Learn Search Engine Optimization: SEO Tutorial Guide -Marketing
March 23, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under SEO You Should Know
SEO… what is it?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In essence, it is a game that websites play with Google to achieve different goals. The goal of the website is to get placed as close to the top of the Google rankings (SERPs) as possible, thereby getting the most traffic. Google’s goal is to provide their customers with the best, most relevant results that they can. Each side takes turns trying new things, and trying to achieve their goal. Sometimes it’s fun and sometimes it’s frustrating, but unfortunately in the life of an Internet marketer, it is something that cannot be avoided.
So what exactly is Google’s algorithm. Here’s a little secret that most SEO experts won’t tell you… we have no idea. Well okay, that may not be exactly true, but the fact is nobody knows exactly what the algorithm is or how exactly it works, except for Google. However by testing and trying new things over and over we have been able to determine, fairly accurately, how the algorithm works and what it is actually looking for when it looks at a website.
One other thing to keep in mind is that the algorithm is constantly changing. So when you hear about somebody getting a Google slap, basically it means that Google has made a change to their algorithm, so it’s time for everyone to go back to work and try to figure out exactly what the change was. There are many ways that you avoid getting Google slapped, and we talk about them on the other parts of this site. Because the algorithm is always changing, you should never consider SEO work on your site complete. It is always an ongoing process.
So you may also be wondering why we’re talking specifically about Google. There are obviously many other search engines out there such as Yahoo and MSN.
Why not a guide on those? In short, volume. Google is, by a wide margin, the undisputed king of the search engines. Not only does the power its own search engine, but it is also responsible for powering several other search engines on the web. For instance, if you have a top ranking in Google, you also have a top ranking on AOL, Netscape, EarthLink, CompuServe, Lycos, IWon.com, Go.com, and AT&T Worldnet. That accounts for roughly 70% of all search engine traffic to websites.
The key to SEO is relevancy. You are trying to make your website the most relevant for whatever someone types into search box. The more relevant your site appears to be to Google, the better your ranking will be in the SERPs. Another important factor is the importance of your page. Page importance is determined by the quality, and quantity, of links that point to your webpage from other websites. It is estimated that inbound links account for roughly 60% of your ranking.
The Google algorithm (what we think we know)
According to most experts, including myself, but Google algorithm has two major components.
On page factors (keywords)
The algorithm looks at how, when, and where keywords are used on the page. This determines page relevance.
Off page factors (links)
The quantity and quality of inbound links to your site from other sites determine your page importance. This is also a factor in Google PR (PageRank) values.
Although the PR value is important for some things, in general it is not something you need to worry about. I’ve seen many PR 1 sites out rank PR 4 and 5 sites in the SERPs.
To top things the Google algorithm looks for
It’s estimated that the Google algorithm looks it over a hundred different criteria. We will not try to name them all, because as stated earlier we don’t know for ure. However the following is a list of things that we are absolutely sure make a difference in SEO of your site. They are listed in order of importance.
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Anchor text-the keywords that are used, both on your site and for inbound links, as anchor text are weighted the most heavily. You want to make sure that your most important keywords are being used in your link text both on your site and on the websites that are linking to you.
The more competitive your search term, the more important this is.
- Title Tag - Always use your main keywords in your title tag. Try to place them as close to the beginning of your title tag as possible, preferably at the very beginning. Also capitalize the first letter of ever word. I am not exactly sure why, but this has just become the standard practice.
- Headings (H1, H2) - you want to make sure to use your main keywords as headings in your text. Your main keyword should be in your H1, and your next important keyword should be your H2.
- PR – actually your PR of your site is not as important as the number of one-way links that you have pointing to your site from high PR sites. This is really the only place where PR makes a difference. I have heard it said, although I cannot vouch for its reliability, that it takes a hundred PR1 links to equal one PR6 link. You can take that with a grain of salt.
- Number of words on your page – some say that a page only needs to contain a minimum of 200 words. Personally I recommend that it be a least 350. The more words on your page, the more Google likes it, the better chance you have a ranking well for a variety of different keywords.
- Time between updates – Google like sites that are updated regularly. At a minimum you should try to update your website at least once a month after you have about 20 pages of content. Before that I would update more regularly.
- How quickly are you getting links – although a lot of links are great, getting too many links in a short period of time can be a bad thing. Google may look at this as you trying to cheat the system. When getting links, try to get them at a steady pace.
- Age – how old the site is, and how old links pointing to the site are also play a factor in your rankings. Obviously if you have a new site there is nothing really you can do about it. All you can do is to work on the above factors and do the best that you can.
The best thing to remember when doing your SEO is to "look natural". Almost all of the SEO factors can be overdone. By looking either excessive, unnatural, manipulative, or spammy, you risk poor rankings by Google, or in the worst case having your site deindexed. There is a very fine line between doing it just right and overdoing it. If you think you might be overdoing it, just tone it down a little, and remember to "look natural" and pretend that Google doesn’t even exist.
Please leave me a comment and let me know if this was useful.
