Search engine optimization is designed to get your website ranked on the first page of a search engines results page. This ranking is based on the search term entered by the user. The key to getting on the front page is to determine what search terms will be used.

Organic traffic, also known as free traffic, is the traffic you receive from a search engine. To receive this traffic you need to be listed in at least the top 10 results on the various search engines using the search term (keywords) entered by the user. Search engine optimization is all about optimizing your pages to get that top ten position.

The various search engines use their own formulas to determine which sites deserve to be in those top results. The difference between being on the front page (the ideal placement) and being on page two could be very marginal. In fact you may be on page one today and back to page two tomorrow. It all depends on what you and your competition have been doing.

The problem with most search engines is that their algorithms (their formulas to determine rankings) maybe using data today that you optimized last week. It can be difficult to know when a change in your search engine optimization tactics is going to effect your placement.

Most website owners want traffic; free traffic at that. To receive this free, organic traffic, you need to be up there with the best when it comes to search engine rankings. Search engine optimization is designed to get you to that front page. Just remember, there are thousands of others trying to get there too.

Reciprocal links are, for some search engine optimization experts, still in the too hard basket when it comes to their effect on your rankings. Some believe it helps, if only a little while others believe they hurt and are at best, ignored and at worst, penalized by search engines. So what about three way links?

Three way links are not new, in fact they have been around for almost as long search engine optimization strategies. Whichever way you look at them, three way links are still reciprocal links and if search engines such as Google look down on them, then you can bet they know when you are using them.

A thread on Webmasterworld recently discussed the use of three way links and the responses were quite varied. One particular response appealed to me and is probably closer to my thoughts than many of the others:

Google most probably considers a certain percentage of straightforward reciprocals in your linking profile as part of a natural pattern… and good quality reciprocals, if they’re appropriate for the user and not excessive, will probably help you.

But Google is also big on “intent,” and is less tolerant about obvious attempts to game the algo. That’s what triangular links are. It would be hard to look at them any other way.

Intent is the real key when it comes to links, linking and search engine optimization. There are going to be times when it is mutually beneficial for two sites to exchange links. Certain websites will naturally complement each other, for example, a paint supply website and a paint brush website. It would be natural for these two sites to link to each other.

Triangular links would not necessarily complement each other. I am sure if I thought hard enough I could find an example, but they would be few and far between. Using triangular links as part of your search engine optimization strategy will generally be seen as an attempt to game the system.

If the search engines cannot currently detect them, it wont be long and they will. Rather than trying to work the system, you are far better off building links where they naturally occur and putting all your search engine optimization efforts into gaining one way links.

Search engine optimization hints and tips are everywhere on the net these days, perform a simple search on the topic and you will get millions of results. Every now and then you come across something that is either worth repeating, or worth commenting on. This article from Lorna Li, whilst reporting on SEOmoz’a research, is well worth a read. The content certainly is food for thought.

Lorna has listed the top 10 search engine optimization factors that Google uses (out of an estimated 200) to rank pages. I was struck by the number 1 places factor although on second thought could understand its importance. Many of the top ten involve inbound links.

It is interesting to note the many different ways inbound links are assessed by Google. It is not a simple - there is a link, it is worth xxx, move onto the next link. See for yourself the top 10 search engine optimization factors according SEOmoz:

• Keyword use in title tag. We know that keywords are important and that putting them into the title tag was important. It seems it may be the top rated requirement for search engine optimization programs.
• Anchor text of inbound links. Ranked at number two, the anchor text used to link to your page and how relevant it is to the page. It seems adjacent text is also checked for relevance.
• Global link popularity of site. Whilst inbound links are important, I was surprised to see this rated at three particularly as there are still dodgy link exchanges in operation.
• Age of site. This old monkey keeps popping up. Older sites will obviously have developed some authority, however, quality young sites still need to battle with this factor.
• Internal link popularity. Number and quality of links to particular pages. This is one area that is under utilized on many sites and yet so easy to manipulate and it rates at number five.
• Topical relevance of inbound links. Is the link from a well ranked topically related site?
• Link popularity of site in topical community. “Link love from the popular hoods in the neighborhood”.
• Keyword use in body text. All the way done at number eight. Probably expected in the top three but apparently not. Whilst it may be down at number eight, everything in the top ten is important.
• Global link popularity of linking sites. Once again, how popular is the site linking to yours.
• Topical relationship of linking page. Links from topically indexed pages can carry more weight.

As you can see, there are quite a few that relate to inbound links. The interesting points from this list is the relatively low position of keywords in content and the higher value of internal links, particulalry since you can play with them to get the most benefit from any search engine optimization program.

This list is not definitive and is not an ‘official Google’ list. This list has however been developed through the canvassing of 37 leading organic search engine optimization specialists. Lorna’s article is certainly well worth a read, particularly if you are new to search engine optimization.

If you have a management or marketing background then you will undoubtedly know the 80/20 theory - 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers. It seems there is an 80/20 rule for SEO as well - or rather, after a little research, a many sets of rules.

Don’t get me wrong here. These 80/20 rules all have some common sense applications, however, if your new to the internet and were looking to learn a few SEO tricks, the number of different SEO 80/20 rules would probably confuse the life out of you. Let’s have a look at a few of them.

Search Engine Optimization 80/20 Rule #1
Eighty percent of your Search Engine Optimization efforts should be devoted to on page activities and twenty percent of your time devoted to off page activities such as link building.

That sound like a good rule of thumb - spend plenty of time on your content and other on page Search Engine Optimization activities and twenty percent off page. That doesn’t give me much time for social marketing. I think I prefer rule #2

Search Engine Optimization 80/20 Rule #2
Rule #1 with a twist. This rule says to spend twenty percent of your time on page and eighty percent off page. That is more like it. Plenty of time to socialize.

Search Engine Optimization 80/20 Rule #3
Twenty percent of your pages will attract eighty percent of your traffic. According to this rule, determine the twenty percent that attract the visitors and develop more content like that. Sounds good in theory - I don’t know about in practice.

Search Engine Optimization 80/20 Rule #4
Twenty percent of your pages provide eighty percent of your search engine rankings. Find the eighty percent and optimize them for higher rankings.

When it comes to search engine ranking, there seems to be rules everywhere, even rules to counter other rules. My take on the 80/20 rule: only twenty percent of tips are worth reading, the other eighty percent are just fluff.

Is Search Engine Optimization about to become a little more confusing? Have you ever performed a search using lower case and then tried again using a capital as the first letter? I was prompted to today after reading an article by David Utter on Web Pro News. The results were mixed, but interesting.

A simple search on SEO and SEO produced different results. Searches using Wedding and wedding again produced different results. However more common terms such as Sport and sport returned identical results.

David Utter, quoting from Big Oak SEO:

“Assuming this isn’t a temporary glitch, the SEO landscape will undergo another transformation,” said Will Paoletto at Big Oak SEO. “We’ll have to wait for an official word from Google (if they give one), but right now this is looking at lot less like a glitch and a lot more like a real shift in the algorithm. And it would be a significant one.”

If capital letters are going to be differentiated in search returns then I should imagine there is going to be a lot of scurrying around the web as SEO consultants and webmasters add the capital/non capital variations to their keyword lists.

The question I raise, do you rush off and update your keywords and produce new variations on your content, or do you wait? If you wait, everyone who has jumped in and tightened their Search Engine Optimization will have the jump on you. If you get in now and target all your keyword variations, it may all turn out to be a glitch. I think a couple of days of keyword tightening in my Search Engine Optimization program may be in order - who can afford to get left behind?

When it comes to search engine optimization, many website owners concentrate on Google and optimizing to get to the top of their search pages. It should be remembered that they are not the only player in town and only account for around 60-65% of all searches.

Search engines like Yahoo! and MSN still have loyal followings and if Google should slip, they are primed to step in and fill the gaps. To get valuable traffic from Yahoo!, you need to check that your search engine optimization strategies are, at the very least, not hurting your Yahoo! rankings.

Yahoo!’s search algorithms are different to Google’s and, while having similarities, there are still distinct differences. Deliver effective search engine optimization strategies to address these differences and you will rate well in Yahoo! as well as Google.

Site Stucture:
Yahoo! is probably the only search engine that really looks at site structure as part of its rankings. There are several areas that are important to Yahoo!, the first being whether or not your site is W3C compliant. Other areas of importance include the placement and ratio of code to text. The more the text the better, however having the text high up on the page has a higher rating than lower done on the page. Effective use of style sheets will reduce the amount of code which also helps your search engine optimization efforts.

Backlinks:
As with Google, backlinks are very important. The quality of the site linking, the keywords used to link and the placement of the links - high up on the page is better than towards the bottom. Yahoo! is more forgiving when it comes to reciprocal links than is Google, however, if they are going to hurt your Google ranking then take care with the number and quality of these links. To test the quality of a page for linking purposes, do a search on Yahoo! for the same keywords or phrases. PR is a Google ranking and has little influence on Yahoo!’s rankings.

Keywords:
What’s a search engine optimization tip without keywords? There is little to say about keywords. There is no magic formula, there are no magic numbers. Natural content is the key along with optimal placement of keywords. Yahoo! places a higher value on content towards the top of the page, likewise with keywords. Effective use of keywords in content in the top half of the page will rate higher than for those lower down.

Ageing:
Every new website owner finds this aspect of search engine optimization and search engine rankings quite frustrating. Whilst competitive keyword rankings take up to six months on Yahoo!, your site will return results much faster. Where ageing is important is when it comes to inbound links from young sites and when your new site links out. Effective search engine optimization strategies can improve the speed for listing on Yahoo! slightly faster than on Google.

From these four areas, you can see where you need to concentrate to get higher rankings on Yahoo! The major two factors are your site structure, and, closely related, the placement of keyword rich content. You can work to improve these areas as part of your search engine optimization strategy without jeopardizing your Google rankings.

I guess if you are an SEO consultant there is such a thing as Search Engine Optimization overload. What about your website, can that have Search Engine Optimization overload?

It is a little like asking, “can you over optimize your website?”, and the reality is - no - you cannot. In SEO, the O stands for ‘optimize’ and according to Princeton:

# S: (v) optimize, optimise (make optimal; get the most out of; use best) “optimize your resources”

By that definition, you are trying to get the best out of your website, in this case, for search engines - hence the search engine ranking. If you over optimize you are no longer getting the best out of your site.

The question then becomes, where do you draw the line? There are several schools of thought but generally speaking, search engines like Google will react when your activities and the sites content becomes unnatural. In Search Engine Optimization terms, this could be acquiring too many links too quickly or filling your pages with keywords.

If you keep your activities to what could be considered natural then you will not have any problems with SEO overload. If you’re an Search Engine Optimization consultant and you’re suffering from overload, join the club.

Most websites take on a hub like appearance over time with the main site - the dot com - being at the center. Because of the ad-hoc growth the Search Engine Optimization performance of many hubs can often be far less than desirable - in fact you may have created an Search Engine Ranking monster.

If you look at the attached diagram, the hub appearance may look familiar. What is important is how you link each of the components of the hub to maximize the SEO performance of the site as a whole.

Indiscriminate linking can waste any potential link juice particularly when a site has a blog. Blogs tend to attract a lot of incoming links if they are effective. If your site has grown over time, the links will not be effective unless you have taken the time to plan your links for Search Engine Ranking effectiveness.

Your home page is generally the center of attention. It is often your landing page and from there visitors can move from sub page to sub page following the links. When a blog is incorporated, the blog can often become the center of focus and by default, the landing page. Your blog will generally require the most Search Engine Positioning work on a daily basis.

The question arises, do you want to send your traffic to the home page before they go shopping, or straight to the catalog or shopping cart? Studies show that most visitors, once they have decided to buy, want the fewest clicks possible. Your Search Engine Optimization strategy may require a different path.

To obtain a good customer satisfaction level and a good Search Engine Optimization outcome, you need to map out link paths for both. Where links clash, don’t be afraid to incorporate the ‘nofollow’ in the tags. This maintains the full benefit of your Search Engine Optimization links whilst providing a pleasing shopping experience for your customer.

The above diagram is a very simple website hub. I have seen far more complex hubs where sub-domains and pages are attached, often with little thought apart from the ‘it was a good idea at the time’ planning. When it comes to SEO, your whole site needs to be examined to ensure that each link is optimized to gain the most value. As you add pages or sub-domains, think about the links and how they can be optimized. Good Search Engine Optimization does not relate to just the page you are working on, good Search Engine Marketing considers that pages place in the bigger picture.

Small business owners are often hampered when it comes to building an online presence as they don’t have the time to devote to maintaining a web site nor the funds to undertake serious Search Engine Optimization programs. There are a number of things that a small business owner can do to build and maintain that online presence.

Search Engine Optimization has many different angles and whilst a small business owner may not be able to justify spending large sums of money on a consultant, there are aspects that they can undertake themselves.

Web design and content are the cornerstones for any website. If you can get these right then the rest will start to flow smoothly. Many of the Search Engine Optimization requirements can be done fairly quickly and fairly cheaply.

Building a blog presence is one way to start and has proved to be quite effective over the years. Paying for a professional web site is a must. If you cannot justify the cost then you cannot justify being online.

Once you have your blog or website, you need to consider content. You can approach this from several angles. You can produce the content yourself, you can could use friends or family to write your content, or you could employ a content writer.

Changing your content on a regular basis is important. The emphasis being on regular. If you update twice a week, then always update twice a week. If you are unable to produce content, employ someone else to do it for you. There are many cost effective services available and the major benefit is that you not only get good quality articles, they should also be keyword rich.

Small business has more to benefit than many of their larger rivals. Get the Search Engine Optimization right and work within your budget and over time, your traffic will increase and with it your sales.

Search Engine Optimization is dying, at least according to Greg Howlett, writing on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim site. I can agree with much of what he has written and some of his points are quite valid. Take the following:

Search engines are too smart and they have a different agenda. They do not want to reward crummy companies that play SEO games–they want to give the top listings to the best companies.

It is hard to argue with that point particularly if you are a web user who gets a little tired of the useless results when doing a search. The last part of that statement worries me a little, but I will return to that a little later. If you are an SEO consultant then naturally you want to see any site you work on get to that front page of SERP’s.

What I or Greg think is a crummy site, I am sure there others including the site owners who think otherwise. If I am hired as an Search Engine Optimization consultant, do I say ’sorry, your site is too crummy’. Perhaps trying to get the site owner to de-crumify the site may be in order.

Putting that issue aside, the following statement is the one that really concerns me.

If you are not in the top ten of your industry, you had better find a way to get there in a hurry if you want to be on the first page of Google.

Greg also added:

Yes, this means that the rich will get richer and the poor will starve for SEO traffic. If you are not in the first category, you had better find a way to get there quick. The middle class is about to disappear.

The reason this concerns me, and the reason for my title is very simple. Big companies that are in the top ten do not rely on search engines for their traffic. In fact if your lazy like me, I type my search phrase in to the URL bar. If my search is for something simple like Coke or Pepsi - it will take me straight to their site, do not pass Google, do not collect Yahoo!. This is true for most large companies that are well recognized. I don’t know how much effort Coke or Pepsi put into Search Engine Optimization? Very little I would suggest.

If the search engines are going ignore popular little sites and list the “top ten of your industry“, search engines will become redundant. I don’t need Google or Yahoo! or any of the others search engines to find these companies. Their URL’s are generally either known, or easy to find. To them, SEO can die, they don’t need it.

The ramifications will spread further. If my Search Engine Optimization efforts have little hope of making it to the front pages of Google, then I doubt I will be advertising there. Social media sites will become more popular as advertising venues. This will strike a mortal wound at the very heart of Google - their advertising revenue.

Search engines and Search Engine Optimization live in a symbiotic relationship - if one goes then the other will be severely affected. The future will see the role of an SEO consultant change, but then, over the last 10 years that role has gone through many changes. I can see the value of keywords disappearing as search engines rely more on being able to ‘read’ content and context.

If search engines do put an end to Search Engine Optimization by concentrating on the top ten in any business sector, they will have taken the first step in their own demise. Search engines do, and will, need to produce better search results, until they do, SEO will be a requirement for every web site owner looking for that prime spot in the SERP’s.

A little like the chicken and the egg, what should be your first priority, search engine optimization or web design? Most website owners grab a domain name, have their site built, load it with content, and then decide whether or not to use some search engine optimization strategies, or perhaps advertising such as PPC (see my previous post - Search Engine Optimization Or Pay Per Click (PPC).)

My feelings are fairly blunt when it comes to a question like this. Your website is nothing more than a blank template. You get the template designed, often for more than one page, and then fill it with content. Don’t get me wrong, this template is important but it needs to put into some perspective, particularly when you are considering search engine optimization requirements.

As search engine optimization professionals, the ideal scenario is to call us in as soon as you decide to develop an online presence. To get the very best results, your domain name, your host, the design of the sites template and the content that goes into that template all need to be optimized for search engines - from day one! A quick break down of each step will provide a better understanding.

Domain Name: your domain name needs to be as straightforward as possible. Whilst you may feel that a long name describes your business, it should be easily remembered. Other considerations include registering similar names to protect your current or future branding.

Host: yes, even your website host needs careful consideration. If you are going to use a shopping cart, can it be easily accessed and do they offer Site Security. The hosts ability to handle heavy traffic loads also needs consideration.

Web Page Design: perhaps I unfairly labeled it a template, perhaps the term ’shell’ would sit better. Whichever name you use, it needs to designed with search engine optimization requirements in mind. Most web page designers know little of Search Engine Optimization strategies.

Content: ensuring your content has correct use of keywords in page headings, content body and graphic tags is very important.

Employing a search engine optimization consultant from day one can ensure that your whole site is fully optimized and ready for your to start reaping the rewards of a well planned site.

Having set up a web site you may now be wondering what is best: buying search engine optimization help or starting a pay-per-click campaign? When you consider the pro’s and con’s of each you will find the answer comes easily.

Search Engine Optimization
For a new web site, even with a professional search engine optimization program, you are not going to rank at number one for quite sometime. However, you will never rank in the top 50 (pages) unless you do undertake some form of search engine optimization program.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
PPC campaigns will generate traffic to your website.The more traffic you generate, the more your site will be seen and the better the possibility for natural links to your site - a big bonus when it comes to search engine optimization. Obviously, if your site is a commercial site then PPC will bring extra traffic targeted to your keywords and hopefully ready to open their wallets.

From the above two short descriptors, you are probably already trying to organize your first PPC campaign. Just wait a moment and reread them, particularly the last sentence in he search engine optimization brief.

The choice is no choice, ie, both. You need to undertake both campaigns if you want your web site to succeed. Search engine optimization will provide long term benefits that will generate organic visitors from the search engines. These are ‘free’ visitors, that is, you have not had to pay to get them onto your site.

PPC will get the traffic coming in and hopefully the income. Overtime, if your search engine optimization programs are successful, you find yourself spending less on PPC and generating more in the way of free clicks. PPC can then be used for special promotions.

Search engine optimization can be a laborious job at the best of times yet through social media interaction you can get others to do some of the work for you.

Depending on the size of your site and the amount of time you have, you can view social marketing as an interesting side line, or as more hard work. I prefer to view it as a social break from the tedium of search engine optimization work. Travel the social sites, read the various content that others have left (garner a view ideas while you are at it), interact with others of similar interest and all the while promoting myself and my business - with subtlety of course.

Question: what do the search engine spiders want to see that will boost your rankings? Answer: Search engines want to see good quality editorial style links that point to your site or pages. By socializing through the various social media sites you can receive these valuable links, giving you an edge on your less social competition and completing one aspect of your search engine optimization program.

We all know that inbound one way quality links will give our websites a boost in the SERP rankings. You can earn these links while socializing and at the same time slowly marketing your name, brand or products. Search engine optimization isn’t all that boring after all - I can meet interesting people and get the link building job done at the same time.

Can you undertake a search engine optimization program and a branding campaign at the same time? The answer is yes, of course you can. The follow up question: “Should You?”, is probably more important.

It is an important question as it can determine the direction of your search engine optimization program and your social marketing efforts. To answer the question, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Can you afford to wait until you have developed your brand?
2. Can you realistically develop a brand?
3. Is there strong brand competition?
4. Do you need to develop a brand?

The last question is probably the most important. If you are re-selling products then perhaps the main focus should be on the products themselves along with any existing brands. Likewise, if there are already a lot of branded products on the market, there may not be room for another one. Undertaking a search engine optimization program in such a crowded field could be difficult.

Brands can be developed on line and the rewards can be excellent. Research is now showing that most internet users are now using a brand name with the dot come before trying a search term. If you have that brand name then you will be getting a lot of direct traffic. However, that being the case, do you need to run a search engine optimization strategy on your brand name?

Whilst search engine optimization and branding do go together, the reality is that often there is no need. Branding is perhaps better left to social marketing campaigns whilst your search engine optimization program left to target products to attract organic searches. People will find brands quickly, finding products takes a little more work - that is what your Search Engine Optimization efforts should be targeting - helping the user to find your pages.

If you use Google Analytics you will be able to identify those bounce pages and rethink your search engine optimization strategies for those pages.

A bounce page is a page that a visitor arrives on and for whatever reasons, immediately leaves. Using Google analytics you can identify these pages quickly. To find which pages bounce, go to your Google Analytics area and The Google Analytics Landing Pages report (Content Section).

You can find more information through the Google Web Site Optimizer blog. To quote from the blog:

That’s why it’s so important to find, and fix, high-traffic landing pages that lose a high percentage of visitors. Look at the “Top Landing Pages” report within the Content section of Google Analytics. Pages that have both a high Bounce Rate (the percentage of visits that resulted in the visitor immediately leaving the site) and large number of Entrances need to be redesigned.

It can often be a simple matter of redefining your keywords. The Google blog provded an example where a searcher was looking for a ‘faucet’. When clicking on the number one result he landed on a page full of sinks - no faucets. So they left (bounced) straight away. This is effectively a waste of keyword use. If the search was through a paid Adsense link, it would have been a waste of money.

Checking on your bounce pages can help you refine your search engine optimization strategies to get the best results for your site.