What is Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is the process of improving elements of your website and how other sites link to yours in order to increase your site’s rankings in the major search engines.
It’s important to understand that because of the way the search engines work, SEO is a complex and ever changing process. Search engines are constantly changing the algorithms that determine how sites are ranked, they constantly add new site and shuffle their indexes, merge results and share content. The only consistent thing about getting top rankings in the search engines is that what works really well today probably won’t work so well tomorrow.
That’s why you need an experienced search engine marketing professional who keeps two fingers on the pulse of the major search engines. If Google hiccups, we know about it. If Yahoo! gets stubborn, we’ll coax those rankings back to the first page.
Working with the search engines is a long-term, high maintenance relationship and we’re dedicated to managing that relationship so you don’t have to, and at an investment you can feel good about.
So How Exactly Does SEO Work?
Well, this is the million dollar question isn’t it? And we can almost guarantee you that for every person you ask, you’ll get a different answer. That’s because marketing to the search engines is like any creative endeavor: cooking, painting, carpentry, etc. It’s much more art than science.
You know, if you ask five people to bake a cake, you’ll get five unique cakes each with different ingredients. Ask ten people to craft you a chair and you’ll get ten distinct pieces each with its own style.
Because the search engines change the way they rank websites so often, and because they each use such widely varying criteria, there are literally hundreds of ways to promote your site to the first page of search results.
However, there are certain universal guidelines for the central principles and essential elements that are vital to your search marketing strategy. There are also very clear rules against certain practices that attempt to cheat or trick the search engines. Let’s go over both of the topics in a bit more detail.
Fundamental Principles for Successful SEO
1. Content
Content will always be your key to achieving top rankings. Without it, any rankings achieved will be short-lived. For content to help your ranking, however, you need a lot of it and it has to be updated regularly. Most importantly, each page of content must target a specific keyword term.
However, if your site possesses content that is auto-generated or is poorly written (i.e. a human visitor would not find it useful and informative) the search engines will figure it out and demote your site, possibly even blacklisting you and preventing you from showing up in their results at all.
To keep that from happening, we develop well-written, keyword targeted content for your site that is updated consistently and monitored for “rankability”. Your business will enjoy the added benefit of an ever-growing resource library of information that your site visitors will enjoy and which will also help with your sales conversions.
2. Links
Well, more specifically, one-way links from authoritative sites in your niche market. You can find out how authoritative a site is by looking at its Page Rank.
Page Rank, or PR, is a ranking system Google devised to show how much weight or authority a particular site has. No one can say the exact methodology Google uses to assign Page Rank, however all SEO experts agree that it largely has to do with the amount of incoming links a site has, how long it’s been around, and visitor activity on the site (Yes Google even knows how long someone remains on your site after they click through from the search results!).
Because of this, you want your site to have as many high PR sites linking to it as possible (without you linking back to them). This is because Google gives these sites a lot of respect and values their “recommendations” as indicated by who they choose to link to.
If all this sounds a bit complicated, think of it this way:
Google and the major search engines analyze your website the way scholars judge academic papers. The more journals and other reputable papers cite your research and quote you, the more authoritative and “expert” you become.
We negotiate inbound links on your behalf, concentrating on links from sites related to your market whose reputation thematically relates to the reputation you’re trying to build. In addition, a good portion of the links we get for you are within the content of the sites rather than being buried in a “links page” or “resources page”. This adds even more strength to those incoming links. Finally, we also make sure these links deep-link into your website, meaning that they link to various pages in your website, rather than just to your homepage (also a sign that you’re highly authoritative).
3. Visitor Behavior
Scary as it may sound, Google pretty much knows everything. Other Search Engines like Yahoo! and MSN aren’t too far behind either. If a visitor clicks from their search engine into your site, and leaves immediately, Google knows that they didn’t find what they were looking for. If too many people do this, Google will drop you from their rankings because they assume you’re not relevant for that particular term. This is why site design, compelling content, and conversion analysis are important.
We offer Website Conversion Optimization in addition to SEO to help you address this particular issue.
4. Human Idiosyncracies.
Google wants to know that a human is running the show. Automated SEO software, or any techniques that add hundreds of pages to your site within a week, or which create content automatically, are a dead giveaway that you’re doing something Google doesn’t like.
This won’t just get you knocked off the top 10 rankings - Google and other search engines will ban your site from ever showing up in their results - even when someone searches your exact domain name. This is why any illegal or unethical techniques will kill your business.
We hand craft every single page of information on your website and upload those pages consistently over several months.
Universally Illegal SEO Practices: Avoid at ALL Costs
Search engines may be vague about what you can do to get top rankings. However, they are not vague about those practices that will get you banned from their rankings. For instance, Google provides Webmaster Guidelines that detail what you are NOT to do when promoting your website.
Click to Download in PDF Format
To learn more about what to look for and what to avoid in an SEO company or consultant service, we suggest you download the PDF report titled, “Illegal SEO Techniques“. You can also view related articles and other resources on our blog, including info on hiring and working with an SEO agency and how to partner with professional, freelance consultants.
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