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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
What is Search Engine Optimization?
SEO is the process in which a website page is written using in-depth knowledge of search engine practices and utilizing the phrases that people are searching for. In some cases the page does not need extensive content, but generally speaking a significant amount of information dramatically increases the visibility of the page.
How does it work?
Search engines send automated software called 'bots' or 'spiders' to your website to examine the content on your site and to rate individual words and combinations of words on each page. They calculate the resultant phrases in relation to every other website in their database in order to determine your position in the rankings. When someone then searches for that phrase on the search engine it will appear in that place on the rankings.
How does one improve search engine rank?
The most basic element is knowledge. What exact phrases are people searching for on which search engines, and how many of them searched for each phrase? How competitive is each phrase? How targeted is the phrase for what you have to offer? How does each search engine process your pages? Which search engines should you concentrate on?
You can try some simple strategies yourself to see what works. As with Pay-Per-Click, you'll want to try out different approaches and see what works. The challenge here is that it can take a few months or more to see the results, so you'll either need to be patient or have several websites to try out various strategies.
If you do have multiple websites on related topics, don't duplicate content. If multiple sites have the same or very similar content search engines may decide that you have an affiliate network, and your rankings may be degraded as a result.
Why is that? Search engines are in the business of delivering relevant content and variety to visitors. If an affiliate network has a thousand sites with duplicate content on them, then that would drastically reduce the volume of interest among the engine's visitors. Imagine going into a store and seeing only one product, over and over again. They'd lose their market.
As far as an exact formula for your website, that's a hard one to call. Each situation is different and involves different variables. In fact, if you were to talk to a number of search engine specialists and convince them to give up their trade secrets, you'd find almost as many differences of opinion on what does and doesn't work as there are specialists. The reason is that each company and individual has spent years researching and have each developed their own tools and trade secrets.
If you want to find out more an excellent site to visit is Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch, but be warned, learning how to do this effectively can be an on-going full-time job.
Website No-No’s
Do not use "tricks" to try to gain visibility:
- Cramming terms into your META tags
- Inserting terms into comment tags
- Hiding terms with identical or very similar foreground and background colors
- Including terms in tags that do not appear on the page, such as competitor names
- Loading image “ALT” tags with keywords
- Writing keyword-intensive (and less than readable) pages just to get content.
- Providing lists of keywords on your page
Tricks like these can get your website de-listed!
Some important things to note
If you're paying a specialist, SEO is initially more expensive than PPC, but typically delivers a much higher rate of success.
Ultimately it is usually considerably less expensive per click than PPC.
SEO listings take longer to develop results, with first trends typically appearing in approximately 6-8 weeks and significant results beginning in 3-6 months. These results do not require an ongoing per-click expense; they are basically free.
Advantages of Search Engine Optimization:
• Appeals to a much larger audience than Pay-Per-Click
• Experiences three times the click rate of Pay-Per-Click
• Less expensive over time
• Typically delivers a much higher level of success than PPC
• Responds well to additional strategies such as directory listings and links from other websites
• Can benefit from software packages on your site, such as blogs and photo galleries
Disadvantages:
• Slower visibility, developing over time
• Larger initial investment when using a specialist
So, should you do it yourself or hire a specialist?
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