What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimization means that each page of your
website has been optimized to give your website favorable rankings in the
search engines. You may optimize your
own website or you may contract Web Solutions Omaha to optimize your website
for you. If you choose to do your own optimization, the information on this
page will be very helpful.
How are websites indexed by Search Engines?
In general, when ranking results, search engines give
special weight to keywords that appear:
· In
the title
· In
the description
· High
up on the page
· In
the URL (your domain name)
· In
the ALT tags for graphics
· In
the link text for inbound links (from other websites)
It seems to be generally agreed that the "title"
and the "description" meta tags are important to write effectively,
since several major search engines use them in their indices. Use
relevant keywords in your title, and vary the titles on the different pages
that make up your website, in order to target as many keywords as
possible. As for the "description" meta tag, some search
engines will use it as their short summary of your URL, so make sure your
description is one that will entice surfers to your site.
Note: The "description" meta tag is
generally held to be the most valuable, and the most likely to be indexed, so
pay special attention to this one.
Your website will be crawled
(spidered) by numerous search engines. Search engines use software programs
known as robots, spiders or crawlers. A robot is a piece of software that
automatically follows hyperlinks from one document to the next around the Web.
When a robot discovers a new site, it sends information back to its main
site to be indexed. Because websites are one of the least static forms of
publishing (i.e., they change a lot), robots also update previously catalogued
sites. How quickly and comprehensively they carry out these tasks varies
from one search engine to the next.
Search engines use automated software programs known as
spiders or bots to survey the Web and build their databases. Web pages and
documents are retrieved by these programs and analyzed. Data collected
from each web page are then added to the search engine index. When you
enter a query at a search engine site, your input is checked against the search
engine's index of all the web pages it has analyzed. The best URLs
are then returned to you as hits, ranked in order with the best results at the
top.
There is no perfect way to ensure that you'll receive a high
ranking on any one search engine. Even if you do get a great ranking,
there's no assurance that you'll keep it for long. For example, this week
you may have a web page that is ranked number one on Google for the search
phrase "how to grow geraniums". A few
days later your web page may drop from number 1 ranking to number 25. Rankings on search engines are dynamic and
rarely stay the same from one day to the next.
Keyword Searching
This is the most common form of text search on the Web.
Most search engines do their text query and retrieval using keywords.
What is a keyword, exactly? It can simply be any word
on a web page. Keywords would actually tell a user something about the
subject and content of the web page.
Unless the author of the web page specifies the keywords for
the page (by using meta tags),
it's up to the search engine to determine them. Essentially, this means
that search engines pull out and index words that appear to be significant.
Since search engines are software programs, not rational human beings, they
work according to rules established by their creators for what words are usually
important in a broad range of documents. The title of a page, for
example, usually gives useful information about the subject of the page (if it
doesn't, it should!). Words that are mentioned towards the beginning of a
document (think of the "topic sentence" in a high school essay, where
you lay out the subject you intend to discuss) are given more weight by most
search engines. The same goes for words that are repeated several
times throughout the document.
Search engines are aware of deceptive tactics, and have
devised various methods to circumvent them, so be careful. Use keywords
that are appropriate to your subject, and make sure they appear in the top
paragraphs of actual text on your webpage. Many search engine algorithms
score the words that appear towards the top of your document more highly than
the words that appear towards the bottom. It sometimes helps to give your
page a file name that makes use of one of your prime keywords.
Helpful Tips
- Create a useful,
information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately
describe your content.
- Think about the words users
would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually
includes those words within it.
- Try to use text instead of
images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler
doesn't recognize text contained in images.
- Make sure that your TITLE and
image ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
- Check for broken links and
correct them.
- Keep the links on a given
page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
Things
to Avoid
Don't
fill your page with lists of keywords, attempt to "cloak" pages, or
put up "crawler only" pages. If your site contains pages, links, or
text that you don't intend visitors to see, Google considers those links and
pages deceptive and may ignore your site.
Don't
feel obligated to purchase a search engine optimization service. Some companies
claim to "guarantee" high ranking for your site in Google's search
results. While legitimate consulting firms can improve your site's flow and
content, others employ deceptive tactics in an attempt to fool search engines.
Be careful; if your domain is affiliated with one of these deceptive services,
it could be banned from the Google index.
Don't
use images to display important names, content, or links. Google's crawler
doesn't recognize text contained in graphics. Use ALT tags if the main content
and keywords on your page can't be formatted in regular HTML.
Don't
create multiple copies of a page under different URLs.
