Search Engine Optimization MEANING, USES, AND ABUSES

A Geek Joke  Lori Randall Stradtman, author of “Online Reputation Management for Dummies, tells this joke: “Where do you hide a dead body? Answer: On the third page of Google results.  What does this mean to you?

What is Search Engine Optimization  It is the process of increasing the visibility or prominence of websites in search results without paying to do so  People who specialize in that are called Search Engine Optimizers or SEOs  Because search engines are a larger source of business referrals than the Yellow Pages, businesses no longer need to spend thousands of dollars on advertising in directories and magazines  SEOs work to improve image search, local search, video search, etc.  SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience

How it works  Most people now use search engines to find products and services online  To do this, they type keywords into sites like Google, Yahoo! YouTube, or Bing. The engines then rank sites related to these keywords based on relevance, authority and, increasingly, “social signals” (i.e., social reputation/social shares.  Search engines “crawl” the net and extract these keywords from the on- page text, headers, page titles, tags/labels, inbound links, etc. of websites  Choosing the right keywords is often the difference between getting found in search and not getting found  Right keywords improve “relevance”; right inbound links improve “authority”  Keyword=on-page optimization; inbound links=off-page optimization

On-page Optimization  On-page optimization is basically about two things:  1. Picking the best keywords around which to base each of your pages  2. Making it as clear as possible to search engines that your page is relevant to those keywords  People optimize page content through “keyword stuffing”  That is, they force keywords in URLs, page titles, meta description tags, and aggressively throughout the page content  From 2013, Google started to penalize keyword stuffing; looks for “natural language”  Keyword variation is key  Use keyword density analysis tools (See other free tools)density analysis toolsfree tools

On-page Optimization  Use your analytics to determine the keywords that lead traffic to your website; statcounter.com a great tool  Since conversion and user experience are also important, make sure your content is easy to read. Use generous formatting to break up the content with:  Short paragraphs  Bulleted or numbered lists (where relevant)  Relevant headers and sub-headers throughout (to make scanning easier)  Conversion-focused links within the content area of the page

Off-page Optimization: Linking  In Google’s revised search algorithms, links are the biggest factor in gaining “authority”  “Surface” links and “deep” links. Difference?  The more other sites link to your blog or website, the more authority search engines will assign to it and the higher it will rank in search results  “Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B”  “Linkbaiting” helps. Describes being the first with a tidbit of “breaking news” about an event, an issue, a celebrity, etc.  Many websites will link to the “baiting” website because there is information there that is of extreme interest to a large number of people 

More on linking  Backlinks from authoritative sites on a given topic are highly valuable  If both sites have content geared toward the keyword topic, the backlink is considered relevant and believed to have strong influence on the search engine rankings of the webpage granted the backlink  This is called “web page content congruency”  Ways to legitimately improve linking include  1. Reciprocal linking  2. Resource linking  3. Forum signature linking—some sites have “nofollow” attribute”  4. Blog comments  5. Directory link building

Tools for Link Research  It’s often useful to know about the links your site or your competitor’s site currently has.  This information can help you make decisions regarding whether to aim for more links that will build site authority or to focus on deep links with specific anchor text (i.e., the clickable text of a link)  Open Site Explorer -  Ahrefs Site Explorer-  HubSpot-

Integrating Search and Social  Social media is quickly escalating as a ranking factor for search engines.  While inbound links still matter and are a decent factor for judging the authority of a website or a page, social media provides search engines with key data points that they have long been lacking.  In February of 2011, Google updated its search algorithm to move better quality content to the top of its search rankings.  Content farms, or websites that produce a lot of content to serve the sole purpose of satisfying Google’s SEO requirements, now get penalized with lower rankings. Also mugshot sites.  This update, also known as Panda, is concerned with what users think about a site; not just keywords. The update affected 11.8% of all of Google’s search queries.

Abuses of SEO  There are two ways SEO can be used: “Black Hat” SEO marketing tactics and “White Hat” SEO marketing tactics  Black hat tactics are illegitimate manipulation of search results and white hat tactics are legitimate uses of SEO  Two top companies were penalized by Google for black hat SEO tactics:  The JC Penney Story—Outed by a New York Times storyNew York Times story  Overstock.com story—Read about it in the Wall Street JournalWall Street Journal  I’ve posted these stories on the home page

Black Hat SEO Tactics  Spamdexing--the deliberate manipulation of search engine indexes. E.g. repeating unrelated phrases to manipulate the relevance or prominence of resources indexed in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system  Two kinds: “content or term spam” and “link spam”  Content spam takes many forms:  1. “Keyword stuffing”-- deceitful placement of keywords within a page to raise the keyword count, variety, and density of the page.  Makes page appear to be relevant for a web crawler in a way that makes it more likely to be found

Black Hat Tactics  2. "Gateway" or doorway pages-- low-quality web pages created with very little content and stuffed with very similar keywords and phrases  Hint: Sites with "click here to enter" are doorway pages  3. Article spinning--rewriting existing articles, as opposed to merely scraping content from other sites, to avoid penalties imposed by search engines for duplicate content  “Linkspam”--defined as links between pages that are present for reasons other than merit

Types of Linkspam  1. “Link farms”-- tightly-knit communities of pages referencing each other, also known humorously as “mutual admiration societies”  2. Spam blogs—similar to link farms, they are blogs created solely for commercial promotion and the passage of link authority to target sites.  3. Page hijacking-- creating a rogue copy of a popular website which shows contents similar to the original to a web crawler but redirects web surfers to unrelated or malicious websites.