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 or 'organic' lists form the main body of a SE page. Paid listings are separate to natural listings. The paid listings are typically in a yellow section at the top of the page, and in a column down the right hand side. The 'natural' listings are straight from the main index. They show sites listed in the order of importance and relevance - according to their algorithm.
Plainly our aim is to get our site up with the top ones. We've little chance of being seen if we're way down the list on page 7. Only those in the Search Engine's 'inner circle' know all the factors used to position sites. It isn't something they publicise to the rest of us!
But there is now a skilled sector entirely devoted to benefiting from high rankings. And so we have on one side Google and Bing purposely patenting different technologies. (Which leads to much confusion of course!) And then you have an industry built around SEO. Search Engine Optimisers do checks and balances that test various pertinent factors in relation to ratings.
Both 'off page' and 'on page' optimisation is dealt with. In addition there are geographic and demographic factors, but SEO cannot control these. (Off-Page optimisation is examined in an additional feature.)
'On-Page' SEO
Adjusting a site's content to make it friendlier to the SE's is called On Page optimisation. This is quite straight-forward - it simply requires correctly setting up your site. Factors like: The correct use and density of keywords and internal linking; H1 and H2 header tags and meta tags.
It doesn't matter if all that sounds very confusing. In reality, this is very easy to control, but not wildly effective. Indeed, it could be said to basically not have much influence at all. Previously we could make an impact with On Page configurations. Not any longer though.
On-Page can still be important though if Off-Page has been taken care of. Then it's worthwhile to manipulate your web pages and have some internal links.
A Bit of Advice... A phrase that shows vast numbers of results should not be your first SEO target. For instance, if you typed into a Search Engine the term Car insurance, seventy million results would be listed for the UK alone. It's not rocket science to realise that competing in this area wouldn't be productive.
Although... When I search for "Southampton Car Insurance", it comes down to a more manageable 300K. (If car insurance in Southampton was my business!) A big number still it seems - but actually quite a small number when it comes to web searches.
We can do much more with this. In point of fact, a phrase like Car insurance would massively set me back. I would actually be competing with the insurance conglomerates! So not a great idea - especially, in fact, when there are much better ways to go about it.
A precise description is much more valuable to us. They're known as long tail searches, because they'll have several keywords. If your market's very competitive, you could be selecting seven word phrases. They're usually around three or four.
We like to start Search Engine Optimisation using terms that yield less than 500K. Occasionally we'll accept bigger numbers, but only if the results at the top haven't been optimised well. We'll automatically move up the ratings for the more popular search terms as we gain more back-links. If we've worked well, we can start hitting the bigger terms in a few months time. A plan like this is more strategic to start with. We're looking for people who want to buy, so we use terms with a commercial intention!
Back Links should be shared between several web pages on your site and not just restricted to the Homepage. This is known as deep linking. Product Group pages are a good place for back links. These pages are usually linked to particular product pages. This means it can be very productive to drive search terms directly to them. The home page shouldn't be the only one to receive back-links. How your site's pages are managed and listed is gaining more and more attention from Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Plainly our aim is to get our site up with the top ones. We've little chance of being seen if we're way down the list on page 7. Only those in the Search Engine's 'inner circle' know all the factors used to position sites. It isn't something they publicise to the rest of us!
But there is now a skilled sector entirely devoted to benefiting from high rankings. And so we have on one side Google and Bing purposely patenting different technologies. (Which leads to much confusion of course!) And then you have an industry built around SEO. Search Engine Optimisers do checks and balances that test various pertinent factors in relation to ratings.
Both 'off page' and 'on page' optimisation is dealt with. In addition there are geographic and demographic factors, but SEO cannot control these. (Off-Page optimisation is examined in an additional feature.)
'On-Page' SEO
Adjusting a site's content to make it friendlier to the SE's is called On Page optimisation. This is quite straight-forward - it simply requires correctly setting up your site. Factors like: The correct use and density of keywords and internal linking; H1 and H2 header tags and meta tags.
It doesn't matter if all that sounds very confusing. In reality, this is very easy to control, but not wildly effective. Indeed, it could be said to basically not have much influence at all. Previously we could make an impact with On Page configurations. Not any longer though.
On-Page can still be important though if Off-Page has been taken care of. Then it's worthwhile to manipulate your web pages and have some internal links.
A Bit of Advice... A phrase that shows vast numbers of results should not be your first SEO target. For instance, if you typed into a Search Engine the term Car insurance, seventy million results would be listed for the UK alone. It's not rocket science to realise that competing in this area wouldn't be productive.
Although... When I search for "Southampton Car Insurance", it comes down to a more manageable 300K. (If car insurance in Southampton was my business!) A big number still it seems - but actually quite a small number when it comes to web searches.
We can do much more with this. In point of fact, a phrase like Car insurance would massively set me back. I would actually be competing with the insurance conglomerates! So not a great idea - especially, in fact, when there are much better ways to go about it.
A precise description is much more valuable to us. They're known as long tail searches, because they'll have several keywords. If your market's very competitive, you could be selecting seven word phrases. They're usually around three or four.
We like to start Search Engine Optimisation using terms that yield less than 500K. Occasionally we'll accept bigger numbers, but only if the results at the top haven't been optimised well. We'll automatically move up the ratings for the more popular search terms as we gain more back-links. If we've worked well, we can start hitting the bigger terms in a few months time. A plan like this is more strategic to start with. We're looking for people who want to buy, so we use terms with a commercial intention!
Back Links should be shared between several web pages on your site and not just restricted to the Homepage. This is known as deep linking. Product Group pages are a good place for back links. These pages are usually linked to particular product pages. This means it can be very productive to drive search terms directly to them. The home page shouldn't be the only one to receive back-links. How your site's pages are managed and listed is gaining more and more attention from Google, Bing and Yahoo.
About the Author:
(C) Jay Kendall. Browse EvolveSEM.co.uk for excellent business tips on SEM Consultants and SEO Consultants.
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