Search Optimization Techniques Dan Belhassen greatBIGnews.com Modern Earth Inc.

Questions? Dan Belhassen  Founder & President Modern Earth Inc., an Internet technology company  Website creators, online software developers, search engine consultants, new media marketing specialists  Find me in my booth if you want to follow up  Presentation at Modernearth.net/lern2006

How large is the Internet? estimates vary How many websites?

How large is the Internet? estimates vary How many websites?  ,000  1998: 2,636,000  1999:4,662,000  2004:50,000,000  2006: 100,000, million added in November 2006

A brief history of search engines Created to index search results Originally built by humans sorting submitted pages into categories Now automated search engines try to catalogue the entire net Google was the first wide spread cataloguer  Googol means 1 followed by 100 zeros  The largest number that the founders could imagine

Finding Information Online Two main types of resources:  Search engines  Website directories We will focus on search engines

Top Search Engines

Getting Listed Two methods  Organic results  Paid placement

Organic Results Focus on Google  Majority of searches  Other major engines (such as Yahoo & MSN) use similar algorithms

The Purpose of Google Provide relevant search results Make it seem magical “Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

How Google Works Automated software crawls the Internet reading pages Determines what the page is about Caches and ranks the page

How Google ranks sites Based on a simple algorithm What your site is about Plus The “Importance” of your site

How Google ranks sites What your site is about  GoogleBot reads all pages  Calculates frequency of terms  Examines Titles, Alt tags, File names, Domain name, Text headers, filenames & more  Smart! Knows that “important” words appear 6-7% Tries to not be fooled by “keyword spamming” Can’t read flash pages or graphical text!

How Google ranks sites The “Importance” of your site  Based on “PageRank” PageRank determined by  Who is linking to your site… and HOW important THEY are

Determining your PageRank Get the Google Toolbar  Free browser plug-in  Google.com Use it to check your PageRank  For example…

Who’s out there? Find out who is linking to your site  Use Google! link:  For example…

What about meta-tags? What are they, anyway? Not used by major search engines Keywords/key phrases used instead  Keep to a short list initially

Test Search Continuing Education  Who’s up first?  Why?? “Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult...”

Increasing Your Ranking Determine your best keywords  (wordtracker.com) Use the keywords throughout site  File names, page titles, alt text, text headers, text Develop Landing Pages  A “home” for your keyword  Create landing pages for each keyword  Develop appropriate links to your landing pages

Increasing Your Ranking Verify your keyword usage  site: Ensure GoogleBot is visiting your site  Train GoogleBot to re-visit your website Learns how often to visit your site Shorten “indexing wait” after major updates

Increasing Your Ranking Monitor traffic on site for keywords vs total traffic Determine what your pages are about  Googlerankings.com keyword density Track your rank over time  Googlerankings.com/positiontracking Ensure your course database is index-able

Paid Placement

Paying search engines to display your results Different systems based on different payment schemes Focus on Google Adwords  also displayed in Earthlink, America Online and Ask Jeeves results  accessed through google.com/adwords

How Do AdWords Work? Bidding system  bid $x for a certain keyword  top bidders (and popular ads) are displayed topmost

What’s Next? This is a major field – this was a high-level view! Start by checking your stats to know where your visitors are coming from There are some excellent books available Can also hire a consultant

Choosing a Consultant Select someone who:  Has a broad understanding of Internet technologies and trends  Works with you to understand your goals  Can explain their strategy and why a course of action is preferable  Has a long-term follow-up plan

Thank you! Presentation available at