Webmaster Papers








Why Search Engine Optimization is Not Enough


OK. So you've created a nice website with lots of interesting products and information. Now all you need is visitors.

No problem.

This is what online marketers call "getting traffic", and it definitely is a problem. In fact, probably much more of a problem than you realized when you got into this online selling stuff. You probably figured it was just a matter of creating a nice site and waiting for people to discover it. Get listed in a few directories; "submit" your site to a bunch of search engines, and you'll be on your way.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

Why it doesn't work that way

The reason is pretty simple. Most new internet entrepreneurs have no idea how important the big search engines are -- especially Google, MSN, and Yahoo. And they have no idea how these big search engines work. If they did, they would probably tear their beautiful websites apart and start over.

And guess what? That is exactly what most online entrepreneurs end up doing. If they are persistent enough, they eventually learn about the search engines, and they rebuild their sites the way they should have been built in the first place.

What they think they have learned

The reason they rebuild their sites is because they learn a little bit about something called "Search Engine Optimization" or "SEO". The mysterious art of SEO starts from the premise that search engines analyze websites in terms of content and subject matter. Their automatic "spiders" look over your pages and use hints within those pages to determine what they are about. If they see lots of words about "golden retrievers" on a particular page, then they assume that page is about "golden retrievers". These are known as "keywords" -- the words that indicate what your content is about.

SEO takes this fairly obvious fact and says, "Since the search engines are going to draw conclusions about the subject matter of your pages based on keywords, then you should make sure they see the correct ones." In fact, there are all kinds of little SEO techniques that try to exploit the way spiders draw conclusions about your pages.

Why this is not enough

Unfortunately, no matter how much SEO you do, it is still not enough to ensure you a high ranking in searches for your most important keywords. Especially if you are chasing popular keywords like most of us are. For instance, it really doesn't matter how much "optimization" you do for a keyword like "Real Estate", since you will be competing for search engine results with literally millions of other pages which are also optimized for that term. Why should they choose your humble little page?

The fact is, they don't choose yours. And the reason is pretty simple. Your page is just not important enough to rank a high position for a term like "Real Estate". You have to do something to give it some importance.

Making your pages "important"

The most effective way to make your pages "important" in the eyes of the search engines, is to get other sites to link to yours. When the search engines see a link pointing from an outside site to a page on your site, they assume this means your page is important enough to be considered a resource worth looking at. The more links you have pointing at your page, the more important your page is considered and the higher it will rank when people search for the type of content your page is about.

It is also important to understand that not all links are considered equally valuable by the search engines. The most valuable links come from other important sites that share your area of interest. For instance, if yours is a Real Estate site, then the most valuable links are from other real estate sites that have already achieved some importance in the eyes of the search engines.

To put this all in "link strategy" terms:

The best way to enhance the importance of your web pages in the eyes of the search engines, is by getting as many links as possible from relevant sites that are considered authoritative in your area of interest.

Rick Hendershot is an internet writer and publisher and is the creator of the Linknet Publishing Network. For information on products to enhance the exposure of your website and build traffic, go to Linknet Products.

RELATED ARTICLES


The Truth About Search Engines: Playing A Game You Cant Win
If you go strictly by the numbers, Yahoo, MSN and Google are the "Big 3" of search engines and directories. Between them, they index millions and millions of pages in their directories. Although Google claims to index over 4 billion.
Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 3: Site Structure
Welcome to part three in this search engine positioning series. Last week we discussed the importance and considerations that much be made while creating the content that will provide the highest ROI for your optimization efforts. In part three we will discuss the importance of site structure.
Search Engine Robots - How They Work, What They Do (Part II)
If your site isn't found in the search engines, it is probably because the robots couldn't deal with it. It could be something as simple as not being able to find the site, or it may be more complicated issues involving the robot's not being able to crawl the site or figure out what your pages are all about.
Smartpages - Legitimate SEO Or Spam?
Smartpages are highly optimized pages which draw stampeded of search engine traffic to your website....or so the sales blurb goes. The fantasy is that smartpages are the push-button answer to online success. The reality is quite far removed from that.
Link Exchange Tips, No Tricks
Use text links, avoid image links. Anyhow, if you have used image links, then always make sure to put your keywords in the alt tags. Put your prime keywords in text links and always insure to put a short descriptions of your website/page in minimum of 20-30 words or more if allowed. In text links if you are not allowed to add descriptions then always try to put a short descriptions in title tag. E.g.: title =" Link Exchange Tips, No Tricks ">Link Exchange Avoid repetition of keywords, repetition will lead to low rankings. Always try to exchange links from related websites (e.g. if you have a football league website, then a link from other sports websites will be known as related website links) Never, exchange links with unrelated websites/pages. Always ensure that the website that you are exchanging links with, is well optimized and has a good content. Never try to exchange links in quick sessions. Since search engines ignores or does not index those sites who gets bundles of links in quick time. Give your link exchange works few hours every day, to ensure that you get limited but quality links. Mainly for new websites, avoid exchanging bundles of links in quick sessions. Avoid creating a link/links.html file, since search-engines do not index link/links.html files, often. Always make a 'resources' (any appropriate name) folder and create an index.html file for that named folder and create appropriate html files for appropriate links going into them. (a sort of web-directory) Never, never exchange links with pages bearing more than 50 back-links. Generally 25 is appropriate and should not be more than two clicks away from the index/main page. Always ensure yourself that the page/website you are exchanging link is being indexed by the search engines or not. Also ensure on your own that the page/website you are exchanging link with, is not being blocked by any scripts, or disallowed by robots.txt, or disallowed by using noindex, nofollow on html page. Avoid linking to those tricky and false websites, and if possible inform already linked websites about the matter and ask them for link-exchange, if related to your websites. Links from the main/index page of the related website is the most quality link that a website can get. But, never try to place more than 20 back-links in index/main page. Exchanging links with your competitor's back linking website/pages are also the quality links that a website can get. Never post your website links to FFA, Guestbook, or other unrelated areas. Since search-engines completely ignores such links and may penalize your website. Site bearing good Google page rank are appropriate for link-exchange. Generally 4+ Google page rank is great for link-exchange. Exchanging links with old website is excellent. Link exchanging with new websites, with decent Google ranking at first, but bears quality contents and is well optimized, is also an excellent option for exchanging-links, since new websites bears less outgoing links than the old websites. While exchanging links for homepage of your website, also try to exchange links for sub-pages of it, for better ranking for that particular sub-page. Personal verification of the linking partner's website is recommended. Check for total incoming and outgoing links for whole website or for particular sub-pages of your linking partner's website and off course of your own before getting link exchanged.
Page Rank - A Quick Overview for Beginners
Page Rank (PR) is a specific value for a website page given by Google. It is Google's measure of the importance of a certain site page. The scale is between 1-10. Google gives your website high PR if it is popular. It's based on the number of votes other websites give for your website.
Keep Your Content Fresh with this Quick and Easy Tip
Some of the Search engines want only original content. So if the Search Engine Get's to your web Page on your Site and realize they have already seen this Page they won't Index it again, This can be a real hazard if you submit Articles for free Re-Distribution. It is not only possible but highly probable that a site with a higher Page Rank then yours will get your page Indexed First.
Torpedo and Sink the Ship SS Search Engine Ranking
I was recently contacted by one of my best clients who asked me what I thought of his decision to make a major change to one of his highly ranked pages. His initial concern was that visitor sales conversion ratio was low. At almost one percent, it was just below normal, but I'm always happy when a client wants to improve. Conversion and rankings though, are very different beasts and his concern was overly focused on the former to the total exclusion of the latter.
How To Use Google As A Niche Website Builder
The popularity of weblogs or blogs has gotten a lot of attention from the media recently. In fact, "blog" was picked as the word of the year by Merriam-Webster, a U.S. dictionary publisher.
How I Suddenly Stumbled Onto No.1 In Google and Yahoo Without Search Engine Optimization - So What?
Sometimes, the search engines act really strange. And this story will prove how I've got top positions (80% on no.1) into the major search engines - such Google, Yahoo!, MSN - without lifting a finger! What is REALLY strange? I did not optimize my page!
Link Building in Light of Vision-based Page Segmentation
The days of basing a successful link building strategy on link quantity and anchor text alone may be numbered. The link popularity theories behind PageRank and Hilltop remain important, but major search engines are continually adding new elements to their link algorithms to improve search relevance. One of these new elements is the concept of visual page segmentation which was recently proposed in a paper entitled "Block-level Link Analysis," by Deng Cai, Xaiofei He, Ji-Rong Wen and Wei-Ying, available online at http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=690.
How and Why to Avoid the SEO Mania
The Why
Search Engine Monopoly
Ever wondered how one search engine is dominating the entire web. In any business, you have so much stiff competition. Is there any business that you can start that has no competition ? Whether you decide to open a restaurant or a real estate company - you are going to have a lot of competition. And picture the competition that you will have - you will have 100's or probably 1000 other people doing the same business. But in search engine competition, you can probably count in your fingers as to how many search engines there are. But still people are hesitant to go into this field.
Everything You Wanted To Know About Google -- But Were Afraid To Search For!
(A Reflective look at the little search engine that soared!)
Creating A Search Engine Copywriting Plan
Search engine copywriting has become an extremely important part of the overall search engine optimization process. However, in addition, search engine copywriting has developed into a misunderstood craft.
Does Javascript Affect Ranking?
Almost all SEO's agree that using too much javascript can harm your rankings and might confuse the search engines. Is it true? We decided to answer this extremely simple question for the two leading search engines using a simple statistical analysis.
Search Engine Position Report
Since search engines are the first stop for people on the Internet looking for goods or services, the position your website appears in search results is an important factor. If your URL shows up far down the results list, the chances of the consumer never finding you increase incrementally.
How to Get the Best Deal on Your SEO Project
If you own or manage a business Website, chances are you are at least somewhat familiar with the concept of search engine optimization (SEO). You may have read any number of books and articles on the subject and possibly given it a try yourself. Or perhaps, after exhaustive research, you decided that your time is better spent in your area of expertise. If that's the case, I have some good news for you. There is such a thing as affordable search engine optimization. In fact, when you know what to look for, it can be a real bargain.
Web Site Copy is about More Than Keywords
Let's say you are writing a web site to sell beach homes on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.
Hens Lay Eggs (HLE) by Silke Stahl
"HLE" is a bit of a joke term, (or possible tongue in cheek could be a better label) coined in my Network Marketing Group - it stands for "Hens Lay Eggs" and is a take on the exponential growth theory - recruit two people, who recruit two, etc, and in six weeks you'll have 50,000 people sending you $250,000 - the false promise of MLM.