Search Network and Networking for Search

Many people think that by simply having a website will make their site immediately searchable and prominent. This is, unfortunately, not the case. Although the web community is evolving in allowing the layman user to create a website that is at least somewhat search-engine friendly, this is not always the case, nor is it often a very good effort to that end. As I'm learning more and more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I'm finding that this can be a rather full-time project.

One thing to understand is the hierarchy of search engines. During recent years, Google has led the search engine industry, with Yahoo! and then Microsoft following, respectively. Search engines use many variables in how they rank a webpage or website. I think it is imperative to explain what elements are critical.

Meta tags are part of a webpage's code that don't get shown to a visitor, but are generally a key factor to ensuring that a search engine can find and understand a page and its purpose. For many years, all search engines looked for meta tags to show keywords, descriptions, and other information for a quick way to gather this data. How often those keywords appear in the content of a page give it greater worth or rank on a search engine, as well as other factors, such as internal and external links pointing to that page, visitor traffic, and more.

The number of internal links (pages that link to other pages within the same website) count for something. More importantly, the number of external links also weigh heavily. External links are those that come from other websites to yours. There can be many external links to a page, but the quality of those links also matter. For example, if you have 25 external links from low-ranking sites pointing to yours, it might not matter as much as 5 high-ranking sites pointing to that same page.

Google does not use meta tags and descriptions in search rankings anymore. They are used as text that displays next a site when it comes up in a search engine. Google looks at the title of a page, content, frequency of search words within the content, and other factors. These are things most people and businesses who are new to the online community may not realize. Imagine using a web host who has automated site creation capabilities, where you have easily created a website with a search engine and used titles, like "Home," "About," "News," and so on. How many sites have those titles in their pages, would you say? Quite a few.

Therefore, it is crucial to use descriptive titles for your pages. These should include a site name and an appropriate short description of the page's purpose. This gives immediate attention to both Google and other search engines to what the site is about. Google and others then look for words within the content to see if the title matches up with the page and how well (number of relevant words).

Meta tags and descriptions are still worth putting into a page, due to the fact that most other search engines still use them for ranking purposes. If you are using a host provider with an automated page creation tool, then be sure that it allows you to enter these in. There are many resources on the web that can help you figure out the code to use. Of course, Guardpost Online is always there to assist, should you need it. We often give free advice.

Another thing to consider in getting your site ranked higher by a search engine is to market your site. Consider linking to high-ranking sites and pursuing having them link back to yours. Their traffic may become your traffic. Meanwhile, ad campaigns either online or off are very useful in driving visitors to your site and can often lead to conversions (not just drive by visitors, but actual customers). If you are a business, look to your local business exchanges, conducting regular business meetings with external organizations, and blasting your promotional products to the community. We can also help with those at Guardpost Online, also (pens, hats, T-shirts, business cards, and more).

Time is a big factor in getting a site ranked. You shouldn't expect that if you submit your site to a search engine, directory, or link exchange that you will be found. If you run a business, for example, that offers services in a geographical area that is laden with the same service offerings from other businesses, you've got your work cut out for you. After all, not everyone can fit on the first page results from a search. It can take months to a year or two to get your site to frequently come up within even the first three pages of search results.

Speaking of submissions to search engines, you need to ensure that you make an effort to get your site onto the list of indexed sites for each. Google has a site submission form (http://www.google.com/addurl). Meanwhile, you can cover most other search engine submissions using the Open Directory Project (ODP). The ODP can be found at (www.dmoz.org) Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com and many other search engines look to that directory for new submissions. You can pay for SEO services from many companies, but this can run you a cool $300-$500 a month on average. At Guardpost Online, we do basic SEO services for a one-time and extremely low-priced $30 fee.

Another factor in getting a site to be search-engine friendly is to make sure that any images are using a descriptive 'alt' tag. The 'alt' tag is code that gives a text representation of an image while it's loading, but also serves to help search engines know what the images are showing the visitor. In addition, they also help to make a site easier to understand by people with disabilities, as they may be reading a browser using a program that analyzes the text and converts it to speach.

As if all of that wasn't enough, you should provide two files with your site. One of these is robots.txt and should conform to the appopriate standard (www.robotstxt.org). This file should be placed in your root directory and tells search engines and other "bot" programs which directories they are NOT allowed to look in. The other file that should be placed in the root directory is your sitemap. This is a file that gives the search engine or "bot" programs a kind of directory of your site. The sitemap should be in txt or xml format, meeting the appropriate standards for sitemaps (http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php). Once the files are loaded, you should tell the search engines that these exist and to look at them. They should do this automatically, but can take a while to get around to it, otherwise. Again, Guardpost Online does this for you along with site submissions to search engines, content keywords, meta tags and descriptions and more for the low $30.

So that was a mouthful and doesn't cover everything SEO. Guardpost Online offers basic SEO services, but gives you such a great value at $30, it provides an awesome set of services and value for your money. I hope you have enjoyed this relatively quick read. Considering how much there is to learn about SEO, save yourself some time and let us help you.