).

Keeping all the preceding information in mind, let's look at how to perform SEO in ways that are effective, reasonable, safe, and forward-thinking.

HTML Meta Tags

While some search engines have claimed they don't look at meta tags at all anymore, and some only use them in conjunction with other measures, meta tags are still important. For one, they are used in the keyword relevancy and density measurements, and two they may very become a bigger factor in the future as search engines continuously refine search algorithms.

Meta Tag General Guidelines

Title Meta Tag - Make the text clear and concise, and include the most important keyword(s). Remember that the text of the title appears as the link in search engine results so double check for misspelled words.
Keywords Meta Tag - To be safe include phrases, single words, and spelling variations. But don't go overboard and include a zillion of them since there is a cutoff point at which the remainder are just ignored anyway.
Description Meta Tag - Put the most important keywords in the description but write it so it reads easily and sounds like something a human with decent writing skills would create. The text of the description appears as the summary in search engine results so again, double check for misspelled words.
For Description and Keywords - If another site is high-ranking, see (and maybe copy) what they are doing. Use the View Page Source option (or similar option) in your favorite Web browser and look in the HEAD of the document, close to the top of the page of HTML code.

Note: In some cases you may see no meta tags at all - no keywords or description - yet the page is still ranked #1. If this is the case you can be sure that other factors are at play, such as a huge number of incoming links.

Note: It is worth your effort to list your Web site in the DMOZ as it is a free directory (unlike Yahoo!) .

Note: It is probably best to not mess with any robots.txt files unless you are fully-versed in exactly how these files work.

Make Each Web Page's Meta Tags Unique

Sure it seems like a lot of work, but it doesn't have to be. For example, let's take a couple of pages from our fictional Custom Cat Box Company: the home page, and one for cat box supplies. The meta tags might have data that looks something like this:

Custom Cat Box Company home page:

title="Custom Cat Box Company - Custom litter box furniture, supplies, and more"
meta content="Manufacturer of cat box furniture and hidden litter boxes made to your specifications" name="description"
meta content="cat box, catbox, litter box, litterbox, cat pan, cat furniture, hidden, custom, cat litter, kitty litter..." name="keywords"

Custom Cat Box Company supplies page:

title="Custom Cat Box Company - Litter box accessories"
meta content="Cat litter, lines, scoops, and other accessories" name="description"
meta content="litter, cat litter, clay, scoopable, clumping, liners, scoops, hoods, deodorizers..." name="keywords"

See, not so hard! But your Web site has hundreds (thousands, millions!) of pages you say? I bet a lot of them are similar. You can get away with some pages having identical metadata since the actual page content makes each page unique anyway. Most Web design tools offer some sort of multi-page find-and-replace option so this really is no big deal. Plus, if you create your meta tags at the same time you create your pages it's easy.

Enough about meta tags.

SEO Friendly Links

First, the stuff you have control over:

If you operate multiple Web sites, be sure to include links to and from one to another. Make sure the link text matches the keywords and content for the page you are linking to.
Creating your own blogs and forums (discussion boards) is an easy way to create multiple pages that contain links. In most blogging systems each blog entry creates an individual Web page. Set up your menu links in your blog settings or template and you are good to go. In a forum that you run, create a user with links in the signature line, and a submenu of links that appears on each page.

When you hire a search engine optimization firm, a pretty decent part of your $$ spent is going to pay some college kid to go to someone else's blog or discussion board, pretend he is just an ordinary citizen, and write a faux-earnest post. Back to our litterbox company example... it would look something like this:

"Hey, thought I'd give you my perspective. We wanted a litterbox that looked like an antique steamer trunk for our cat Scruffy. And CustomLitterBoxes.com built one to our specs. Highly recommended!"

There are a few problems with this. Bad karma is one, perhaps. But a more tangible one is that SEO companies will do this over and over again, pissing off forum owners, clogging up blogs with recycled comments, and often going to forums that really have nothing to do with your product - all in the name of getting more in-bound links to your site. And after a while it just makes you look bad, perhaps desperate, or even deranged. I remember speaking to the owner of a company with a specialized product line, environmental remediation products, and she was disappointed in the fact that the SEO company didn't really understand her business and was writing blog posts and forum posts on sites not even remotely related to her company's business.

Yes, the inbound links are helpful. But really you can and should do this part of SEO yourself. YOU know your business/organization. YOU can tell which forums and blogs relate. And YOU can respond to questions and posts with real information in a manner that is helpful, not just spam. For example, in the Pro Audio community it is common for engineers and manufacturer's reps to visit music and audio-related forums and provide information. It's good business, good karma, and is the right way to generate inbound SEO links.

But what about the things I can't control i.e. everyone else? In reality, if other Web sites link to yours more than likely the link will be your company or organization's name. So no worries. However, for the intrepid folks out there, you can use http://www.Alexa.com or the link checking search facility of Google http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en to see who links to your site. Then contact those owners and provide them the html code for a link to your site that looks the way you want it to. There are many automated tools for emailing site owners. Just be sure that you don't make yourself like a spammer when doing bulk emailing.

Web Content Design

So now we get to talk about web content. What can you do about keyword relevancy, keyword density? The instinct is to add more content and more keywords. But that doesn't really work very well. You don't want to compromise readability and usability. The key is to get rid of content. Make each Web page informative but mean and lean. How many concepts or main ideas are on the Web page? Keep it to one or two, and if need be simply split pages into two. This provides more pages to be indexed, more links, and more chances to match keywords to content.

And yes, I know that I am violating my own SEO advice with putting this all in one blog post. But I am doing it this way to save your time and my time. One big brain purge of info in one convenient location. ;-)

Do You Use Microcontent Effectively?

"Of course I use microcontent effectively!" you say. But then you say "What's microcontent?" Well, microcontent is all the short text stuff on a page. Page headings, sub headings, bylines, photo captions etc. Use these to your advantage by making them informative and, whenever possible, include one of your keywords.

Have you ever gone to a park, nature walk, the zoo, and looked at interpretive signage - those signs that tell you what a particular critter eats, or what famous person slept in that building? Usually it's just one sign with a limited space so words are at a premium.

Rules for Observing the Bears

Don't feed the bears
Don't yell obscenities at the bears because they might understand
No photography without the express written consent of the bear commissioner
No, that is not Mike Ditka

Interpretive signage is a good model for creating Web content. Bullet point text is your friend. This doesn't mean that each Web page should only have five or six lines of text. But it does mean that you should use the minimum amount of text necessary to convey meaning, whether describing the personality of your company/organization or the virtues of a product.

If you have a great big 'ol Web page with a lot of technical content, consider putting that information into another form like a PDF, or even an online help file. Google will index most file types these days including PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets and so on.

And a note about "doorway pages"... don't use them! There are software programs available that claim to craft doorway pages fine-tuned for specific search engine queries . You have seen these on the Web too. They might work, for a little while, but most people find them to be extremely annoying. Doorway pages and their variants have done a great job of creating frustrated Web surfers.

Pay Per Click

Legitimate Pay Per Click (PPC) Web sites and providers seem to be disappearing, mostly because the big players like Yahoo! and Google have bought them. And if you are going to investigate an PPC other than Google, the only ones that seems worthwhile are Yahoo! and Microsoft Ad Center, and perhaps Ask.com's Sponsored Listings.

It goes without saying that Google AdWords can be an effective tool because AdWord ads provide a targeted advertisement AND a link back to a page on your Web site. The system is well-designed and easy-to-use. There are many sites with information on using Google AdWords including Google itself.

HTML Code Tweaks

HTML code itself provides opportunities for SEO tweaks as well (I am guessing some code junky Web designers are amazed that I have not mentioned this until now.) One that some folks have familiarity with is the "alt" tag for images. Originally designed for instances when Web surfers had images turned off (back in the dark ages of the Internet) or for visually-impaired folks using alternative Web viewing tools, they primarily are used to provide additional information about an image when the mouse cursor is hovered over it. Of course, if you are worried about search engine optimization, ensure that the alt tag for an image is descriptive and contains one of your keywords.

Other HTML elements also can have "alt" tags and description options. HTML Tables, still to this day used for formatting even though it rubs HTML purists the wrong way, can use a "summary" tag which can be used to summarize the table contents, using smartly crafted text of course. Do a Web search for more on this topic.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to search engine optimization, be realistic! Not everyone can be #1. And the really big players are going to be near the top a lot of the time because they are spending lots and lots of moolah to make it so. And, don't be surprised if your Web sites and pages move up and down over a period of time. The search engines are constantly refining processes and your competitors are refining their Web pages as well. So right away that tells you that SEO is an ongoing process. But if you do it right, or have someone do it right for you, and use the information in this page as your guide, you will improve your Web pages position in Google and other search engines, and you will make your Web pages better.

Thanks for stopping by. If this was helpful, send kudos to seo@seo4yourself.com . Or even better, click the button below and make a donation:

If just 150,000 folks out there found this useful and donated a dollar, I could pay off my mortgage. ;-)

SEO 4 Yourself

Understanding Search Engine Optimization

The Essentials of DIY Search Engine Optimization