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Title: Search Engine Optimization- The truth behind the myths
Author: Englesos on the Web
Article:
Obscured by a dense and clinging aura of marketing "hype", the
essentially simple process of search engine optimization is one
of the least understood and most exploited facets of the
internet. Any webmaster's inbox is flooded daily with spam
mailings offering "The secrets of being number ONE!" - All of
which are pretty much the same except for the billing addresses,
and most of which should be filtered unread straight to the
Recycle Bin. Over time it has been painted as an increasingly
complex discipline to the point where we speak of SEO "Gurus"
and every mailing uses the words like "secrets" and "mysteries"
to describe a basically simple process.
The Plan The first two features to mention are so obvious that
far too few people consider them in the light of Search Engine
Optimization. The name (URL) and then the website itself.
1. Sorry, who? Whilst "Richard Olmshaw Computer Systems" may be
a good name for your shop, it is not a good URL. We want simple
& memorable. If people remember you and your site then you do
not have to expose them to the competition my making them
perform searches for you. (I'm a viral marketing fan when it
comes to URLs)
richardolmshawcomputersystems.com is doubtless available - but
unless you know the company are you likely to remember it?
rocs.com - Initials are easier but Resource One Computer
Systems, Inc. in Dublin has beaten us to it. olmshaw.com is
available - but the name alone does not suggest computing nor is
it unduly memorable except to Mrs. Olmshaw. A compromise then
(as most names are) olmcom.com is available - so let's go for
that. With all the endings now available, you may wonder why we
keep hammering the venerable ".com". Chiefly it is because it is
still number one in the minds of the public - they expect web
addresses to end in "com" so why disappoint them?
2. Great site - What's it for? The next biggest issue of the
site is...the site itself. This is not as obvious a statement as
you might think. Webmasters enjoy the intricacies of design -
and so fancy rollovers, complex Flash animations, 3D animations,
java menus and effects all appeal to them greatly. This can get
to be a problem. For me, you can draw the line between a good
webmaster and a bad webmaster is when selling his/her abilities
with these technologies has become the goal of the site - rather
than the apparently simpler selling of the product for the
company that is paying the bills.
For me, the key test is the "3 L's" - Loadable, Legible, and
Logical. If any one of the three is not answered, it's a lost
case whatever way you look at it. Slow loading Flash
extravaganzas with no "skip intro" button will drive away anyone
not equipped with a cable modem or with infinite patience. Plus
they may well not run at all on corporate systems behind a
comprehensive firewall or on the still popular NT4.
Remember the search engines cannot follow Flash menu systems in
order to explore your site in the search for content. (L1
failure) Other navigation systems with shopping lists of buttons
or links - fancy or otherwise - bewilder and perplex. No one
will hang around for you to make their head or their eyes hurt.
(L2 failure) At the same time going where you want to be on a
site must not require a clairvoyant or a printed map. (L3
failure) This is where I would suggest you begin to find the
difference between "design" and just "building a site". I always
consider the "multiple visits" factor too. Perhaps a putative
fourth "L" should be "Liveable" as in can you live with the site
on a day to day working basis. This is because what is amazingly
clever and really cool the first time is "a major nuisance
whilst you wait for that dumb-assed animation with the headache
music to finish" by the tenth. Just keep the Flash & Java non
mission-critical and skippable. If they serve no specific
function within your site other than "looking good" consider
ripping them out all together even if your webmaster does get
sulky when you tell them.
3. Keywords and Metatags. Search engines decide on their own how
they rank one site above another. Different features are awarded
varying degrees of attention based on the search engines
automated "opinion" of what constitutes a "good "site. This is
the search engine's "algorithm". So, on one engine your keywords
will be read together with your text and a combination of the
two used to find the search phrases that will pinpoint your site
among the masses. Further - what works for Inktomi may well
count against you for Yahoo so a compromise is required in how
you prepare the page. And at the moment no-one really knows what
Google wants anyway plus they seem to be changing their
algorithm on a weekly basis. The specifics of these systems are
kept very strictly secret to prevent people (like us) from
manipulating the search engines for their own ends - but these
features are known to be important everywhere.
4. Spider limitations. The device that gathers data from your
site for search engine inclusion is called a "Robot" or "'bot"
for short. The process of gathering the data is called
"crawling" or "spidering" as the 'bot will follow all the links
on your pages to explore the whole site and include all its data
for assessment. If your webmaster favored you with a Flash menu
system, then - to the spider - your site is one page long.
Robots do not spider links locked-up in Flash. If java was your
medium of choice, or you use java scripts extensively, then
consider this. More weight is placed on data at the top of the
page than at the bottom. In a java-based or java-rich site the
header (top end) of your page will look something like this: -
-html- -head- -link rel='stylesheet' href='include/styles.css'
type='text/css'- -script language="JavaScript1.2"- //Highlight
image script- By Dynamic Drive //For full source code and more
DHTML scripts, visit http://www.dynamicdrive.com //This credit
MUST stay intact for use function makevisible(cur,which){
strength=(which==0)? 1 : 0.2 if (cur.style.MozOpacity)
cur.style.MozOpacity=strength else if (cur.filters)
cur.filters.alpha.opacity=strength*100 ........
Excuse the abbreviating of this horror story - but you see what
I mean. In this site I was called to review - 3,034 characters
of pure gobbledygook before you even find the page title
(removed here by me.). Meta-tags are not to be found. Spider
wise, this page is virtually invisible, Sure enough you can find
this page by "direct hit", that is by its name (URL), or by
other sites that refer to it, but searching for the site itself
returns nothing.
5. Publishing. You should publish your site to all the free
search engines you can, usually in the area of some hundreds of
engines. This will take from a few weeks to months to yield any
significant results and there is no way to speed this up without
paying. If you chose to look at paid submissions then paid
submissions appear within days - but when you stop paying the
yearly fees they disappear just as quickly. If you are published
regularly to the free engines then sooner or later you will
probably find your way into the paid engines by the "back door".
The "back door" relies on the fact that search engines
interrelate and some of these relationships are known.
6. Push and Pull. To supplement your on-line publicity
("pushing" people to your website) consider "pulling" them by
other means as well. All of your company paperwork should have
your website and e-mail clearly marked on them. In fact every
scrap of paper should be similarly equipped, plus coffee mugs,
t-shirts and anything else available to you.
7. The Truth behind the Myth. From the moment you become visible
on-line, people will offer to "boost your placings" and the
bills for this will rage from the modest to the thousands. Here
is the ultimate secret of search engine optimization.....it's a
secret! No one really knows the systems used by the engines
except those who designed them - and anyone who says otherwise
is misleading you. There are no guarantees whatsoever because at
the same time as Richard Olmshaw's webmaster is trying to make
him number one; everyone else's webmaster is trying to do the
same thing at the same time - often with the same tools. It's
going to be a close run race by any standards. 8. In Conclusion
Prepare the site, publicize, and then wait. Consider promoting
the site by non-internet techniques - mouse mats, t-shirts etc.
Paid inclusion programs if required. Watch your statistics Talk
to your webmaster. Respect their abilities - but at the end of
the day remember who is paying the piper and therefore calling
the tune. If your chosen "web professional" will not listen to
you, or cannot explain why he cannot or should not realize your
ideas - consider changing webmasters.
About the author:
Englesos is a Web and Graphic Designer working out of the
Famagusta area of Cyprus. See more of his work on
http://www.englesos.net or else at http://www.lookerscy.com
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