Frequently, I am asked, by clients, friends, or the random online contact, about the best methods to use to be included in search engine results and how to be ranked highly in those results. By being ranked highly most people mean they want to be on the first page (top ten) and preferably in the top five. Usually, when people are searching for information, they will visit the top sites listed and will only move down the list if the first returned sites do not yield the information they are looking for. There are many organizations which will charge you a great deal of money for search engine optimization strategies and there are many who employ unethical strategies which will ultimately be a disservice for your organization. Adding your site to any search engine is very simple. Simple visit the search engine and search for “submit your site” and the top, non sponsored link, will be to that engine’s form for submitting your site. Most sites will offer both paid and free options. Unless you are under a very tight timeline there is no reason to pay as it only guarantees your site will be evaluated in a more timely fashion. Since submitting your site to engines is so easy I will use this article to communicate strategies, which anyone can use, to help your site’s ranking.
First and most importantly, keep it ethical. Do not try to fool the search engines or employ strategies that are less than truthful. When developing websites you have the option to use meta-tags which will help define keywords an example is:
Not every search engine will utilize these user defined keywords but some will. However, they will use them as a guideline. If the keywords do not match the content of your site not only will they be ignored but they can also result in your site being blacklisted. Blacklisting is when your site is permanently banned from the search engine results. In short, your keywords should match the content of your site, nothing more.
Offer engaging content. If you are launching a website to market your Morgan horses then add content on it about the Morgan horse breed. Examples would include the history of the Morgan, information about your ranch and breeding program, and obviously information about your Morgan horses. Search engines attempt to automate the process of finding information that will be useful to human beings. Therefore, your primary goal should revolve around adding information to your website that visitors will find useful. If the information is useful, easy to find, and relevant then it will not only service your potential customers but it will also help your search engine rankings.
Never, under any circumstance add “hidden text” to your page, in an attempt to fool a search engine. This method is where people will add text with a font color the same as the background color, for example setting the font color to white. In this scenario humans can not see the text and the web site owner is attempting to fool the search engine into listing the site with keywords that are not relevant or to rank higher with relevant keywords. The theory is that a computer scans the text of your page and is unable to determine whether or not humans can see the text. While it is not easy to write a program to distinguish between visible and hidden text it is possible. If you employ this method, and get caught, your site will be blacklisted.
A primary method used by search engines for ranking search results is to base it on the number of sites linking to you. The idea is that if a large number of sites are linking to you then your site must be popular. It is also assumed that a popular website has content of interest to others. This has led to the creation of link farms; a link farm is simply a website full of links to other websites. This method is often employed by what are referred to as Black Hat Search Engine Optimization Companies (SEOs) and attempt to fool a search engine into thinking a site is popular. Black Hat SEOs are companies that offer search engine optimization services but employ tactics which are unethical and often violate the terms of service of most search engine companies. Search companies have come up with strategies to detect the use of link farms and sites that are listed in them risk being black listed.
Getting other sites to link to you is very important but you should concentrate on recruiting sites with information similar to yours. A horse related site should strive to have other horse related sites link to it, a real estate company should add links to sites about real estate, and so on. It should be noted that some sites, for example Horse Lovers Central, ask that you create a reciprocating link. The idea is that you can list your site on theirs but you must also include a link back. You should place these reciprocating links in an area of your site where they are easy to find, the owners of these sites frown upon the practice of burying a bunch of links in a poorly organized fashion. Having a poorly organized page of links could possibly cause search engines to determine that you are starting a link farm and thereby negatively impact your ranking. The best test, for any website, is to ask yourself, “would any human every find this layout useful.” If your answer is “no” or “probably not” then you had better reorganize it. If the search engine companies have not constructed their algorithms too negatively deal with your site today they will someday soon! Strictly speaking though, it is simply rude to expect a site to list your link in an easy to find location but to bury their link on your page.
A method, for obtaining links on the pages of others, that can be highly successful is to author articles. This will be advantages for a few reasons. The first is other site owners will be far more willing to include your article then they will a link. Content adds far more value to a site than a bunch of links. You should require though, that all content includes a link back to your site and that the link contain no additional link attributes (such as rel=nofollow), the rel=nofollow instructs search engines to not follow the link to your page! Unfortunately, there are web masters which will use works, written by others, but not have the ethics to include a true link back to the author’s site! Obviously this same rule would apply to those supplying reciprocating links. Having an article, with a link back to your site, can also be very advantages to your site’s ranking. One of the rules, used by search engines, is to analyze the relevance of a linked based on the content of the page that it is found on. If you are a real estate agent and you write an article on methods for selling your own home then a link on that article will be ranked higher than if it were on an article about hamsters. Furthermore, if you author several articles it will help establish you as an expert in that topic area. Visitors are far more apt to add your site to their favorites/bookmarks if they believe you are an expert that offers relevant information.
In essence your focus should not be about achieving a high rank in search engines. Instead your focus should be on building a website that people will want to come to. A website that others will be proud to provide links to, because your site is just that good. You must focus on a website that has engaging content and services that are useful to your target audience. If you provide this and make your website “search engine friendly” then your ranking in search engines will improve.
Selecting an SEO Company
Finally, if you do employ an SEO company there are a couple things you should look for. First do a search for White Hat and Black Hat SEOs, Black Hat SEOs are those who will employ unethical practices that often violate the terms of service of search engines whereas White Hat SEOs will work to use ethical practices and adhere to the rules. Black Hat SEOs often search for methods to “trick” search engines and are often very successful, in the short term, in obtaining top rankings for their clients. However, I have seen first hand, where a client went from being ranked in Google’s top five to not being listed at all. He ignored advice, given to him, to not use the SEO believing their marketing literature which guaranteed they would get him listed within the top five sites for the selected key words. This should be your first clue that something suspicious is afoot. No organization can truthfully guarantee that they can consistently achieve top five rankings for all their clients. The search engine companies are the ones who determine who will be listed and where within the results they will be listed. The best any company can do is use information provided by these companies to “optimize” your site for the search engines. However, since there are hundreds of sites doing this for any given set of keywords it is difficult to consistently achieve these results unless you set out to “fool” the search engine.
A good SEO will explain too you exactly how they will help you achieve higher rankings. The keyword here is they will “help” not “do”. A good SEO should assist you in getting linked on other sites but they should be able to provide you with a list of sites that they will attempt to get you linked on. Carefully evaluate these sites, put yourself in the shoes of a typical user, and ask yourself if you truly would use that site as a method for finding your site. For example, it is very unlikely a user would ever use a site that is nothing but a set of unrelated links for finding your site. However, a site that contains relevant information about cars that also has a categorized list of links relating to cars probably would be very useful. A good SEO will instruct you on how to author content which may be useful to search engines. However, this same content must be useful to your visitors. If it is not then it will have no practical use what-so-ever. Meta-tag keywords must be relevant to your site, the inclusion of non-relevant keywords is not only a disservice but it can hurt your rankings.
The bottom line, a good SEO company will consult with you and educate you on the best practices for improving your rankings. A good SEO will not tell you that their practices are “trade secrets” or “confidential”. Most likely such organizations are using unethical practices and simply do not want to disclose them to you. It is your reputation and your livelihood that is on the line, do not trust it lightly!
About the Author: Scott Perowitz has been actively building and maintaining websites for a variety of different purposes since 1995. He is highly experienced with e-commerce, e-marketing, website development, and using technology to promote organizations and ideas. He is the owner of Keptin Consulting Services (http://www.keptinconsultingservices) and his most successful website is Horse Lovers Central (http://www.horseloverscentral.com) a website dedicated to the equine community.