Understanding Search Engines

As a website designer, one of my responsibilities is to have an understanding of the SEO game (that’s Search Engine Optimization lingo).

I am not an SEO specialist - I will not magically guarantee you the number one listing on Google in exchange for a large bucket of cash. There are many others who will though so be warned - lock your doors and draw the shades until they’ve moved on to their next unsuspecting victim. When I refer to search engines I’m referring primarily to Google because at this point in Internet history, they’re the company at the top.

If you’re reading this I assume it’s because you’re not getting the results you want or you would like to know if you can improve your own listing or maybe you just want to shed a little light on what is typically an obscure and confusing topic.

How Big is your Sandbox?

One thing you need to assess is whether or not your chances of competing are even realistic. I’ll assume your focus is more on creating awareness for a local business and that you’re not here trying to get the inside scoop on how to be number one for the phrase “weight loss.” Competing in that arena is way beyond the scope or intention of this article. When you begin to compete in a multi-billion dollar business you better bring your A-Game and your cheque book.

There are no Shortcuts

Looking for a quick shot to the top? Sorry, it’s not likely to happen.

Any individual or company that offers you a shortcut of any sort will generally charge you a large amount of cash for the “service” and can result in your site disappearing from Google altogether in the near future. Some SEO services know how to cheat the system using what are commonly referred to as Black Hat SEO methods. And who generally wears the Black Hat in the westerns? Yeah, the BAD GUY!

If Google associates your domain name with shifty practices you could find your site has entered a black hole and no amount of searching will pull it up. Shortcuts will bite you in the butt.

What about Meta Tags?

There used to be a time when you could put as many keywords as you wanted into your meta tags and that would help with your search engine results. There used to be… The search engines got wise to “keyword stuffing” and as a result began to place lower and lower emphasis on keyword meta tags. Relying solely on keywords in meta tags has been pretty much dead since 2002.

Search engines now expect keywords in the content of your site. If you know the keywords and phrases that your customers are using to search for services and products like yours, you’ll need to add those to your site wherever possible.

Meta tag descriptions are still important though. You cannot go overboard though and use the description as a substitution for keywords. Ideally, your meta tag description should describe the content of the page. This is the descriptive sentence you see listed below a link in your search engine results. Make it meaningful to a visitor.

Renew your Domain Registration for a Decade

It has recently been suggested that renewing your domain name for periods longer than a year can also help with your search engine results. The theory is that the “spammers” will only renew a registration for the minimum which is a year. This is because they really don’t have a business model and they’re not willing to invest any more than they have to.

You on the other hand are not a spammy spammer so you decide you want to secure your domain name for more than 365 days at a time. Some companies will allow you to register your domain for up to 10 years and usually charge less than $100. You’ll have your domain tucked away for the next decade and you may also get a little lift in your search engine results for less than a C-note.

Inbound Links

If you have some control over this, try to get other sites to link your site. Inbound links are another piece in the search engine puzzle. That said, those links should be quality links. Your Grandma may offer to link you up to her sewing blog but that’s not the type of inbound link you need unless Granny is a top sewing/blogging goddess. If the site that links to yours receives a decent amount of traffic then that inbound link is given more weight. If a lot of sites begin to link to yours then that’s an indication to a search engine that there’s something going on there.

Search engines look at inbound links as a form of web credibility and people do not link to crappy meaningless content. If people are linking to your site it’s because you are seen as an authority.

Links, Headings and Page Titles

Here’s where you want to think about adding your keywords and phrases.

A single keyword listed in a page has less weight than that same keyword linking to another page within your site. Linking is done for a reason. When you begin to use your keywords as links in your content and navigation you start to increase their value or weight as it’s also referred to.

The same applies to using a keyword in a heading - a keyword in a heading trumps a keyword in a paragraph. Avoid the use of graphics for headings though. Search engines cannot index the content of an image so a graphic with the words Free Widgets is just a picture. There are plenty of options for using a particular font on your website without having to use images for heading.

Lastly, use keywords in your page titles as it is another signal that you’re providing meaningful content related to that word or phrase. When you begin to combine all these elements you really get things working in your favour.

An Example

Say you want to improve your site ranking for apple juice. You distribute different beverages and you want to start generating interest in a new brand of apple juice you recently began to carry. Currently, your site makes no reference to apple juice at all. Your keyword density for apple juice? Zero.

How do you improve that? Maybe you put a promo special on the front page of your site to alert your current customers to the new apple juice you carry. Maybe you also place that promo on other relevant sections of your site. Maybe you add a link in your main navigation that reads “Apple Juice.” Those links take your visitors to a page created just for this tasty new beverage. On this page you begin to extoll the virtues of your new product. At every opportunity you say “apple juice this” and “apple juice that.” You’ve now moved your keyword density away from that dreaded zero. 

A word of warning is in order here. Do not use your keyword or keyword phrase so many times that the page makes no sense. Not only can you jeopardize your search engine placement you can really annoy your customers by expecting them to read a bunch of jibberish. Write for humans first, computers second. Remember meaningful content?

So now what happens? Well, say your site is comparable to your competitors in terms of size, type of content etc. He too has just begun to carry delicious apple juice but since he lacks the foresight to realize that apple juice will change the planet as we know it he has only listed apple juice as sub product in his main beverages section. You have the words apple juice in your main navigation, on 6 different pages and you also have an entire page dedicated to the product and you’ve successfully listed apple juice 11 times on this page without it sounding hokey! Bravo! Your competitor’s site has apple juice listed twice whereas you’ve managed to list this magical phrase nearly 20 times.

Your keyword density is much higher and you should consistently appear above your competitor on this search phrase.

Give it Time

I recently had a client email me with a barrage of questions as to why their site was not appearing on page one of Google even though she had been doing a search on her domain name. In this example she had the Canadian version of a domain name and the .ca was one of three versions of the domain name being used on the web.

My advice to her was: “Hurry up and wait.” Her site had only been live for a month and it can take up to six months to see results sometimes. Sure enough, as the days and weeks began to pass her site moved from page two to page one and eventually hit number one, even passing a company with a larger website.

These are some of the things I’ve come across during the time I’ve been making websites. Understanding how search engines work and knowing how to push a website to the top of the results list is now a billion dollar industry. Hopefully this article will shed some light on the basics so you have a better understanding of how it works and what you can do to improve the search results for your own website.