If I was to run a poll on whether or not you had been approached via email, on the web or maybe even by phone, by a company guaranteeing that they can get your business to the top of search engine rankings, then the results would probably show 99.9% YES.
The truth is – They cannot!
Why can’t these companies “Guarantee” your web sites’ search engine placement?
Getting your business web site to the top of search engine rankings is becoming increasingly difficult as technology and the internet advances.
For Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to take place, there are numerous variables that must be considered to help increase your ranking on internet search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN (A.K.A “The Big Three”). I’m going to outline those which I believe are five important examples that have proven to be successful in increasing search engine rankings, although I personally or as a company cannot guarantee any specific ranking.
1. Meta tags are sections of code that appear within the "head" tags of your web site. These are only visible in “source code” view and describe the web site or company in certain categories. This code is visible by search engines and is regularly used by them as one means for determining page rankings.
An example of source code for my company web site is as follows:
To break it down, the three main meta tags (highlighted in bold) that should be used are: ‘title’, ‘keywords’ and ‘description’. The “title” tag is probably the most important and is representative of the text that appears in the blue bar at the top of your browser window. For example the www.beamondcreative.com head tag is “Web Design and Strategic B2B marketing communications - Beamond Creative”. Your head tag should be descriptive of what your company does as well as the company name. Use terms that you think users will put in search engines to find you. Web spiders will look at the head tag to discern relevance to the topic being searched. Be sure not to make your title tag too long that it extends off the screen when visible in the blue browser bar! “Keywords”, these keywords or phrases should be separated by commas and again should be relevant to your industry and ideally should match some of those included in your head tag, thereby increasing your relevance to the subject but don’t make the list too extensive, around 20 words should be sufficient, an extensive list may be looked at as a deterrent rather than an advantage. Finally, the “Description” is a brief overview of your company and/or services, again incorporate into this as many relevant keywords as you can to build your credibility. Search engine spiders tend to stop reading after 25 to 30 words so don’t make it too long else this may work against you.
2. Link popularity is another method that search engines use to rank your credibility on the web. If you have hundreds of web sites linking to yours then surely your web site is one of high credibility and one that web users would find useful when seeking information on your industry. On the other hand, if there are few sites that link to yours then maybe your web site is not worth paying too much attention to. To start your link popularity building project go to
www.linkpopularity.com and enter your web site to see just how many links there are on the web that point to your site. From here you can gauge whether or not you need to focus on this part of your SEO campaign. If you feel that link popularity is an area you are lacking, start contacting web sites relative to your business and ask them if they would mind placing a link to your web site on theirs. Association membership web sites are a great place to get listed as a member you will more than likely be already on there, just check to see that your information is up-to-date. As an example, the Foil Stamping and Embossing Association has a web site that lists its members (www.fsea.com).
3. As your link popularity is an important factor in SEO, so also is links from your web site to other relative sites. If you have a directory or listing of other relevant web sites on your own, this tells search engines that your site is a great resource to web users. If the web user cannot find what he is looking for on your site or wants more information he has a resource of similar sites that he can try looking at to find what he needs. I would advise editing any “external” links to have them open in a “new window”, this ensures that the user does not completely navigate away from your site and will be able to use it as a resource reference point. We successfully put this practice into action for a print finishing equipment manufacturer by including links to hot foil suppliers and die makers enabling users to find out where they can buy the consumable products for their equipment.
4. Build web credibility by including your keywords throughout your web site. This point may require you to rewrite the content for your entire web site or may be to at least modify the key areas of content. Think about it this way, if your ‘keywords’ or ‘key phrases’ (see above), are used repeatedly in textual content throughout your complete web site, don’t you think that search engines are going to be more convinced that your site is valuable to that particular industry rather than mentioning those terms just once, if at all in addition to your meta tags? Of course they will, start work now on re writing your web site to include the main keywords and phrases that are listed in your meta tags. Don’t just randomly list keywords on pages, as well as portraying an amateurish company, this is not the kind of QUALITY content that search engines look for. Instead spend time to (or hire a company that will do this for you) formulate constructive and informative paragraphs that include your keywords or phrases and show search engines that your content is indeed relevant to the industry that is researched through their engines.
5. My fifth and final SEO tip would be to update your web content regularly. Regularly updated, current, content spells actively in business to search engines, and is commonly a top variable that engines use when ranking web sites positions. A great example of this is the use of a blog (or Weblog). These journal entry-type of web sites are constantly updated by their owners, sometimes several times a day or maybe once per week or per month. Blogs time and time again rank high up on search engines because of this very reason. Now I’m not telling you to go ahead and create a blog (although that would not harm you SEO efforts). However, I strongly suggest that your web site is updated regularly to show the “big three” that you are actively in business and your site contains current up-to-date content, therefore more valuable to web users.
A couple of general points
Although there are many variables involved when optimizing your web site for the web, search engines change their ranking protocol regularly and may use some or all of the optimizing techniques described here and vary the order of priority constantly. Furthermore, each search engine uses its own methodology to determine web site placement, so even if you did have the correct ‘formula’ it may be correct for Yahoo but not for Google.
This is why there is no guarantee of where your web site will appear in the rankings when your keywords are entered into search engines. It helps in general, to look at search engines as companies that want to provide their customers (web users) with the most current, up-to-date, quality and relevant content they can. You just have to structure your site and content in such a way that you SHOUT OUT your relevancy to your industry.
For questions on SEO (more variables, suggestions etc) and other marketing or web related topics, contact Beamond Creative, LLC directly at info@beamondcreative.com.
