Search Engine Optimization - The Basics

Many of my clients have asked me if I know of a quick, easy, inexpensive way to get to the top of the search engines. The answer I give them is always this - there isn't one. If there were, everyone would be doing it and then it would be worth nothing! Getting a good ranking in the search engines is hard work and takes time, and there is no easy way of going around that.

The people who write the search engine 'bots want to accomplish just one thing - they want their users to have relevant, useful results when they search for something. They don't want sites advertising little blue pills to come up when their users search for "Real Estate", just as you don't want your real estate site to come up when the user searches for "Britney Spears Naked XXX"!

Getting Started:

  1. First and foremost, remember that getting a site high on the search engines takes time and patience. The companies out there advertising "get to the top of the search engines tomorrow" are just out to take your money. While their techniques may work for a little while, you'll find as soon as you stop paying them, your site's ranking drops off rather dramatically.
  2. Content, content, content. You want your site to have as much text content as you can manage. Product catalogs, useful tips for current and future customers, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages - these are all good because it gives the search engines more to work with. If you are running a site that sells real estate in Florida, the more references to Florida, house, real estate, buying, selling you can put on your site, the more the engines will think (rightly) that your site is about selling real estate in Florida.
  3. Organization of your content and internal links. Try to make sure that the content of your site is well organized, meaning that every page links back to the home page, and that the home page links to all of the major pages on the site. I dislike pure Flash introductions, simply because it tends to mess up the search engines - they have a hard time reading links embedded inside Flash.
  4. Another technique that people tend to forget is a custom "error" page. If there's a broken link on your site, chances are you'll receive a generic "404" error page, that's a dead end on your site - which can be bad. Create a custom error page (check out mine here), and set your site up so that people receive that when they click a bad link. That will help a great deal, both in your customer experience and your search engine results.
  5. Sitemaps: These are what search engines like Google like, because it tells the engine about every page on your site without the engine having to go through and look for it. Here's the one I use - it's great.

 

Get it out there!

  1. Okay, you've got your site ready - it's full of content and well laid out. Now what? Now, you have to convince other people to link to your site. When the search engines were first created, the idea was simply this - the more popular a site is, the more people will link to it. If a site has 500 incoming links, it's bound to be more popular (and thus more relevant) than a site with 5 incoming links. While the formula is more complex now, the basic idea is still there.
  2. The key to inbound links (IBLs) is that they are now weighted based on where they are coming from. Let's say, for example, that you are running a site that sells athletic equipment. The search engines are going to give more weight to an IBL coming from a large site that does something very similar (say, nike.com or sportsauthority.com) than it will to an IBL coming from an unrelated site (say, a real estate directory) or from a site that's relatively unknown. One way to distinguish between a known and an unknown site is to use the Google Toolbar - it will give you a numerical ranking (1-10) of how important Google thinks the site is.
  3. So where do you get IBLs? Start with the easy ones first. If your web designer has a client listing page on his site, ask him to link you on there (I do this for all my clients, free of charge). If you have a vendor of some kind, or a broker who has a web page, ask them to link to you. If you have a partner company you work with, ask them if they'd be willing to trade links. Just doing that will get you *in* the search engines.
  4. The next step is to find directory sites that are both local and relevant to you. Check with your Chamber of Commerce, and search the web to find a directory that you like. Some of them will charge a nominal fee for a listing (either one-time or recurring) - if it's within your budget, it is probably money well spent.
  5. Another suggestion is to use tools like the Google Toolbar to see how well your various pages are doing.
  6. If you're really hot on getting high on the search engine list, you may want to consider the Google AdWords program. Basically, you pay Google money to be put on the "sponsored links" list for a certain keyword or set of keywords. I've heard good things about this program, but it can be expensive.

Well, that's all the advice I have for now. If you have any ideas you'd like to send or questions you'd like to ask, contact me through Knight Software.