Search Engine Optimization Basics Spring „07
Social Flare Whitepaper
Introduction to Search Engine Optimization The various major search engines deploy autonomous programs called spiders to crawl the web and gather information on all sites they come into contact. These spiders navigate site to site by traversing links, and by virtue of “remembering” the paths they travel are able to bring a good deal of information back to the search engines that created them. This information is built into a catalog, and is then indexed. When you type in and submit a search on a search engine‟s webpage, your query is bounced against the index that search engine has created. Depending on the quality of the index, specific and relevant items might be found in the index and listed as returns. The point of SEO is to format your pages in such a way so as to make them attractive to spiders, easy to crawl and efficient storehouses of info for them to bring back to the search engines. If your info on your pages is well designed, optimized and successfully crawled, then your content will be brought back to the servers of the search engine in question, cataloged, indexed, and more likely found by people searching for it. The more credible a search engine index‟s algorithms believe a bit of data is, the more value they will assign to it. A higher value item will return “higher” or closer to the number one spot of relevant search returns. For example, if someone were looking for “movie tickets”, hopefully the search engine would not return results for, say, “pizza places”… as they would not be relevant. In fact, the search engine would return results ( or returns ) having to do with the query, in this case, “movie tickets”. Because this is a broad term ( no movie or city or theater specified, for example ) the information returned will likely be haphazard, and not very relevant to an individual‟s search. If the user were to type in “Madison Wisconsin movie tickets”, then presumably only movie ticket outlets that sell for Madison would be returned. If your business happens to sell movie tickets in Madison, then you want your information to be higher in the returns. Most people who search only browse the first 20 returned items from a search; if they cannot find what they are looking for in the top 20, many studies have concluded that they will either move on, or refine the search. The goal of SEO is to get a specific site‟s webpages listed as high ( as close to the top, or the number one return ) as possible. This is done by formatting the page in such a way so that it‟s attractive to the spiders that crawl. This in turn is a function of several things: Technical page specifics: how large ( how many characters in the code that makes it up ), and how large the head section is Whether or not the content follows good html ( use of H-tags, hierarchical content structure ) The ability of the spiders to traverse the site ( if all the pages are inter-linked, that is, linked to each other, then it is much easier for spiders to crawl ) The presence of keywords in the head section of each page, and content that accents and creates depth for those keywords.
Other factors not directly related to the construction of the site figure into how high the content from a page would get returned, in a relevant search, such as: The number of highly-credible pages that linked –to- the page in question from some other website. The frequency of content change on a given page, giving the impression ( to the re-visting spiders ) of updates and currency. The frequency of spiders‟ visits to a site, possibly heightened by submission of relevant web addresses to the various search engines
Certain factors can contribute negatively to a site‟s or page‟s ranking in the search index. These would include: “bad” or spammed sites linking to your content Repetitious submission of your site‟s addresses to the search engine Keyword overload Keyword/content disconnect Repetitious content on the same site, with the same keyword/content profile
All of these things can collectively be referred to as “spam”. Spam tactics ( in reference to SEO ) are those things that a search engine considers dishonest or unethical efforts made in order to boost a site‟s ranking in the search engine index. Spiders are proficient at detecting spam, and the process of flagging and demoting site and page quality is automatic, and –very- fast acting. The art of SEO is to make the pages attractive in every single possible way that the search engine‟s algorithms consider ethical and nonspam, while not crossing the line over into what any search engine would consider spam. This is first and foremost accomplished by good page construction. Good page construction is what is delivered with Basic SEO. This is the ante, so to speak. Without goo construction, your site and pages at best will not be indexed, at worst they will be mistaken for spam. Components of Basic SEO Specifically, good page construction and basic SEO consists of the following: The title in the head section should be properly formatted; that is, the name of the company first, then a brief keyword-rich description to follow. Keywords relevant to an individual page should be listed in the head section, in proper meta-tag format, in a way that does not come across as spam. Use Overture‟s free tools to map out beneficial keywords. A page‟s layout should be done in CSS, as total page weight ( that is, how many total characters a page contains ) is a factor for a spider‟s crawl; pages “heavier” then 100k are often abandoned by spiders A robots.txt file should be used in the root directory An information map should be used, also in the root directory and linked from the homepage. Space in the section of a document should never exceed 10k, or the spiders will abandon a page JavaScript use should be limited to essentials, and should never be used for primary navigation, as spiders have difficulty crawling JavaScript links Text-based navigation only, and global navigation should occur at or near the top of page float. These links are not only crawled, but their terms are indexed and seen as highly important to the site‟s overall content. All graphics on the page should be coded appropriately for spider crawl; they should have alt tags that reflect what the image displays, supporting keywords when appropriate. The page itself should have content to crawl, at least three paragraphs of relevant, nonspam content that directly related to the page‟s keywords on each page. When at all possible, this content should change over time, to provide incentive for the spiders to return. It can be demonstrated that if subsequent spiders note changes in content over time, the site will be crawled and indexed more often, affording more opportunity for rising in the index. The content and headings on a page should be hierarchical, and use proper H tags
-no- invisible text on a page, for any reason. This definitely includes text styled to be the same color as any background color. Only relevant, credible sites should be linked to, or linked from. All of your site‟s pages should be related, contextually and keyword-wise Your pages should not have substantial content which is identical to any other page on the internet; large amounts of cutting and pasting or direct importing of content will be read as spam. This is even more important intra-site Your site‟s homepage should be regularly submitted to appropriate search engines on a sensible schedule If possible, pages should be static and flat, .htm or some other non-dynamic format as some search engine spiders are sometimes hampered by dynamic page delivery Your pages should be arranged optimally/flat in the root directory of your site; the number of sub-directories a page is nested in is directly related to how value-less the page is seen by a spider. Flash or JavaScript content cannot be crawled by spiders, so should be avoided. If this isn‟t possible, then text-based analogs should always be provided and made crawlable. The home page of a site should be linked in some way to every page on the site, and every page should have a link to its parent and a link to the homepage.
These basic guidelines, “Basic SEO” are the ante for entering into any SEO effort. They are not optional, for the most part. In a crowded keyword space, that is, a market where there is likely to be intense competition for keyword and search engine optimization ( such as “real estate” or “medical insurance” ) a more dedicated effort is required then the introductory principles introduced here.