The Basics of Effective SEO

In my last post I gave a general overview and definition of “web marketing.”  As I mentioned in that post, there are a variety of different activities under the web marketing umbrella. The one I will be focusing on in this post is search engine optimization, also known as SEO.  Of all the web marketing activities, SEO is quite possibly the most widely know and there’s good reason for that.

There are two main ways to show up in a search engine: natural rankings (those results whose position in the listing is based off the quality, content, and popularity of the site), and paid listings (activities such as Pay Per Click campaigns).  Although it is always a good thing to show up in the search results for a given search word / phrase, more value will typically come from those results that are on the “natural” side of things. Now don’t get me wrong, there is alot of value in PPC campaigns as well, but for the sake of keeping your attention and not getting off track I’m going to remain focused on giving a basic explanation of SEO and the natural side of things for now. I’ll go into greater detail regarding PPC and other paid activities in the future.

To sum it up, SEO is basically the process of improving one’s web site to help with its appeal and usefulness to not only the search engines, but also to its users. One thing to understand, and it seems many people lose focus here, is that a search engine has never purchased anything from a web site. It’s never requested a quote or inquired about volunteering either. The point being, a search engine result can do you a world of good, but it means nothing if the information on your site and the usability of your site is not up to par for your users –  the ones who DO purchase, inquire, and submit requests for quotes or additional information. A rule of thumb for an effective SEO campaign is to optimize your site for your users while following the general guidelines of the search engines. Do this well, and your site will naturally do well in the engines.

There are three main things that go into determining how your site will rank in the natural search results.

1) Site architecture – this refers to the site’s programming, design, layout, etc. It allows the search engine “bots”, also referred to as a “crawlers” or “spiders” to index your site’s content. If your site isn’t programmed properly or if your site is made up entirely of images, the search engine bots will not be able to find your content, thus you will not be indexed for certain keyword or phrases. So when you have content about hammers on your site and someone searches for “hammers”, if your site is search friendly the search engine will be able to index you as a potential result for that phrase. If the bots cannot find you, you aren’t even in the game let alone ranking highly.

2) Content - content is king! The more relevant content you have on your site the better.  A search engine’s ultimate goal is to return the best and most thorough results to a user for what they searched for. So, with that said, the search engines scan all the millions of sites out therefor content relevant to possible searches. Using the hammer example again, if site owner A has the term “hammer” listed on one of its product pages one time, it does have content relevant to the search keyword “hammer” and it could potentially rank for that keyword. Now, site owner B not only has product pages talking about hammers, but also a “history of the hammer” page and specific descriptions of their hammers (claw hammer, craftsman hammer, etc.). Because of this additional content, Site owner B has a much higher likelihood of ranking further up in the search engines because of the extensive amounts of content and thorough knowledge of the subject, so, when it comes time for the search engine to display results for the search term “hammer” it’s going to want to present the most thorough results possible, i.e. site B. Now remember, none of this is even possible if we don’t have the proper architecture (#1) in place.

3) Popularity - popularity refers to the amount of links you have to and from your site. Think of a link from a web site as a vote of confidence. If a web site links to your web site, the search engines basically view this as confirmation that the linking site believes your site has valid and helpful information. Having a link from a web site that is also in your industry or, better yet, an authority in your industry, will weigh much more heavily in the search engines than a site completely unrelated to yours. So to once again go to the hammer example; if you sell hammers and you have a link from Mom and Pop’s Bakery, yes, you have a link but what does Mom and Pop’s know about hammers? Now if Craftsman Tools is linking to your web site, this link will benefit you much more because Craftsman obviously knows about hammers and is considered by the search engines as an authority.

Another thing to consider is reciprocal linking and one way linking. The most beneficial type of link is from a web site to yours and that’s it. Less benefit is given to a link when you are linking right back to them rather than them simply linking to you. Again, we are simply skimming the surface of the art of increasing your sites popularity and the intricacies of proper linking.

Proper SEO is an art form. It requires a combination of research, implementation and tracking (analytics and stats). In blog posts to come, I will elaborate further on those three items. For now, I hope I was able to give you a very basic overview of what SEO is and how it works. As always, if you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.

For more information, or to begin dialog, contact our friends at Academy Media Group.  We look forward to helping you further understand the basics of effective Search Engine Optimization. 

Thanks for reading!

— Josh Best, The Karcher Group

Josh Best is a Sales Rep / Account Executive for The Karcher Group, a web development, marketing and hosting firm located in North Canton, Ohio.