Search Engine Optimization: The Truth About Seo


HERE’S THE One Thing THAT FORCES GOOGLE TO Provide you with Top PRIORITY AND BYPASS YOUR COPETITORS: contextual link building
Search engine optimization--the canny use of keywords and other methods designed to shoot a website to the top of a search--is the make-or-break factor for numerous new businesses.

It is also the web's unfolding, and unregulated, frontier. There are countless Search engine optimization strategists, consultants and self-professed experts who will claim they are able to beam your site up into Google's top 10 search results--for a price, obviously. Consultants commonly charge upward of $200 an hour, and most will pressure you to sign a contract that keeps them on retainer for months--at prices as steep as $12,000 a month. Unscrupulous Seo firms not only make promises they can't keep, the worst of them also use shady practices that might produce no visitors, deliver the wrong traffic or even get you banned from planet Google.

First, experts generally agree that Seo firms are most worthwhile at the development stage of a web site. For example, for $225 an hour, Kent will take a spin around your site, looking for the elements that will get you to the top of a search--clean URLs, website maps, heading tags, page titles. Ideally, he says, somebody like him helps lay a solid, searchable foundation for a website as it is being constructed. Beyond that, Kent along with other specialists do not see much value in contracting with an Seo firm. "Once you optimize the web site and everyone on the team understands what requirements to be done, there should be no price moving forward," he says.

Search engine optimization firms that ask for a lump sum payment as well as a monthly retainer--or worse, a long-term contract--are suspect. But such deals are common.

Executives at Optimal Fusion, a Los Angeles-based marketing agency, found that out the hard way. The company hired and fired roughly 20 Search engine optimization firms in the years following opening its doors in 2005. It paid as much as $12,000 a month for what Optimal president Joel Bess calls, bluntly, "bullshit."

"They weren't getting us ranked anywhere," Bess says. "They would send us reports and say we were ranked. But we were ranked No. 44 [on Google] for the search term 'Internet advertising in America.' When was the last time someone actually searched for the words 'Internet advertising in America?' " Frustration finally led Bess to learn the Seo game for himself. He hired an ex-Google engineer to teach Optimal's team members in a half day what Search engine optimization firms stated would take a minimum of six months of contracted work to accomplish. That not only helped their company, it also gave them expertise to share with clients, which include as-seen-on-TV products such as the Snuggie blanket and Sham Wow, the super-sucking sponge. "If you're attempting to rank the word 'Ab Circle Pro,' don't write on the title 'exercising is fun,' " Bess says.

Google, of course, will be the web-search alpha dog. But all of the others--Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com, Lycos--are sniffing out exactly the same stuff.

What gets their attention? Good, fresh, focused content. Adding a blog is one of the easiest and most straightforward ways to bulk up on content. In the event you sell hair-removal devices, for example, start a blog that explores all aspects of waxing, plucking, threading, electrolysis and so on. Over time, your website will accrue searchable heft.

The trick is to be hyper-conscious of your key phrases. For example, if you want web surfers on the prowl for "eyebrow waxing" to discover your site in search engine results, organically work the precise phrase "eyebrow waxing" into each blog post (perhaps multiple times), and use it on all static pages related to eyebrow waxing. Lather, rinse and repeat with each and every term and phrase you want to rank for.

Prior to you start writing content, though, research and plan your keyword attack. Is geography important to discovering your customers? Then perhaps "California eyebrow waxing" is the phrase you would like to house in on.

How do you size up keyword quality? 1 technique would be to use Google's AdWords Keyword Tool , which reveals how many monthly searches are conducted for a word or phrase. If a search term produces more than 50,000 searches in a month, it will be difficult for your site to compete for Google's attention using that word or phrase.

But you can also use AdWords like a thesaurus: It handily delivers a list of alternatives for you to sift via to find lower-volume, but more focused, keyword phrases. Utilizing those, you will have a better chance of rising up the ranks. Google also has a search-keyword tool that will scan your existing website and suggest keywords.

So once you have your list of keywords, exactly where else do you use them (besides your hair-removal weblog)? The obvious spot will be the keyword field, part of the hidden meta data that is attached to every web page. But last fall, Matt Cutts, Google's head of Webspam, wrote on his individual weblog that the search engine behemoth ignores keyword meta tags when ranking web sites. The revelation brought on quite a stir in the web search globe. It confirmed what many experts suspected: Google was combating professional spammers who practiced "keyword stuffing" to achieve greater rankings.

So now it is page titles--the line of text that appears in the leading of your internet browser--that are believed to be the most important few words within the Seo universe. (The title is also what shows up on Google's search result.) A page title tag field is standard on most weblog programs, including TypePad and WordPress ; any internet programmer should be able to customize 1 for sites built on Drupal or Joomla , two well-liked content management systems. Another place to plant keywords is each page's description field. Customize the description for each page of your site, and write them with some care, simply because the first 120 characters show up on Google, tucked in between the page title and address.

Plugging keywords into all these critical spots is time-consuming--but it isn't rocket science. Obtaining it done, even if you need to update existing pages, shouldn't be expensive.

Getting the Links
So what might be a good use of your Seo dollars? One word: Links.

Google uses about 200 data points when sizing up your web site. But one of them is whether you're popular with the in crowd. If reputable websites link to your content, the Google gods smile upon you.

Getting these coveted links is labor intensive, nevertheless, and includes hours of groveling, cold e-mailing and link-swapping with bloggers. "It's the hardest part of Seo," says David Brown, a partner within the L.A.-based upstart social media marketing company Pure Ground. It's not impossible to achieve, he says, but many entrepreneurs do not have the hours to spare. An Search engine optimization firm that specializes in getting links might be worth the investment.

To do link outreach yourself, Kent, the Seo for Dummies author, suggests this technique. Scour the internet for blogs that correspond to your item or service. Create a simple spreadsheet of contact e-mail addresses for all of them. Craft a polite introductory letter describing your website, and merely ask to be included in any list of links on its site. Providing a reciprocal link, a coupon or some type of promotion can assist.

Coding and setting up your site to be Seo friendly can improve how well a search engine can access your web site, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll end up at the top of the search engine result page (SERP). There are many elements in determining the search result position, but here are the basics:
PageRank

PageRank

Some professional SEO’s pay attention to Google’s PageRank and some don’t. In my experience it does not hurt to have a high Google PageRank. It is a nice small benchmark to let you know how essential Google sees your web page as. You are able to improve your PageRank by following the suggestions above and building-up high quality backlinks. If you want to learn how PageRank works, Smashing Magazine has a extremely good article.
Domain Age Prior to Beauty

You might be surprised to learn that domain age is also a factor in the search engine algorithm. Older domains have a history, and their content is looked at as more credible than the website that got began last week. Older domains occasionally get the edge in search results.
Be Patient

You may have done each and every single factor right., but your site is nonetheless not showing up in the search engines for your target keywords. Why? Because everything takes time. It takes time for the search engines to index and rank your site (particularly for new domains). So, be patient.

Another reason - it could be the keywords that you’re trying to target are extremely competitive. Try altering the keywords on the page and you may have various results. Remember, you're competing with millions of web pages on the web.