Search Engine
This is a program, available on the web that people use to search for websites. Search Engines are really just big databases of information that return results according to some pre-defined rule set (called an algorithm). Examples of search engines are Google and MSN Search. There are hundreds of search engines but only a few are really popular. Different search use different algorithms to decide how results are shown. The search engines find out about websites by "crawling' the web looking for sites. They find sites by following references to them on other sites or they visit them because someone has told them about the site.To get your site to be indexed, you need to tell the major search engines all about yourself and to make them think you are a really worthwhile site, you need to show them that other people know about you too and think that you are cool enough to include a shortcut (link) to you on their site. The search engines then want to tell other people about you and will put you near the top of their lists. Some people try to trick the search engines - if you do this and they find out then they will not index you at all. This is why it is important to make sure whoever does your SEO (Search engine optimisation) for you knows the rules and abides by them otherwise the search engines may turn against you.
Of course its not quite as simplistic but in basic terms this is what SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is all about. Getting your page ranked high on the search engines. Search engines are not people and they always classify your site according to a computer program that analyses information and decides on your fate.
Before starting to try to make the search engines find your site - it is important to decide what you want people to be looking for e.g. "Sunshine Coast Builders"
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)is the process of making your site attractive to the search engines and carrying out processes that will make them think you are important enough to list. The Algorithms are constantly evolving to try to offer customers the best results and to stop the computer program being tricked. SEO Experts keep abreast of the current algorithms (which are kept secret and must therefore be analysed) and so SEO is an ongoing activity. To best get your site found by local people in your chosen area (such as on the Sunshine Caost) it is best to focus your efforts on making your site popular wherever you are plus carry out localised efforts specific to the Sunshine Coast.Page Rank
Page Rank refers to how highly your webpage "ranks" with google. That is how important it is to the search engines. If you are committed to providing a quality site, then hopefully you should not have to know too much about page rank as quality sites will get ranked. Page rank was invented by Google to ensure that their results were valid and useful to their users. Pagerank ensured Google became the most popular site as people realised that they could find what they were looking for without too many false starts.Google explain Page Rank as "relying on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value."
So page rank simply means the more relevant sites that link to you the more important you must be. The most important thing to remember is that it is not one thing that decides how well your page will rank - it is a complex combination of items - positive and negative that will push your site up the list. Some well known variables that affect your rank include:
- incoming links
- related links e.g. Do Sunshine Coast builder organisations link to you?
- links from sites with high page rank count for more (if they are popular and think your site is good then it must be) e.g. e.g. If the Maroochydore Council site links to you, you must be providing a valuable resource to the Sunshine Coast.
- keywords used on other sites e.g. Were the words "Sunshine Coast" used on the pages linking to you
- The density of the keywords on your site e.g. how many times does the words "Sunshine Coast" appear
- The position of the keywords on your site e.g. how close to the top does the words "Sunshine Coast" appear
Search Engine Submission
The act of telling the search engines about your site. This is a time consuming task that is essential to get listed in the search engines or directories. It is best done manually because the directories and search engines don't like being treated as objects and may begin to resent you - search engines have feelings too.Search Engine Indexes
When a website finds out about your site and begins the process of spidering your site then this is called indexing. Once the search engine indexes your site, it will keep repeating the process to make sure that the information it holds about your site remains current.Search Engine Algorithm
An algorithm is the set of rules that a computerised search engine uses to decide the order in which websites appear on their search results.Spiders
Search engines use special programs called spiders or bots to crawl the web looking for new sites. If you can imagine a spider web where the program travels down a thread until it comes to a junction. This can be compared to the program reading a website until it finds some links. It then travels down each of these links until it discovers some more - just like traversing a spider web, discovering every junction. It records all of the information that it finds in its database. It attaches relevance or importance to sites by how many people tell it about the site and also how important the people were that told it. So being linked by very popular sites is more beneficial.Link Popularity
This refers to how many people have links to your sites from other sites. Links are a very important way of ranking your website. Search engines also have opinions on how the links are organised. They have clever ways to reduce the importance of links just gathered together on a "links" page. They instead give more weight to links where the site gives context or subject to your website - it may be no good a builder being linked to by a vet for instance as this could meant that your site gets penalised. Its not as simple as this but that is the idea. It is also not beneficial to get links from sites that are known to sell links in order to trick the search engines.Reciprocal Linking
This is simply "You link to me and I will link to you". Experienced SEO professionals will carefully target their link partners to obtain best results. A good website will only link to businesses related to their target market or with whom they have friendship relationships such as communities. If your link system is implemented badly you could be classified as a "link farm" by the engines and then you will not be listed.Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
You can pay for search engines to display your results in certain places. You associate your website with keywords or search terms and then pay to have your site displayed when people search for these words. How much you pay depends on how many other people want to be listed for that word - so its like an auction where you "bid" on being shown. For popular words the cost is high and so it is important to very carefully analyse your website and what you want to achieve in order to set up a PPC campaign.It is possible to run successful PPC campaigns but it is best to get an expert to help you to save money. Most experts have certification from Google or Overture to show that they can really understand how to run a campaign for you. You can set a budget for the search engines - so you can say "I am willing to pay $5 every time you display my company to a person searching for Mooloolaba Vets but I only want to spend $100 per month maximum. As new advertisers start to join, it is important to review and amend your bids regularly to make sure that you are not paying too much for your clicks. You also have to monitor what sales resulted from these clicks - a click to sale is referred to as a conversion and the aim is to raise your conversions.
This is important thing is to measure your success and compare it to a similar mail-out campaign. It may be that you are better off using PPC to launch your product while carrying out SEO work or for specific promotional activities. PPC is a valuable tool but it needs to be trialled for your business and then adopted only if it shows that it is paying its way.
Pay-Per-Inclusion
It is possible to pay for advertising on the web or in a directory. Many directories let you list free but charge for the better positions. Some search engines like Yahoo are starting to charge people to be listed on their search engine.Keywords and Keyword Phrases
These are the words or phrases that people put into the boxes to search for a web site. Sometimes you want to use not the most popular keywords but the most targeted keywords for your business.
Directory
A directory on the web is just like a yellow pages that you keep it home. It is a website that indexes other companies or websites according to category. When you want to improve your page rank on the search engines, directories are very important. Directories usually have human editors and these people decide whether you are included or not. Directories are important as they not only give a link to your website (making the search engine think that you are important), they also group you with other sites that are of the same nature. This reinforces to the computerised search engine that not only do you exist but reinforces its knowledge of what you are about - so for every directory that it finds you in where you are associated with a topic, it thinks that you know more about that topic.E.g. If you are a vet and you submit your site to Google and tell it that you are a vet. It may now have a table that says "Mrs Jones" Vet - value 1. When it is crawling the web and comes to a directory of vets and finds your site listed, it changes the value in its table - so Mrs Jones (2) as you now have been discovered by it twice and Vets(2) as it has discovered twice that you are linked to the veterinary world. When someone later searches for vets - your website address will rank higher than another vet who was not listed in a vet directory.