Search Engine Optimization (SEO) FAQ

Why is Search Engine Traffic so important?

Many studies have shown that search engines have become the starting point for most people’s daily internet activity(along side of social media platforms, email, and instant messaging of course). Using search engines to find everything from shopping, to research materials, and leisure. Once a surfer types a key phrase into the search engine looking for a product or service, they’re instantly presented with an ocean of relevant search results. These results consist of two different types of placement, paid search placement(ads typically located at the very top, and right side of your search results), and natural search rankings(ads listed just below the sponsored search results, on the left side.

With the hundreds of millions of customers around the world at your fingertips every month searching for everything under the sun, there isn’t much better a marketing strategy in existence. Individual keywords and key phrases represent entire markets, sometimes consisting of millions of monthly searchers. Due to the user searching for the content they are being presented, they are much more receptive to the offerings, leaving search marketing one of the most efficient marketing venues on the planet.

What does this mean for you? It means that you don’t have to look for your customers any more, as they’re looking for you right now. Can they find you?

What are Crawlers? How do they work?

Crawlers with regard to search engines and natural search engine optimization typically refer to software programs that are written for the purpose of reading and evaluating a web page’s source code, and deciding how to rank your web site based on how it perceives your web site. The science behind search engine optimization aims at understanding the standards by which the Crawlers of major search engines like Google rank their search results.

More recently Crawlers are deployed by major search engines to your web pages via PPC campaigns as well. The Google Quality Score engine scans the source code of web pages advertised on their paid search marketing program to ensure that they meet certain quality criteria as well.

Crawlers have gotten much smarter and more robust over the years. Many of the slick Black Hat tricks and gadgets search marketing consultants once used to increase search ranks no longer work, and could even damage your web sites rankings by a long term penalty from the search engine.

What are Inbound Links? How are they important to the SEO process?

An Inbound Link (sometimes referred to as ” Backlinks” in SEO) is an outbound hyperlink link on a third party web page pointing to a specific page or section of content on a within your site. Search engines count the amount of individual web sites linking to your pages, and compare it to the amount of web sites linking to other sites like yours with similar content. The engine then ranks your web page against your competition based on who has more web pages linking to their content. Crawlers also take very heavily into consideration the importance of the sites containing the links to your page(based on the count of inbound links to their page). This method of ranking ensures that only mature web sites, with good content that people like and link to end up in the top search results.

Acquiring Inbound Links

Acquiring Inbound Links is a process referred to in search engine marketing as Link Building. There are a number of ways to get the job done, however the primary objective is simply to get as many web sites that are relevant to yours to link to your content as you can. One of the most solid and rewarding ways of doing so is by distributing your unique content via feeds to attract bloggers to write and create links to your page.

There are a lot of web sites that let you buy inbound links. These sites are called Link Farms and Google has made it a point to spank anyone their Crawlers find using this black hat method of search engine optimization.

Because of the effort involved in creating and generating interest, and distributing original content to acquire inbound links, any search engine optimization firm offering a significant “guaranteed” expectation with regard to your search rankings in any short period of time is more than likely practicing shady forms of SEO that could eventually hurt your brand.

What is a Sitemap, and why is it important for SEO?

A site map is a structured list of hyperlinks to all of the content on your web site. Search Engine Crawlers typically begin their journey through your content at the sitemap level when it is integrated into Google’s platform. Site maps are now linked directly to major search engines’ crawlers and page ranking algorithms, and any successful search engine optimization strategy should include implementation of your site map into at least Google, and Yahoo.

What is Page Rank, and how important is it for SEO?

Page Rank or “PageRank”, as coined by Google, refers to the position of your web site within a search engine’s search results for a specified keyword. Page Rank is a term used specifically for search engine optimization, and is sometimes misused in paid search marketing.

Page Ranks can be improved by a number of techniques, and achieving a high page rank could increase your web sites significantly.

What are Meta Tags and how are they useful in SEO?

A Meta Tag is an element of HTML/XHTML used to provide structured data about a Web page that search engines use to organize and describe the page. Such elements must be placed as tags in the head section of an HTML or XHTML document.

Examples of common Meta Tags include title, keywords and description tags, as well as special tags such as the author of the web page and the development specifications the web page follows. In essense they are a summary of the content on the page in different formats.

Meta Tags content does play an important role in the ranking formula for many search engines, specifically the title and description tags, and any good organic search optimization strategy should have them.

What is a Meta Description and what is its purpose in terms of SEO?

A Meta Description is a short summary of a pages content usually displayed within the search results for that page. A good meta description should include multiple variations of a key phrase distributed seamlessly throughout the content of the meta description. Search engines like Google typically index about 30 words(2 lines, approximately 10-15 words in length).

Meta tags are a very important part of any SEO technique, and play a huge role in how search engines display your site within the search results. The Meta Description is typically displayed right underneith

What is the Meta Keyword tag, is it important for SEO?

In the beginning of search marketing, meta keywords were one of the ways search engine’s crawlers would identify your web pages to rank them. Adding meta keyword tags to a web page is simple. The web developer would specify which keywords the web page should match for. Due to the advancements of page ranking technology this method of search optimization has become vastly outdated, and in most cases it may not even be necessary to implement meta keyword tags at all.

On a another note, there are still quite a bit of low end and older search engines that still recognize the tags, and it may not be a bad idea to incorporate them into your pages anyway. You may get some extra traffic out of the efforts, as a good bit of consultants ignore this source of traffic with the understanding that Google controls most of search market.

Do the file names of my web pages have any effect on search engine optimization?

Absolutely. Today’s search engine crawlers will look at your URL just like any other piece of content. A well organized web site would have URL’s named according to content. With search results being matched on the filename level, using a dash (-) or underscore (_) to create the space within the filename should maintain the quality of the phrase from an SEO standpoint(ie. www.abc.com/contracting-services.htm as opposed to www.abc.com/contractingservices.htm)

File extensions (.html, .php, .js, etc) do not appear to have as much of an effect on search engine optimization as web pages are coded in a number of languages.

What is Black Hat SEO? Why is it bad?

Black Hat optimization methods, when referred to in SEO are usually defined as shady hacks, and exploits used by search marketing consultants to trick search engines. Sometimes black hat methods can be extremely effective, but it’s usually shot lived.

Once the engine’s crawler picks up you are gaming them, you may be penalized beyond the ability to rank in any respectable position. Search engines like Google will run you through a ringer to get yourself showing again.

What are search engine Banned Websites and how do they become banned?

Search engines can ban your web site for a number of reasons, some of which they don’t disclose, but it’s mostly due to a web site practicing shady SEO. Search engine optimization tricks like purchasing links from link farms, creating computer generated content, and any other sort of black hat strategy.

Once a web site is banned, it’s usually very difficult to get unbanned. Search engines don’t take kindly to people trying to game them, and they send a brutal message to the ones they catch.

Is Adobe Flash Bad for SEO?

Adobe Flash has been in the line of fire by big companies like Apple and has earned a bad name for SEO over the years due to Flash content being contained inside of a proprietary applet which search engine crawlers could not enter(among other issues created by Flash applets). Adobe has since improved newer versions of Flash to enable text to be indexed by crawlers. If Flash is used sparingly on pages and isn’t the primary source of the page’s content it should not hurt you if used.

Will Javascript code on my site affect my search engine ranking?

Javascript is a client-side(runs the code on your computer, and not on the web server), primarily web based programming language that allows web designers to interact closer with your browser. The majority of the internet you browse today uses Javascript to enrich web sites with usability, and special effects. When used properly, a web site’s search engine optimization should not be affected Javascript. If the developer’s code hides the text of a web page improperly, it could cause the crawler to ignore or mis-index the content. If a good deal of content is hidden from visibility the search engine’s crawler may assume you are hiding content to trick them, in which case you could be penalized by the engine.

With the high expectations of today’s web surfers, avoiding the usage of Javascript could hurt the usability of your web site, and cost you a great deal of conversion.

What is Search Engine Optimization, and how can it help my business web site?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of positioning your website or landing page to appear in the natural search results for searches related to your product or business. This is both an incredibly difficult, and inestimably valuable skill to master.

According to SEMPO, over 75% of all search traffic comes from the natural, organic results. Interestingly, over 85% of the world’s SEM budget is spent on pay per click (PPC marketing). There is a very good reason for this – SEO is much more difficult to get right than PPC.