Search Engines 101
You’ve invested time and money into a web site that will promote and aid your business. But that site is not doing you much good if potential customers are not able to find it.
Receiving accurate and high-ranking search results from services such as Google and Yahoo! is an important goal for many small business owners. In this article, I provide some helpful background information to answer some frequently asked questions on the subject, to help site owners have realistic expectations of how the search process works, and to explain what can be done to promote accurate, high-ranking search results.
I’ve searched for my new site using Google, and did not find it. Why isn’t it listed?
When you sit down at your computer and do a Google search, you’re almost instantly presented with a list of results from all over the web. How does Google find web pages matching your query, and determine the order of search results?
In the simplest terms, you could think of searching the web as looking in a very large book with an impressive index telling you exactly where everything is located. When you perform a Google search, our programs check our index to determine the most relevant search results to be returned (“served”) to you.
Google Help Center
Google, and other similar search engines, maintain and add to this giant index by crawling the millions of pages on the web and looking for pages that have not yet been indexed. It usually takes some time for new sites to be found and indexed: I have seen it take between one to three months.
Both Google and Yahoo! accept requests to add new sites to their index, and I always submit new sites for addition. This does help speed the process. But still, time is usually necessary for the search engines to find and index a new site.
Once my site is indexed and appears in search results, what determines its ranking?
There are two primary things Google uses when ranking your site in a list of search results:
- How often are other people selecting your site from a list of results
- How many other sites are linking directly to your site
Both of these are more or less considered as a “vote” for your site. The more votes you get, the higher you rank. That’s it in a nutshell.
Asking all your friends to Google your site, or clicking to it yourself over and over really does not help. The search engines are smart, and look for authentic searches. But there are some things we can do to help improve the site’s ranking. This is referred to as Search Engine Optimization.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the term used to describe a strategy for improving a web site’s ranking. This is mainly done by making your site content clearly visible and accessible to both search engines and visitors, and by identifying other external ways to increase traffic to your site. (Increased traffic results in better search rankings, which results in increased traffic.)
Articles on SEO tend to break the strategy down into these 5 things:
1. Know what your visitors want, and what they will be searching for. Build your keyword lists accordingly. It is important to anticipate what words people will be searching on when you want your site to appear in the results.
2. Write content that confirms the keywords. Avoid overuse of keywords. Use natural writing with a mind towards your keywords, not artificial keyword stuffing.
I take this into account when I create keyword lists. Search engines work best when keywords are reflected in the site’s actual content, including menus. This is also one reason I tend to avoid using graphics-only intro pages with no text content. I prefer to incorporate animation or graphics into a home page that has some text content as well.
3. Choose page titles, addresses, and menu names well, to reflect the purpose and content of the site.
4. Write the site with clean architecture and code, separating out formatting and behavior code from the page content. This is one of the vital foundations of high-quality web development, and is a priority in every site I create or maintain.
5. Link to your site from other sites. The more high-quality sites that link to your site, the better. This is referred to as Link Building.
Techniques for Link Building
Link Exchange Programs
Link Exchanges coordinate the placement of relevant external links on complimentary web sites. For example, a web site that sells antiques can exchange links with another web site that sells furniture restoration. A web site visitor searching for one might be interested in the other, and the cross-linking is mutually beneficial for both sites. Over time, this will increase search engine rankings and visibility. Some link exchange programs gather links for sites related by region or other affiliations, such as a common web developer.
Directory Links
This is the easiest way to get links, but perhaps the worst. Do not submit your site to 200 directories — those links are usually worthless and associate your site with low-quality sites. However, submitting your site to a few quality directories is advised. Directories like JoeAnt.com and BlogCatalog.com fall into this category of “free high-quality directories.” [2] Local business directories, professional association sites, chambers of commerce, etc. are also good options.
Social Links
When you think you have a great piece of content, submit it to sites like Digg, Reddit, del.icio.us, StumpleUpon, and any smaller social sites you know of. On any forums or blogs you are active on, make sure your signature file has a link. [2]
Ask for Links
If you have friends online, why not ask for a link? Most people are kind enough to do so and it’s rather easy. It gets a bit tougher when asking strangers for links, but if you have some sort of “social link” (members of the same forum, similar website focus, etc.), write a quick email asking for a link. If they like your content, they might link to you. [2]
Pay for Links
In recent years, this has become a popular mode of link-building, although Google frowns upon it and has punished websites for participating. Proceed with caution, but know that many people use this option. Search for “paid text links” to find a slew of services and information. There are exceptions to this rule: sites such as Yahoo provide paid listing that actually do help with SEO. [2]