Search engines are very complex at the root, but very rudimentary by nature. On March 13, 2009, the World Wide Web celebrated only 20 young years of existence, so it is considered to be a relatively new field. Search engines are designed using complex algorithms based on statistical information to determine placement of where your site should be located in the search engine result pages. There are differences within each search provider and they are patented by them individually as well. In this article we will focus on Google, Yahoo and MSN. I choose to focus on these three because they are the currently the most popular search engines.  Prior to search engines, there was no way to index information so it could be referenced quickly. We were lucky to have grown up with libraries that utilized the Dewey decimal system, but have advanced greatly from that time. Once databases of information were created and locked together, we were able to quickly and accurately access the information we need for a particular situation or topic.

 

Here is nothing more important to the advancement of your website than the content that resides within the site itself.

If you don’t have a website with good content, then you don’t have anything to begin with. Write about something you have knowledge about and make sure your verbiage is correct. This is very important to the information architecture of the site as well as search engines. Remember, MSN is four times slower to show search results than Google or Yahoo. When indexing, search engines usually start at a large website. From there, they follow every page and link they find while indexing each page and link they arrive at. They go from page to page and link to link until they hit the site where they began. This is how spiders and robots crawl through the web and read the information on every website to determine how it should appear in someone’s search. From the outside looking in, we have only an idea of how search engines like Google work. There many patents related to search indexing processes, overall it is only known to Google how their system determines the proper search engine result pages.

Another important idea to touch on is in regards to submitting your site to search engines. Do not submit your website to search engines! “Don’t submit to search engines,” you say? Yes, that is correct. You must remember that search engines automatically spider and crawl in order to index the internet. If you create pages and put them online, they will be indexed unless you tell search engines not to read and index them. In fact, whether you submit your information to Google or not, they will find you if you’re online and optimized. Submitting multiple times to search engines can have a negative effect. Simply put, do not do it. Whether Google puts you in the area you would like to be placed in is related to proper search engine optimization. Do not build your website in flash because flash cannot be read by search engines. It is acceptable to use flash elements on your website, but if all your text or content resides in the flash movie then search engines will not be able to read it. This may change In the future sometime, but as of now the spiders cannot read movies. Make sure your website designer knows you do not want the site built in flash if your attempt is to gain new customers through the web. Use only elements of flash if you want to rank well on search engine result pages.

Similar to flash movies, the images on websites are also not readable, and therefore not searchable. If you have an image on your site that says, “Big Bend Store Shoe Sale May 8-11”, people will see that when they go onto your website where that text image appears. Search engines, however, cannot read that text. Therefore, if someone types in, “Shoe sale May 8th”, your site will not appear as a result of that image being on your website. One easy way to tell if you are looking at an image or text is if you can highlight single characters with your mouse. If looking at the example above, we would attempt to highlight maybe just the s in shoe. If it will not allow us to highlight (copy and paste) the text, then it may be an image and not readable by search engines. If you can copy and paste the text from your website into a text file and edit it, is probably readable by the search engines. Also, make

note that search engines cannot read JavaScript. This is always something you as a designer or marketer will want to be sure your website designer knows and understands the impact of. We have links and no follow links on websites. As discussed earlier, the way spiders and bots work is they start at one link and read that page. The spider then moves onto the pages of the links that reside on the page.

Inbound links to your website are very important. Clients often think if they put an outbound link to some other site it will help their website. This is false. Outbound links on your website only help the website they are pointed towards. Outbound links put on our

website that point to another website don’t help our site at all and more focus should be placed on other websites that may link to our website. Search engine optimization contains two types of links: quality and non-quality inbound links. A quality link would come from another legitimate business that may be a site closely related or a client of yours. A nonquality inbound link would be, for example, a link from a link generation service. Also, the difference between building reciprocal vs. non-reciprocal inbound links is

minimal. It is my belief that non-reciprocal links are of more value, but not by a lot. Regardless of the amount of value, the more sites that have outbound links to your website, the higher you will rank with Google, Yahoo and MSN. Back links are what we call other websites’ outbound links that reciprocate link’s back to your site. The more quality back links from legitimate companies you have, the higher you will rank with most search engines.

The length of domain renewal is also important. Your domain (i.e. www.yourdomain.com) is your domain and you are the registrar of that domain who houses it for you. This is not necessarily your web host. Make sure you are able to register for at least three, if not four, or even ten years or more if it is affordable. For search engine optimization purposes, it is worth the money to purchase those years in advance. Also, make sure you own your domain name. Never let your webmaster own the domain name. The domain name should always be in your name and if you choose, you can make your website designer a technical contact. This domain name is not a large cost upfront when purchased but is worth a lot once the site is designed and money is put behind that specific domain name. Page rank is something else that should be explained. Page rank is mainly associated with Google and an application developed by Google to gauge the importance of a website within their website ranking system. This number reads inbound links and search algorithms and was created by the software. It is called the “websites page rank”. On Google, many people gauge their success on a high page rank. This rank indicates a general view of where you stand with Google, but that’s about all. There are much better ways to gauge the success of your website, and as a result, I personally do not spend too much time looking at page rank. If you do everything recommended in this book, you will automatically have a good page rank. Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are much different. Search engine marketing is generally when your focus is on a paid marketing campaign outside of your website itself. An example of this would be the Google Ad words advertising program.

Search engine optimization is generally performed by the webmaster, or website owner, in order to gain more web saturation, higher page rank, and more inbound links to their website. I often tell people to start with search engine optimization and then move on to search engine marketing. Generally, you will find a perfect mix using both if your budget allows. 

 

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for our next lesson! If you need to more

 
The world of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a large task to conquer. There are many simple and FREE things you can do to enhance your website on Google, Yahoo and MSN search. It's just about knowing how to use them. For that reason, we have brokendown this handbook into 10 easy to understand chapters to help you ensure your website is working at its full potential to drive traffic and business to your website! Check it out!