Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The Challenge
If you want to be found in the search engines, it is important that you add search engine optimization to your action list. In a nutshell, search engine optimization--or SEO for short--is the process of making your web pages "search engine friendly."

SEO is a relatively new marketing industry. Although there are many purported experts, most of us who call ourselves SEO specialists are learning. The search engines are constantly in flux, so SEO techniques that worked yesterday may not necessarily work tomorrow. As a result, it is exceedingly important to keep up with the fervent pace of the Internet, and the search engines in particular.

The Risks
One of the frustrations of search engine placement is that your rankings are constantly fluctuating. The key to a successful search engine optimization campaign is creativity, perseverance and practice, practice, practice. Do not try to fool the search engines by "tricking" them with unsavory techniques (e.g., keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text) because you will risk having your web site lose favor with the search engines, or worse, getting banned altogether.

The Solution
If you are developing a new web site or redesigning an old one, now is a good time to think about search engine optimization. We guide our customers through entire the process of optimizing your web pages for the search engines. We will customize your SEO strategy so your ideal customer finds you.

Web Site Search Engine Optimization Procedure Summary

Proper search engine optimization (SEO) procedures will place your site high in the rankings for all to see, like a billboard placed along a busy highway. The ideal result is on the front page of Google. Google is by far the most popular search engine used in the world today.

Search Engines, such as Google and MSN, each have their own method of ranking web sites for a given key word search. These ranking methods use a mathematical algorithm that they keep secret and that they also frequently change. A search for the same key words or phrases on different search engines will produce different results.

The search engine companies do, however, give web designers suggestions and guidelines for web site construction and layout to optimize their sites for searches, but the specific algorithm is kept quite top secret.

Despite this, many web designers are unaware of or ignore the field of search engine optimization. The most beautiful web site, if not optimized for search engines, will remain undiscovered in the vast cluttered spaces of the internet. It is akin to placing a beautifully illustrated billboard in the middle of a forest.

Web site SEO design procedures involve the following key parameters:

• Design - Making the site easy to read by search engines.
• Content - Giving the site lots of relevant content to related search topics.
• Keywords - Knowing what phrases searchers will use to find you.

Design:

A web site must be designed so that the web crawling programs used by search engines can enter, read, and visit the entire site. These web crawlers can not read graphics such as photos, graphic menus, or Flash programs. Many web designers are graphic artists and not programmers. They like graphics and Flash.

If a site uses a large graphic image mapped for embedded links, which is very common, the web crawler is not able to visit these links. Secondary plain text links or a site map page using text links should be incorporated in the site to enable search engines to completely crawl the site. Many designers are not aware of these search engine limitations.

The web site should be kept shallow, meaning that the other pages of content on the site can be reached from the home page in one or two steps. This again facilitates search engine crawlers. A site map accessible from the front page using a text link helps in this regard.

Proper use of HTML code should be used and then checked with the www protocol. Wrong use of HTML code will inhibit web crawlers.

Content:

A web site with a lot of related text content will rank higher than a site with very little content. To a search engine, lots of text means that the site is valuable and relevant. It is more likely to contain what the searcher is looking for. Programmers are often at a disadvantage in this regard because the siteÕs content or subject is not their field of expertise.

The content has to be properly labeled with Text Headers. These should give a synopsis of the page content using key words. Search engines give weight to Text Headers.

Photos, while not readable to a search engine, should be labeled with key words using Òalt codesÓ and Òtitle codesÓ in the HTML programming. This is a very labourious task which many programmers chose to ignore. The programmer may not know the content of a picture on a technically oriented web site and thus the alt code and title code will be left unused.

On the internet, size matters. A big site will generally rank higher than a small site.

On the internet, change is good. A site that remains static or unchanged for a long period of time will lose its ranking position. A site that has not changed in months looks like it is dead. A site that is constantly being modified, or having content added to it, looks more relevant to the search engines.

Key Words:

This involves knowing what words and phrases your web site visitors are going to use when they look for you on the internet. So you must put yourself into their shoes. You must use the language and terms that they are familiar with. These may be different from what you would use. If you use the wrong key words on your site, it is like having your sign written in the wrong language for the viewers.

Web sites should be labeled with HTML Key Word Meta Tags. These are lines of code that search engines read that summarize the sites topical content using the key words or phrases. These can include the products being sold and the geographical area covered. Each web page can have up to 250 characters of key word code.

Many programmers are unfamiliar with the area of expertise of the web siteÕs content and are thus in a poor position to choose key words. Many sites do not have the HTML Key Word Meta Tags installed in the code. They do not affect the appearance of the site, so many programmers do not include them.

Summary

The internet is the fastest growing marketing tool in the world. Like any tool, however, it first has to be designed properly, then it must be used properly, and finally it must be maintained in good working order.

A web site designed with search engine optimization allows an organization to use their web site to its maximum ability and get maximum exposure.

The site must then be maintained with an ongoing process of content development in order to keep it ranking well with search engines.