Something that is not understood very well among newcomers to building a website is search engine optimization. This is what designers and developers do to get your website found by targeted users. 15 years ago it was as simple as applying a few “keywords” in the heading of your website. Those days are long gone my friend.
Search engines use many different methods to evaluate website and determine ranking. Complex algorithms that are constantly evolving to weed out the cheaters, spammers, and other non-credible websites just trying to make a quick buck using short cuts. In fact, if a designer doesn’t thoroughly understand the guidelines in which Search Engines separate the “good” from the “bad” then they can actually shoot themselves in the foot.
Since there are 3 main Search Engines that account for more than 90% of all internet users, those are the ones we focus our attention- Google, Yahoo, and Bing(MSN).
I like to view Search Engine Optimization for any website, on 3 different levels.
1. The first level includes all the proper architecture inside the coding and text while building a website. This is primarily the home page and the other main pages in the root directory of a website. Examples are- appropriate file names of images, videos, html pages and other content. Also using descriptions and “alt” tags to images. In the text itself, we want adequate headings using header tags, plenty of relevant content to support the heading and key terms. Basically doing all the necessary clean “coding” to make your website easy to read for the crawlers to find.
2. The second level in optimizing a website for the search engines get a little more involved. A rule of thumb in the world of SEO is “more content the merrier.” This is true, but it should be relevant to the main subject of your website and be of desired quality. Building pages and developing large amounts of content will certainly help catch a wider range of key term searches, and in turn raise traffic. Creating ORIGINAL content, using fresh content like news feeds/announcements, and adding useful tools to a website such as a “how to” video, are common methods website developers use every day.
3. The third level has more to do with criteria that is to some extents out of your control. Factors like how many websites out there are linking to your website, and how relevant is the information on those websites to yours. The age of a particular domain and website can also have an affect on a search engine will rank a website. There are some ways to promote your website and gain links by being proactive and searching for opportunity’s build popularity on other related websites. Social networking is another fast growing way to build links to your website.
To sum things up, it can take an abundance of time and effort to be ranking high, especially when competing against stiff competition. I remember reading in an article that an online pharmaceutical company was paying SEO developers $20,000 a month to be ranked #1 on Google for the search term “buy viagra online.” Now thats “stiff” competition.