When browsing the web, researching on techniques about how to make your web site stand out, you may run across a topic called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are many opinions “out there”, but that is what they just are, “opinions”. Lets look at the topic of Search Engine Optimization and how it really works.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
SEO is simply a method, or methods, that make the web site in question appear higher up in search results. Google has coined this phrase “page rank”. Since Google is the leading site that provides a search tool, I will focus my examples on them.
How does Google determine page rank?
THE QDF (Query Deserves Freshness) solution revolves around determining whether a topic is “hot.” If news sites or blog posts are actively writing about a topic, the model figures that it is one for which users are more likely to want current information. The model also examines Google’s own stream of billions of search queries, which Mr. Singhal believes is an even better monitor of global enthusiasm about a particular subject. ~New York Times
In other words, is your site newsworthy? Google can determine this by how often the web site is visited, but there is another, more effective way. The key determining factor that affects a page rank are link-backs. In other words, Google increases your sites page rank if there is a lot of links that point to your site from other locations.
I know what your thinking, I will join a link share network, post on blogs with my web site in my signature, or even link to my site from my other site with a ton of links!
Sounds effective, eh? Google has also introduced into their algorithm a key concept. The page rank of a web site will increase if your site has links to it from other sites with high page ranks themselves!
To explain further, if you have one link coming to your site, it would not have an outstanding affect if it was on “Joe’s Toenail Collection Online Gallery” (I hope that doesn’t exist, ugh). However, if you had one link from CNN.com, your page rank would shoot through the roof!
Keywords and it’s affect on search queries
Page Rank is but one signal. Some signals are on Web pages — like words, links, images and so on. Some are drawn from the history of how pages have changed over time. Some signals are data patterns uncovered in the trillions of searches that Google has handled over the years. -New York Times
Look at my web site, if you do a search for “nathan blazek” on Google, BlazekWebDesign appears on the first page of results! I’M FAMOUS!
Well, back to reality… My page rank with those terms appear higher than most other sites with those two key words. However my euphoria is laid to rest when I search for “web design” because my page rank most likely puts my site on page 2,309 of its search results! Why is that?
Obviously page rank is the core problem here, but if my page rank is decent, how can I increase my page rank with certain keywords? The answer?
If you had a page about “Scooby Doo” and wanted it high up on page rank, then the key here is the “Key Words”!! The more often those keywords appear on the web page, the higher the page appears in search results.
The way to get keywords to appear often is easy!
- Simply make sure you add titles and alts to links and images with your keywords (if it represents the link). read more here
- Write web pages that contain information about your topic and make sure your keywords are used.
- Ensure your keywords exist in metadata keyword and title tags
Never, I repeat Never spam your keywords to try to increase your ranking. While effective in the short term, it WILL lead to removal from the index service altogether. If that happens then you will not even be found on the search engine!
“People still think that Google is the gold standard of search,” Mr. Battelle says. “Their secret sauce is how these guys are doing it all in aggregate. There are 1,000 little tunings they do.” New York Times
There are many more ways to increase SEO, some are bad (black hat), and some are good (white hat). A rule of thumb is that if it seems deceptive in any way, it is black hat.
Good advice
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