The Mystical Process Of Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Marketing (SEM), or Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is a complex, ever changing process.

Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms, shuffling their indexes, merging results and sharing content. The only consistent thing about marketing your website to them is that what works really well today may not work so well tomorrow.

That’s why you need an experienced search marketing professional who keeps close track of the major search engines.

Working with search engines is a long-term project. 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?

This is the million dollar question. 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.

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 their ranking algorithms (the equations they use to analyze a website’s reputation and rankability) so often, and 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 regarding what central principles and elements are vital to your search engine marketing strategy. There are also very clear rules against certain practices that attempt to cheat or trick the search engines. Using such tricks can get you banned, so you need to be very aware of what these are before attempting search engine marketing.

Basic Principles for Successful SEO

1. A Well Designed Site
Your web site needs to be well designed with good internal linking and a site map that makes the content easy to follow for the search engines. Basically, if they can't find your content, they can't index it for you. Following the principles of good web design is a major factor in getting rankings.

2. Content
Content will always be your key ticket to 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. Search engines just love fresh content so they know a site is not getting stale. To maximize benefit, the content has to be unique also. Search engines love unique content.

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.

3. Links
A very important factor in search engine marketing is one-way links from authority or respected sites in your niche market. You can find out how much respect Google has for 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!).

What this means for you is that you want as many high PR sites linking into your site as possible (without you linking back to them). This is because Google gives these sites a lot of respect and values their “recommendations” signaled 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 organize inbound links to your site, concentrating on links from sites related to your market whose reputation thematically relates to the reputation you're trying to build. 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
Google knows everything. Other Search Engines like Yahoo! and MSN aren't so far behind. 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. Automation and search engine marketing are a bad mix and can damage your rankings.

This won't just get you knocked off the top 10 rankings - Google and other search engines can 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 can kill your business.

With an information site, we can hand craft pages 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.

When you are looking for an SEO professional, be aware of these illegal techniques and the different “pet names” given them by dubious fly-by-night companies. Read more about illegal SEO tactics.

Contact us for a FREE consultation today about your SEO requirements!