When consulting with prospective clients, typically, one of the main topics of discussion is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Each of our clients’ websites is built from the ground up with SEO in mind. But there’s so much more to it than that.
Search Engine Optimization
The process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.
Back in the mid-1990′s, webmaster and content providers began optimizing websites for search engines. The search engines were just emerging, but like any other new web technologies, there were a few techno-geeks riding the cutting edge. In those early days of SEO, a website owner would simply submit the site’s URL to the search engines, which would trigger them to send out a “spider” to “crawl” the submitted page and add it to an index. Soon, site owners began to realize the benefit of ranking high in search results, hence the birth of an entire SEO industry.
Search engines have evolved to a very sophisticated point, often dictating how a website is to be built and structured. There’s little reason to even submit new websites to the search engines for crawling due to automation. However, this also means that your website needs to be built, written and maintained in such a way that appeases the search giants (particularly Google).
Search engines continually tweak their algorithms, which often cause ripples throughout the internet. There is a balance of good versus bad SEO practices, which are very important to the visibility of your site in search results. For years, there have been some less-than-honest SEO “specialists” that would use underhanded techniques to achieve high search results. However, the search engines are getting smarter and will penalize sites that are using such nefarious methods to enhance page rank.
As you might surmise from the information above, walking a proper SEO line can be like walking a tightrope — balance is key. Here are the most critical aspects of SEO, not necessarily in order of importance:
Content, Content, Content
You must have good content that is updated regularly. Building a website with a few pages and then leaving it to die will achieve exactly that. The search spiders need a reason to index your site, so it is important that you write appropriate blog articles regularly.
Navigation/Structure
Good navigation is critical to good search ranking. Much like site loading speed, visitors need to be able to find what they want quickly and easily. Page structure, internal linking and menu layouts are more important than ever.
Speed
Your website needs to load quickly. Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, so keeping the attention of your visitors is becoming very important. In fact, Google recently revised it’s algorithm to consider load speed when ranking the websites it indexes.
Sitemap
Every spider loves a good sitemap. It tells them what the site contains and where to find it. That sounds a lot like your visitors! But there’s a right way to accomplish a sitemap that spiders love. You can also submit your sitemaps to the top search engines, such as Google, which basically gives them a heads-up.
Other Considerations
You might have heard about the importance of keywords and meta tags at one time. While meta tags aren’t as critical as they once were, it doesn’t hurt to still make use of them. Keywords — in regards to keywords used in your content, not in meta tags — are still very important, but you have to be careful. One of the underhanded methods of SEO consists of purposely planting certain keywords and phrases in your site’s content in such a way that it severely affects quality and readability. New algorithms at Google can now identify “keyword stuffing” and will penalize you for using it.
SEO is not for the faint of heart. Make sure you are using proper techniques. The best way to do this is to hire someone who is respectful, ethical and knowledgeable about the proper methods of SEO.
