I spend a lot of time reading newsletters and forum postings about Search Engine Marketing. More often than not, people are asking about methods used to improve Search Engine rankings: what works, what doesn’t, and what will get you in trouble.

Search Engine*:

A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found.

Algorithm*:

A formula or set of steps for solving a particular problem.

Frankly, no one can predict what will happen from day to day with the Search Engines. Only the Search Engine companies themselves know if the algorithms will change from one day to the next. Even the Search Engine rules change from month to month, sometimes daily. Think of the changes that have happened since pay for inclusion and pay-per-click have taken over the market for Search Engine results.

It seems so simple to try and comply with the Search Engine rules. Even though optimization adds to the basic content of a site and source code, there are ways to approach this without stepping over the line.

We personally do not use the methods mentioned below (methods to avoid, methods to be wary of) in order to play it the absolute safest way, using a long term plan in providing you optimum ranking in the Search Engines.

Methods to avoid

* Keyword stuffing. “Stuffing” keywords into places where keywords don’t belong, such as comment tags, image ALT tags where the keywords have nothing to do with the specific image

* Invisible text. Text color the same as background color

* Automated submissions. Using automated tools to deliver huge numbers of pages to submission pages of Search Engines

* Submissions to “thousands” of Search Engines. A waste of time, since the major Search Engines/Directories drive the majority of the traffic to websites

* FFA (free for all) links. Link popularity is good, but only when the links are relevant; a link from a page of random links is not worth nearly as much as a link from a site that is relevant to your site

* Search Engine Marketing companies hosting your pages on their server. The marketing company “owns” your pages, and if you decide you want to move them, you may have a hard time wresting them away. (This is not always the case with marketing companies that also provide hosting, but you need to carefully choose when using this option.)

Methods to be wary of

* Cloaking

* Doorway pages

* Maintenance programs

Cloaking*:

Also known as stealth, a technique used by some Web sites to deliver one page to a Search Engine for indexing while serving an entirely different page to everyone else.

Cloaking is very difficult to do correctly, if you do not have an expert providing this service you could well be banned by the Search Engines. There are ways for this to be done that are accepted by some Search Engines. In general, cloaking is not always accepted by the Search Engine rules and can be a gamble unless you are certain your service provider knows what they are doing. Check credentials and get referrals from people who have used their services.

Doorway page**:

A page made specifically to rank well in Search Engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content.

Doorway pages are not accepted as they used to be by the Search Engines. A carefully crafted doorway page done by hand is entirely different from an automated doorway page generated by software. A few well-designed pages are a far cry from mass generated automated pages sent in large numbers through the Search Engine submission page, which are often considered as spam. Again, check credentials and get referrals from people who have used their services.

Maintenance programs

There are times when a page drops from the Search Engine listings or you re-design the page which might give you a reason to re-submit the page to the Search Engine. Re-submitting your pages every month is not always necessary. Having a log stats program in place will help you see which pages are still listed, along with a monthly ranking report. If you have these tools you should be able to see if any of your pages have changed. Be wary of people who consistently re-submit your pages, since re-submission can sometimes cause your pages to be dropped if they are already listed in the database.

My own experience with a very large website I did Search Engine marketing for, showed that the older (longer) the pages were in the Search Engine results, the better for link popularity and ranking. Of course, paid inclusion can give you more security in having your web pages stabilized in the Search Engine results.

A good maintenance plan will include providing consultation, a ranking report, tweaking keywords in your source code as needed for a monthly/six month/yearly fee and may also include log stats so you can see where your traffic is coming from and what keywords your visitors are using to visit your website.

Methods that work

Good content
Content is one of the most important items you need for your website. Once visitors arrive, you need to keep them there. Adding keyword-rich text that makes sense and serves the concept of the web page improves your ranking and keeps your visitors interested. The more text, the better for Search Engine spiders when they index a website.

Good navigation
There is nothing worse than arriving at a website and having difficulty understanding where to go for the information you are seeking. Have easy to use, clearly marked navigation so your visitors click through instead of click-away in frustration. Search Engine spiders (robots) index text and links; having good navigation is important to the indexing of your web pages.

Title/META tags
Individualized Title and META tags for each of your important web pages gives you the best chance for optimum success in ranking. Title tags are necessary for Search Engine ranking, in particular with Google’s Search Engine. META tags have decreased in importance, but are worth using for clarity and search results. The META description is still used by some Search Engines as the default text indexed by Search Engine spiders for the search results. The keyword tag is the least important but is still used by some engines. My theory is, you never know when the rules of the Search Engines will change, or a new engine will want them, so take the time to include these tags in all your web pages.

Link popularity
Links from other popular websites back to your website are one way of increasing your site’s popularity. Finding websites with similar content (but not your competitors) and high link popularity, then trading links to be posted on each site, is one way of increasing your site popularity. Good content is vitally important because visitors who stay longer while visiting a website help measure the popularity of the site in the Search Engines.

Paid Inclusion
Paying a one-time fee or (as is most recently the case) a yearly renewable subscription fee to be included in the Search Engine results. Directories also use this style of service to accept submissions. Paid inclusion does not guarantee that you will be listed with the Search Engine or Directory, but gives a shorter time-line of acceptance if they do.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Overture is the most popular PPC engine. You bid an amount per keyword phrase to get the highest ranking in the Overture search results compared to your competitors.

Google AdWords Select
Google AdWords is a program that uses your chosen keywords in an ad in the Google Search Engine results in order to promote click-throughs.

Log Stats programs
Having a log stats program is very helpful in tracking your visitors, finding which keywords they are searching on to enter your website, tracking which pages they leave from and much more. Analog is a good free log stats program. WebTrends is a popular paid logs program used by many businesses.

Free submissions take patience
After paying for inclusion, try submitting to some of the secondary Search Engines and directories. Long before Google was a household word, I thought it might become popular and submitted the company website. It certainly paid off a year later when Google became the best of the upcoming Search Engines.

Another avenue to venture down are specialty directories. As the web grows larger over time, specialty directories (also known as vertical portals or “vortals”) focused on your business area may help you get more link popularity and your company name out to the public.

Stay Honest

Stay honest, create good content and do your homework when hiring for services. Using affordable Search Engine Marketing services you will add to your audience exposure on the web. In this way you will always be ahead of the game and hopefully, ahead of your competitors.

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Search engine optimization is one of most popular online marketing tool for any website. With most websites looking forward to increasing the online sales of their products/services, search engine optimization can be a very cost-effective tool to target and procure your customers online. In this paper, we will discuss about search engine optimization, its benefits and how you can optimize your website for top search engine rankings.

What is search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization (also known by various other names like search engine ranking, search engine promotion, website promotion, SEO etc.) is a method through which a website is given top rankings in various search engines. According to a recent industry study, 1 in every 20 people go to the second page of search results pages, but only 1 in every 100 people go beyond that. So, by top search engine rankings, we mean that your website should be within the first two pages of the search results, preferably in the first page (i.e. within top 10 rankings).

2. What are the prime benefits of search engine optimization?

§ Top search engine rankings result in more pre-qualified business leads coming to your website which in turn can convert to greater sales for your organization.

§ Search engine promotion is one of the cheapest methods of advertizing for your organization. Compared to advertizements in the newspapers/magazines or in the television, search engine promotion costs many times less and can bring more traffic to your websites, thereby providing greater ROI.

§ Search engine optimization enhances online brand identity of your organization.

3. What are the key factors for your website to have top search engine rankings?

Search engines change their algorithms frequently, thereby forcing the search engine optimization companies to re-strategize their search engine optimization techniques. However, the following attributes are basic and play a major role in procuring top search engine rankings.

a. Keyword Research – Keywords play the most vital role in your search engine optimization campaign. Keywords (can be 1, 2, 3 or more words) are the search terms which a surfer types in the search box of a search engine to reach your website. Let us consider that you are an “India-based Outsourcing consultant” interested in optimizing your website for top search engine rankings. The following are some of the keywords which surfers will type to reach your website -

Keywords

bpo india

bpo outsourcing services

business outsourcing services

business process outsourcing

offshore companies

offshore outsourcing

offshore outsourcing services

offshore services

outsource india

outsourcing companies

outsourcing consultants

outsourcing india

outsourcing services

outsourcing services company

Keyword research tips –

• Always target keywords that best describe your products/service.
• Try to find multiword potential keywords compared to single keywords.
• Try formulating keywords which give answers to as “why/how/what …….?”
• Utilize your server log files to know what your customers searched most while visiting your site.
• Use keyword generator softwares like Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) or Overture (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)
• Include popular common misspellings (e.g. viagra typed as viagara etc.) in your keyword list.

b. Title of the webpage – …… – Title has a deep impact on your website’s search engine rankings. Experience shows that most companies use the following as title of their index page which can prevent them from getting top search engine rankings.

Welcome to the website of XYZ.com

For example, let’s continue with the above example of “India-based Outsourcing consultant”.

An ideally optimized title should contain the top 3-5 keywords of your business, e.g. outsourcing consultants, outsourcing india, outsource india

Optimized Title – Outsourcing Consultants, Outsourcing India, Outsource India

c. Description Meta tag of the webpage – Description of a webpage also plays important role in getting top search engine rankings.

Optimized Description – Develop a suitable description based on your top 3 keywords

d. Keywords Meta Tag of the webpage – This meta tag was of great importance at one time. But rampant manipulations (i.e. multiple, often non-relevant keyword stuffing in the “keywords” tag), leading to abuse has resulted in search engines giving lesser importance to “keywords” tag while ranking sites. Nevertheless, you can always place top 3 – 5 keywords of your site in the “keywords” tag.

Optimized Keywords -

e. Importance of Content/Keyword-enriched optimized pages for top search engine rankings –

Well, if there is one aspect which holds supreme importance in search engine, specially in Google ranking, then it is this. Yes, content! The popular industry say – “Content is King” was perhaps devised by watching Google’s love for content. Develop content based on the top keywords related to your business. While developing content for your web pages, keep in mind the keyword density (KD).

Mathematically speaking, Keyword Density is the ratio of the total number of time a keyword is repeated divided by the total content words. Since KD is normally represented in percentage, the above figure is to be multiplied by 100

For example, if you have developed a web page of around 250 words on the keyword “search engine optimization”, and that particular keyword (search engine optimization) is repeated 10 times, then

Keyword Density (KD) = 10/250 * 100 = 4%

As a thumb rule, Keyword Density of an optimized page for top search engine rankings should vary between 2 – 7 % (this figure varies among different search engines)

4. Submission of Keyword-enriched optimized pages – After you have finished content development for the optimized pages based on the keywords targeted for top search engine rankings, submit those pages to various search engines.

1. Google - http://www.google.com/addurl.html
2. AlltheWeb - http://addurl.alltheweb.com/add_url
3. AltaVista - http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new
4. MSN - http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

5. Role of Link Popularity in top search engine rankings –

Link popularity has assumed tremendous importance for getting good ranks in Google now a days. In fact, what started as a friendly reciprocal link exchange program among various webmasters has now become a sub-industry within the SEO industry itself, with thousands of link farms popping up every day! Yes, if you are interested in getting top ranks in search engines, especially Google, then you must pay effort in building up links for your site.

Create a html page, preferably named as “Resources/Links/Partners” and place a link of this page from Index Page of your site. This page should never be more than 1 click away from the index page of your site, else webmasters won’t be interested in participating in the reciprocal link exchange program.

Target both “industry-related” and “non-industry-related” websites as your link exchange partners. For example, if you are providing outsourcing services, then try getting links from “industry-related websites (i.e. websites dealing with outsourcing services, maybe your business rivals!). This is important, because if 10 of your rival sites give links to your site, then Google will surely pay importance to your site, because getting links from rival companies are difficult. Your site MUST be of some high caliber, else the other 10 sites won’t have linked! Also, try procuring links from top ranked general informative websites as well.

Always exchange links with websites which have high Google PageRank (PR) of at least 4, the more the better! (both Index Page as well as Resources/Links Page of the Link Partner’s site should have PRs of >=4) [PageRank is a proprietary tool that Google uses to determine the importance of a page and varies in a scale of 0 (least important) to 10 (maximum importance)].

Have a link code ready for participating in link exchange program. Here is a sample link code for an India-based Outsourcing consultant.

- Indian outsourcing consultant providing guidance to companies willing to set up outsourcing centers in India.

Always prefer a text link (as given above) in comparison to a banner link, where your chance of Google and other search engine spiders finding the potential keywords is limited only to the “alt tag” of the banner. Also, Google pays importance to the text of the incoming link/anchor text (i.e. the incoming link text must contain high potential, relevant keywords), so develop a link text with title (”indian outsourcing consultant“) which will help you in Google Ranking.

Refrain from javascript link code because Google spider finds it difficult to index.

Key SEO Factors

• Targeting the right keywords for your website
• Title of your webpage
• Description Meta tag of your webpage
• Keywords Meta tag of your webpage
• Quality, Informative Content
• Link Popularity

Conclusion -

With Google’s numero uno position in the search engine market being threatened by arch-rivals Yahoo! [bought Overture, the largest PPC search engine recently, who in turn bought Altavista and Alltheweb] and Microsoft’s MSN [believed to be developing its own search engine], it is no doubt that the search engine industry is going to experience tremendous changes in the next few months. The recent Google “Florida” Update is just one of the many upheavals that we may be witnessing in an industry where the only constant factor is the “change”. However, the various techniques outlined in this paper are basic and are we believe that following them you will be able to achieve top 10 ranks in Google and other search engines.