SEO is essentially a constantly evolving study of what factors the search engines take into account when they 'rank' you in their natural search listings. 'Natural' search listings are the main lists of results that come up when you search for something. They're in addition to the PPC lists. The PPC (paid) entries tend to feature at the top and right side of the page. All the others are 'naturally' listed from the Search Engine's index. Search Engines use algorithms to determine a website's relevancy and importance. This is how they decide on which order to place them in.
Clearly, the goal is to get to the top of the page. Nobody will know we're there if we're way down on page eight! No-one knows all the factors that Search Engines (SE's) use to determine your rank. The SE's really don't want anyone to know - so you can't manipulate or 'game' their system.
Because of this, much technical expertise has developed around the subject. On the one side you have SE's like Google deliberately filing technology patents in many different areas. This makes determining their ratings methods more complex. Then to challenge that on the other hand is a growing SEO (optimisation) sector. Optimisation specialists test, quantify and evaluate a myriad of indicators that affect a site's ratings.
There are two sides to SEO: 'On-Page' factors & 'Off-Page' factors. In addition there are geographic and demographic factors, but SEO cannot control these. (Off-Page optimisation is examined in an additional feature.)
SE 'On Page' Optimisation
Making changes directly to website pages to make them more Search Engine friendly is what On-Page SEO is all about. This website configuration is fairly simple. Doing things such as: Using internal links, keywords, header tags and meta tags.
That might sound like gobbledy-gook, but don't be alarmed! Actually, though on page work is straightforward it probably accounts for little. In fact, it is widely believed that it has very little effect at all anymore. Search Engines used to credit on page factors in the past. That's not how it is now though.
On-Page can still be important though if Off-Page has been taken care of. In that circumstance, some On-Page tweaks and internal links can have an impact.
Suggestions To Take Into Account - Keywords and phrases that bring up massive results should be avoided by anyone new to SEO. Take car insurance for instance. In Britain alone you'd get seventy million sites listed. Far too much competition at the start.
But... When car insurance is prefixed with 'Southampton', it becomes a less intolerable three hundred thousand. (Only useful of course if these words describe my business.) This still seems quite a large amount, but it's actually not in search terms.
The extended phrase makes all the difference. Trying to get a ranking for CAR INSURANCE would take a huge amount of time and money. My competition would be the huge corporations. Not the best way to do things at all!
It's far better to choose phrases that are more specific to our offering. In SEO terms, they're referred to as Long Tail Searches, as they include several relevant words. It depends on your competition, but long-tail searches can be up to 6 or 7 words. They're usually around three or four.
We like to start Search Engine Optimisation using terms that yield less than 500K. However, if the websites at the top of the listings aren't well optimised, we may stretch to a higher count. We'll automatically move up the ratings for the more popular search terms as we gain more back-links. Assuming everything goes to plan, we'll hit the popular phrases in three to twelve months. This is a nicely targeted approach. We're looking for people who want to buy, so we use terms with a commercial intention!
Don't just limit building back links to your website's home page - link them up to various sub pages as well. The SE's respond well to this. Category or Product Group pages are a good example. It's worth driving specific search terms to these pages - they often have links to lots of other product pages. The home page shouldn't be the only one to receive back-links. Bing, Yahoo and Google are all paying more attention to the way a website's pages are managed and listed.
Clearly, the goal is to get to the top of the page. Nobody will know we're there if we're way down on page eight! No-one knows all the factors that Search Engines (SE's) use to determine your rank. The SE's really don't want anyone to know - so you can't manipulate or 'game' their system.
Because of this, much technical expertise has developed around the subject. On the one side you have SE's like Google deliberately filing technology patents in many different areas. This makes determining their ratings methods more complex. Then to challenge that on the other hand is a growing SEO (optimisation) sector. Optimisation specialists test, quantify and evaluate a myriad of indicators that affect a site's ratings.
There are two sides to SEO: 'On-Page' factors & 'Off-Page' factors. In addition there are geographic and demographic factors, but SEO cannot control these. (Off-Page optimisation is examined in an additional feature.)
SE 'On Page' Optimisation
Making changes directly to website pages to make them more Search Engine friendly is what On-Page SEO is all about. This website configuration is fairly simple. Doing things such as: Using internal links, keywords, header tags and meta tags.
That might sound like gobbledy-gook, but don't be alarmed! Actually, though on page work is straightforward it probably accounts for little. In fact, it is widely believed that it has very little effect at all anymore. Search Engines used to credit on page factors in the past. That's not how it is now though.
On-Page can still be important though if Off-Page has been taken care of. In that circumstance, some On-Page tweaks and internal links can have an impact.
Suggestions To Take Into Account - Keywords and phrases that bring up massive results should be avoided by anyone new to SEO. Take car insurance for instance. In Britain alone you'd get seventy million sites listed. Far too much competition at the start.
But... When car insurance is prefixed with 'Southampton', it becomes a less intolerable three hundred thousand. (Only useful of course if these words describe my business.) This still seems quite a large amount, but it's actually not in search terms.
The extended phrase makes all the difference. Trying to get a ranking for CAR INSURANCE would take a huge amount of time and money. My competition would be the huge corporations. Not the best way to do things at all!
It's far better to choose phrases that are more specific to our offering. In SEO terms, they're referred to as Long Tail Searches, as they include several relevant words. It depends on your competition, but long-tail searches can be up to 6 or 7 words. They're usually around three or four.
We like to start Search Engine Optimisation using terms that yield less than 500K. However, if the websites at the top of the listings aren't well optimised, we may stretch to a higher count. We'll automatically move up the ratings for the more popular search terms as we gain more back-links. Assuming everything goes to plan, we'll hit the popular phrases in three to twelve months. This is a nicely targeted approach. We're looking for people who want to buy, so we use terms with a commercial intention!
Don't just limit building back links to your website's home page - link them up to various sub pages as well. The SE's respond well to this. Category or Product Group pages are a good example. It's worth driving specific search terms to these pages - they often have links to lots of other product pages. The home page shouldn't be the only one to receive back-links. Bing, Yahoo and Google are all paying more attention to the way a website's pages are managed and listed.
About the Author:
(C) Jason Kendall SEO. Look at EvolveSEM.co.uk for clear information on SEM Consultants.
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