Search Engine Optimization Overview

“Who here has ever Googled when they were looking to buy something locally?”

“Did you ever wonder how the Search Engines determine what will be listed number one and what will be listed on page 10 for any search”

“Can you see why it would be such a huge benefit for a business to be ranked number one for your search instead of on page 10.”

Toastmaster, Fellow Toastmaster, and guests today I am explain to you the exciting world of Search Engine Optimization

Put Simply, Search Engine Optimization is knowing how to work with the Search engine robots so that your website will be listed highly when your target audience types in something relevant to your website.

Search Engine Optimization exists because businesses pay web developers a lot of money for a nice looking website. More times than not the business believes that somehow, someway their future clients will find their website just dying to spend their money. Unfortunately the Search Engines differ from Field of Dreams and the philosophy of “if you build it they will come” does not work.

An optimized website needs to be written for two audiences. The human visitor and the search engine spiders. An optimized site will combine a number of different elements ranging from Keyword Rich text, inbound links from other websites, generate a sitemap, eliminate broken links, a full Cascading Style Sheet, and HTML Validation. These factors all play a role in where your site will appear among the listings.

The exact formula that Google and the other search engines use is unknown. Google does not want anyone to know their formula because than everyone would know how to get their own website ranked number one for any keyword. However, it is clear that these elements do play a contributing role and by optimizing these separate elements your website you can feel confident that your site will be listed for your desired keywords.

An important concept to understand is how Search Engines work. The big boys of Google, MSN, or Yahoo! all have the unenviable task of sorting through the entire Internet and figuring out what pages are relevant for words that are searched.

The spiders go from page to page, website to website, and do their best to put the entire Internet into their database. The spiders need our help though, and by working with them effectively you can get your website found when someone types in something relevant to your website.

The most important thing for these robots is the text on your website. An effective website will be loaded with words that your potential client will use to search for you. It is important that the website have Keywords in their Title Tags and use the keywords throughout each page. The most common title tag is “Homepage” and when you see this I can guarantee you that this site will never be found. Effectively you are competing with everyone else on the planet who has no idea what
they are doing when someone types in “home.”

It is also important to keep in mind that all these websites with beautiful pictures and fancy Flash documents mean nothing to the robots. Robots are stupid and they will have no way of knowing that beautiful photos of Europe are for selling tours. Bottom Line is if the robots do not know what your website is about, do not expect for the website to find you when your potential client searches for a phrase relevant to your website.

Inbound Links referring to your website are also important. The Spiders are constantly indexing the Internet and they hop from site to site. The Robots will be impressed when they are making their rounds of the internet and they are constantly finding other sites that are referring to yours. If you have several links coming into your website the search engines will think highly of your site and you will be listed highly when people type in relevant keywords.

An effective website will also eliminate all broken links. Broken Links are links that refer to sites that no longer exist. It is annoying for the visitor to your website, and to the Search Engine Robots. If you have too many of these broken links the robots will not think highly of your website, and your site will not appear highly when your desired keywords are searched.

Sitemaps are another important element. You want your visitor and the robots to have an easy time navigating through your site. The Sitemap is a page with a link to every other page of your website. This will help the human visitor find what they are looking for, and it will help the robots go through your page. By making it easy on the robots they will be able to go through your site and put more of your pages in their database. More pages in their database means more chances for your human visitor to find you through search engines.

Search Engine Robots also want to see that your website is up to today’s standards. Over the last two years the creation of websites has forever changed. In the good old days of 2005 you had to make changes for style one-by-one. If you had a website of 2,000 pages and one day you decided that you wanted Green Headlines instead of Blue you would have to go page-by-page, headline-by-headline for every headline. The invention of a Cascading Style Sheet has transformed this process and now you only need to make a slight change in one an external file and Voila you know have Green Headlines throughout the 2,000 Websites. This makes the technical code shorter for each webpage. The robots do not want to read pages and pages of HTML Code and by making this code much shorter the search engines will rank your site higher.

Another important element is HTML Validation. HTML Validation means that your website will work on every browser on every device from mobile phones to interactive television systems. The HTML Standards are set by the World Wide Web Consortium, and the robots will be able to read that a site is HTML Validated. Again this works for both audiences. Your human visitor will be able to access your site whether they are using their iPhone or their Wii and the robots will see that you know what you are doing.

Search Engine optimization is understanding how to make all these various elements work together. There is no magic formula, but unfortunatley it will not happen by accident. With an effective SEO Campaign you can make Google your salesperson.