Earlier tonight, we read of a company's poor results with its SEO efforts. They proposed dropping SEO altogether and instead starting up a link exchange network.
There are many facets to this issue, and many potential reasons why the SEO didn't work out, but thankfully there are many options still available to them.
Link exchanges are valuable and can assist with marketing efforts, but they should not be used entirely in lieu of SEO. That the company was burned by SEO vendors does not negate the need for proper SEO to be done on the web site if they want to achieve the highest rank possible.
The following are a few points that came to us tonight and which we wanted to share want about SEO and how it works. In the post below, we used the term "you" to mean, "you the reader who is considering your options for SEO".
1. SEO Basics
Every search engine works differently from the next. The key with SEO is to figure out which engine you want to optimize your site around.
Yahoo and MSN tend to stick to traditional site optimization algorithms, such as the use of Meta tags, the placement and overall "weight" of keywords used throughout your site, ALT tags to provide text to graphics that otherwise would be invisible to indexers, etc.
These search engines are extremely easy to manipulate, and it is not uncommon to be able to achieve page 1 results for simple SEO procedures that just play off the rules employed by these engines.
At the same time, it should be noted that Google accounts for about 80% of all web-based searches. Yahoo is about 9%. MSN is 4%. So it is a pretty clear-cut case that if you optimize around Google's rules, you'll stand a 10- to 20- fold return on your investment as compared to Yahoo or MSN.
2. Google, and a thing called "Pagerank"
Google tends to put an equal weight on both site optimization, and inbound links. Google's algorithms count every inbound link to your web site as a "vote" of importance for your site. Google also pays attention to whether the hyperlink was made from an image or text. If it is readable (index-able) text, then Google gives your web site bonus points for the text used in the link. For example, if you have a bunch of text links pointing to your site, and the visible text read, "eco-friendly fabrics", then your web site would be more likely to turn up in search results whenever someone searches Google for that exact phrase.
There is no question of the value Google places on inbound links, and the text string that is linked to your site. All of that directly builds up a value for your site, known as "pagerank". Google pagerank rates from 0 to 10. The higher the pagerank of your homepage (and sub-pages), the more likely they will be to turn up for any type of search performed by a Google visitor who uses search phrases used on your web site.
It is also important to note that Google doesn't simply count the number of inbound links to your web site, but also the pagerank of every web page it indexes where your link appears. Let's suppose you exchange links with another web site. You place a link to their site from a page on your site that Google has given a pagerank of 4. The other web site links to you from a page that has a pagerank of 1. Google will as a result place much more importance on the link you are providing the other site by a factor of 4, because your pagerank 4 link has outweighed the other site's pagerank 1 link inbound to you.
3. Page Structure and Keyword Optimization
At the same time, all search engines, including Google, pay a lot of attention to the overall effenciency of your web site's HTML, the behind-the-scenes code that is served to end users' web browsers (regardless of whether you have a database or not) as they view your web site. Google analyzes your web site, looks carefully at the HTML, and checks for proper use of Meta tags (which directly form the visible title and description that appear when people find your site in Google search results).
Google also looks for the use of scripts, the number of times your keywords appear in the ALT/TITLE tags of key images on your site, the weighting of keywords both in your meta tags and in the visible text of your pages.
Additionally, Google will in fact penalize you for keyword "spamming" -- the use of the same keyword too many times on one or more pages of your web site. You may drop suddenly in ranking or from the Google index altogether if you employ keyword spamming on your site.
Overall, it is important to know how search engines like Google are looking at your site and what precisely they are using when they consider whether your site's SEO is good or poor.
4. The Magic Recipe for SEO Success
A properly employed SEO campaign is a careful balance of:
- Inbound links
- Consistency in the use of hyperlinked text found in those inbound links
- Proper web page architecture and adherence to SEO rules
- Analysis of real-world ranking results, and continual refinement
The third bullet point is where many companies fall short when they opt for SEO and are disappointed. They do not hire the right SEO vendor, or are wooed by promises of "page 1 rankings" and just cut a blank check. They get an immediate boost in ranks and then drop to zero. By that time, the SEO vendor is long since gone.
No one SEO provider can guarantee you page 1 rankings, because in the end it really does come down to the value of the content appearing on your web site. It comes down to how well it was written, how flexible your web site's architecture is if major structure changes are required, and so forth.
Without knowing any of these things, no single SEO provider can offer you a guarantee, and it is up to you and every other web site owner to consider this when you decide your site is ready for SEO.
What an SEO vendor *can* reasonably offer you, however, is an improvement by making some very simple changes, because the vast majority of web sites in existence have never been analyzed by software that is widely accessible on the market today.
5. Do-it-yourself SEO: WebCEO
WebCEO is an international company with locations in the U.S. and Ukraine. They tap into real-time rules and data used by Google and other engines.
They also subscribe to real-time searches so they can tell you exactly what the global Internet audience is searching for -- and then advise you on the right way to shape your campaign to benefit from this.
They let you compare your own SEO campaign against direct competitors, line by line, search phrase by search phrase. And as you track your site's performance online, WebCEO will tell you how your site is gaining, and losing, with the use of specific keywords and phrases as compared to your competitors.
The single biggest value in WebCEO that we've found is the near-instant web page analysis. You can input a URL of a single page, or an entire site (it will scan the site and pull the top X # of pages/levels), and then analyze the structure of every page. A neat, printable report is generated describing about 200 aspects of every page of your site, with specific instructions on what to fix, based on the search engines you told it to compare your site's optimization against.
Best of all, you don't have to be an SEO vendor, or even a web guru, to use this system. WebCEO can be purchased directly, or, if you just want a simple analysis tool, you can download a free version (which is somewhat limited but will still let you analyze what is right/wrong with your web site and offer suggestions to fix it). If you are going to use it for an extended period of time, you can subscribe to their real-time search results so you are kept up to speed of live searches that your audience is trying out -- and that can help you keep in tune with your potential customers.
6. Summary
Search Engine Optimization is something many hear about, but upon which few know how to act. It is not rocket science, nor is it magic. It is a careful balance of statistics (raw data) and art (creativity in how that data is used).
The proper form of SEO is one that gives a web site a kick start and lets it run for a while on auto-pilot. A poorly-executed SEO strategy is one that requires consistent stats review, site revisions, and search engine resubmission.
Best regards,
David Anderson
Principal, Canvas Dreams LLC
