Search Engine Marketing

History of SEO

The original purpose of the Internet was to share academic resources between universities   Page rank is the authority that search engines look to based on a certain website’s page relevance, speed and scalability.  One of the first guidebooks search engine marketing professional should read is “Beginners Guide to SEO.”

Scalable Relevance, or to combine rapid crawling and indexing with a relevance algorithm that can be instantly applied to new content, is how Google constructs the foundation for Search Engine Optimization.  Google’s model is built around identifying characteristics in web content that indicate the content is especially relevant or irrelevant, so that content all across the web with those same characteristics can be similarly promoted or demoted.  Google’s Page rank was named after is creator Larry Page.  It was originally called Backrub after it’s emphasis on back-links.  Check out Larry’s original paper on PageRank “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hyper textual Web Search Engine” at http://infolab.stanford.edu/-backrub/google.html.

Domain and Page popularity

Relevance and popularity or authority is importance.  Two primary types of popularity are domain popularity and page popularity.  Look at the PageRank metric through a browser toolbar.  Not only that, but at any give time, the Tabor Toolbar Page Rank value you.  Hyperlinks are the most important factor when it comes to ranking web pages.

Text is the currency of the Internet.  Relevancy is the measurement of the theoretical distance between two corresponding items with regards to relationship.  Quite simply, it takes less computing power and is much simpler programmatically to determine relevancy between a text query and a text document than it is between a text query and an image or video file.  This is the reason why text results are so much more prominent in search results than videos and images.  Text should be SEO’s primary focus this especially true until Google finds better ways to interpret and grade non-textual media.

Content

The search engines must use their analysis of content as their primary indication of relevancy for determining rankings for a given a search query.  Define Keyword Density.  Similar dilution has happened to the keywords Meta tag, some kinds of internal links, and H1 tags.  Instead of simply counting the number of times a word or phrase is on a webpage, they use natural language processing algorithms and other signals on a page to determine relevancy.  In addition to words on a page, search engines use signals like image meta information (alt attribute), link profile and site architecture, and information hierarchy to determine how relevant a give page that mentions.  Link Relevancy does not take into account the power of the link.  People have a tendency to link to content using the anchor text of either the domain name or the title of the page.  Use this to your advantage by including keywords you want to rank for in these two elements.  Beyond Specific anchor text, proximal text- the certain number of characters preceding and following the link itself-have some value.  Popularity and relevancy are the two concepts that make up the bulk of search engine optimization theory.

SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines.  The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines - Google, Bing and Yahoo.  Search queries, the words that users type into the search box, which contain terms and phrases best, suited to your site, carry extraordinary value. Experience has shown that search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization’s success. Targeted visitors to a website can provide publicity, revenue, and exposure like no other.

Search engines have four functions – crawling, building an index, calculating relevancy & rankings and serving results.

“The link structure of the web serves to bind together all of the pages in existence.”

(Or, at least, all those that the engines can access.) Through links, search engines’ automated robots, called “crawlers,” or “spiders” can reach the many billions of interconnected documents.  When a person searches for something online, it requires the search engines to scour their corpus of billions of documents and do two things – first, return only those results that are relevant or useful to the searcher’s query, and second, rank those results in order of perceived value (or importance).  Currently, the major engines typically interpret importance as popularity – the more popular a site, page or document, the more valuable the information contained therein must be.  Algorithms than use search ranking factors to determine importance and relevance.

Many factors influence whether a particular web site appears in Web Search results and where it falls in the ranking.

These factors can include:

• The number of other sites linking to it
• The content of the pages
• The updates made to indices’
• The testing of new product versions
• The discovery of additional sites
• Changes to the search algorithm – and other factors

 

Bing engineers at Microsoft recommend the following to get better rankings in their search engine:

• In the visible page text, include words users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your site.
• Limit all pages to a reasonable size. We recommend one topic per page. An HTML page with no pictures should be under 150 KB.
• Make sure that each page is accessible by at least one static text link.
• Don’t put the text that you want indexed inside images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is not displayed inside a company logo.

 

Googlers recommend the following to get better rankings in their search engine:

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as cloaking.
• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Conferences on search marketing, such as the Search Marketing Expo, WebMasterWorld, Search Engine Strategies, & SEOmoz’s SEO Training Seminars.  Competitive intelligence about signals the engines might use and how they might order results is also available through patent applications made by the major engines to the United States Patent Office. Perhaps the most famous among these is the system that spawned Google’s genesis in the Stanford dormitories during the late 1990’s – PageRank – documented as Patent #6285999 – Method for node ranking in a linked database. The original paper on the subject – Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine – has also been the subject of considerable study and edification.   Pew Internet & American Life Project (PDF Study in Conjunction with ComScore)

Paid search marketing=Start Searching

Google AdWords

Google sells sponsored listings that appear above and to the right-hand side of its regular search results; these listings are called Google AdWords.  Paid search programs allow site owners to “bid” on the terms they wish to appear for. You agree to pay a certain amount each time someone clicks on your listing. This is why sponsored listings are referred to as “pay-per-click” (PPC) or “cost-per-click” (CPC) advertising.  Google AdWords ranks sponsored listings based on a number of variables including the CPC (bid price), click-through-rate (CTR) and landing page quality. This page explains how ads are ranked in more detail.  If your goal is to build visibility on search engines quickly, then Google AdWords is an essential option to explore. It can put you in the top results of many major search engines within a short period of time.  Google distributes its paid ads to other partners, with some major sites listed on the Search Engine Results Chart. This provides you with exposure to more potential traffic. When setting up an AdWords campaign, you may choose to have your ads appear in the Search Network and/or Google’s Content Network (AdSense), or you may opt-out of either.  It is worthwhile for anyone to open a Google AdWords account and experiment with how paid listings may help drive traffic to a site, or use the service as a keyword research tool. Google’s self-service AdWords program charges a per-click fee, in addition to a $5 activation fee, but there is no minimum monthly spend.  As you continue to participate in paid search advertising, you may find that the editorial or “free” listings generated by your submissions to directories and crawlers have kicked in. While some marketers elect to eliminate their paid search ad spend when this happens, you may find that you want to continue spending, or perhaps even increase your budget, to target terms for which you don’t receive good editorial placement.  Search Engine Watch members have access to a detailed How Google Works page that guides you even more through the process of how AdWords operates. To learn more about becoming a member to access this information, visit the membership information page.

Search engine usage has evolved over the years but the primary principles of conducting a search remain largely unchanged. Listed here are the steps that comprise most search processes:

• Experience the need for an answer, solution or piece of information.
• Formulate that need in a string of words and phrases, also known as “the query.”
• Execute the query at a search engine.
• Browse through the results for a match.
• Click on a result.
• Scan for a solution, or a link to that solution.
• If unsatisfied, return to the search results and browse for another link or…
• Perform a new search with refinements to the query.
• Interactive marketing will near $55 billion in 2014.

Search is very, very popular. It reaches nearly every online American, and billions of people around the world.  Being listed in the first few results is critical to visibility.  Being listed at the top of the results not only provides the greatest amount of traffic, but also instills trust in consumers as to the worthiness and relative importance of the company/website.  An incredible amount of offline economic activity is driven by searches on the web.  Search engines cannot fill out online forms, and thus any content contained behind them will remain hidden.  Poor link structures can lead to search engines failing to reach all of the content contained on a website, or allow them to spider it, but leave it so minimally exposed that it’s deemed “unimportant” by the engines’ index.  Web pages that use Flash, frames, Java applets, plug-in content, audio files & video have content that search engines cannot access.  Text that is not in HTML format in the parse-able code of a web page is inherently invisible to search engines.  This can include text in Flash files, images, photos, and video, audio & plug-in content.

CONTENT TO QUERY MATCHING

Text that is not written in terms that users use to search in the major search engines. For example, writing about refrigerators when people actually search for “fridges”. We had a client once who used the phrase “Climate Connections” to refer to Global Warming.  Language and internationalization subtleties. For example, color vs. color. When in doubt, for and use exact matches in your content.  Writing content in Polish when the majority of the people who would visit your website are from Japan.  Thus, it is only natural that great content cannot simply be created – it must be marketed.  Search engines already do a great job of promoting high quality content on popular websites or on individual web pages that have become popular, but they cannot generate this popularity – this is a task that demands talented Internet marketers.

Yahoo Search Marketing

Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM), formerly Overture and GoTo, also allows sites to “bid” on the terms they wish to appear for.   Up until the recent “Panama” improvement, YSM ranked sponsored listings based on cost-per-click. For instance, if you wanted to appear in the top listings for “running shoes.” You might agree to pay 25 cents per click. If no one agrees to pay more than this, then you would be in the number one spot. If someone else later decides to pay 26 cents, then you slip into the number two positions. You could then bid 27 cents and move back on top, if you wanted to.  Yahoo Panama brings YSM’s ranking algorithm for paid ads more in line with Google by considering additional variables such as click-through-rate and landing page quality.  If your goal is to build instant visibility on search engines, Yahoo Search Marketing is an excellent option to explore, putting you in the top results of many major search engines within a short period of time.  Again, it is well worth it for anyone to open an YSM account and experiment with paid listings. An account requires a $5 minimum deposit, and you set your own daily budget. By carefully selecting targeted terms, you can stretch that money out for one or two months and get quality traffic.  As with Google, you may wish to eliminate your ad spend or continue for terms not receiving good editorial placement once your initial deposit has expired.   Search Engine Watch members have access to a detailed How Yahoo Search Marketing Workspage that guides you even more through the process of getting started with the service. To learn more about becoming a member to access this information, visit the membership information page.

Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft adCenter launched in May 2006. Like Google and Yahoo, it allows advertisers to “bid” on the keywords they wish to have their ads show up for. The system uses what is called the “black box” bid and ranking method; similar to the way Google and now Yahoo determine Cost Per Click (CPC).  The CPC is a combination of how much you are willing to bid (max bid) and your Click Thru Rate (CTR) in comparison to the others bidding for that particular keyword.  Upon launch, adCenter distinguished itself from competitors by being the first to offer geographic, demographic and day part targeting. It requires a $5 service fee for account setup. After that, you pay the cost of the clicks.   Bidding starts at $0.10 minimum. Sometimes $0.05 bids go through. You can increase your bid to reach a targeted audience through Targeted Bidding. This allows you to target based on (1) users in a specific geographic location, (2) users searching on specific days of the week or during specific hours of the day or night, and (3) users of a specific gender or age.  While initially pleased with adCenter, marketers would like to see more traffic. The consensus is that traffic performs well and is growing but is still not at the level of other search engines.   Experienced Search Marketers also like the targeting tools. These tools allow them to narrow the ad buy, resulting in audiences that convert better, allowing marketers to put more of their budgets into other ad buys or into additional keywords with Microsoft. The help section is very detailed.

SEO

Search engines are one of the primary ways that Internet users find Web sites. That’s why a Web site with good search engine listings may see a dramatic increase in traffic.  Everyone wants those good listings. Unfortunately, many Web sites appear poorly in search engine rankings or may not be listed at all because they fail to consider how search engines work.  In particular, submitting to search engines (as covered in the Essentials section) is only part of the challenge of getting good search engine positioning. It’s also important to prepare a Web site through “search engine optimization.”  Search engine optimization means ensuring that your Web pages are accessible to search engines and are focused in ways that help improve the chances they will be found.

This next section provides information, techniques and a good grounding in the basics of search engine optimization. By using this information where appropriate, you may tap into visitors who previously missed your site. The guide is not a primer on ways to trick or “spam” the search engines. In fact, there are not any “search engine secrets” that will guarantee a top listing. But there are a number of small changes you can make to your site that can sometimes produce big results.  Let’s go forward and first explore the two major ways search engines get their listings; then you will see how search engine optimization can especially help with crawler-based search engines.  . Others have mounted an effective defense of search engine optimization in the past.  People also need to use internal linking.