Statistics say that 80 – 85% of surfers use a search engine to find what they are looking for on the web. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is preparing your website so that it can be found in the millions of websites out there.  So if your website is about your dog grooming business, SEO helps to make sure that when someone is looking for a dog groomer, they can find your site. The better job of optimizing you site you do, the higher your site may rank in a search engine increasing the chance of bringing traffic or customers to your site and business. SEO is not about tricking the search engines. It is about understanding what things the search engines look for in order to help determine what the page is about and what search terms might be used to find it. Understanding what the search engines take into consideration will help you place your pages higher in the search engines and for the right search terms.

What should l optimize? When you are working on optimizing your site you need focus your efforts on the key Search Engine Ranking Factors – SERFs. SERFs are the things that affect where a web site’s pages are position on the results page of a query or search  I list some of them below.

Organic Search Results: This term refers to the results that come from the search engine’s index of web pages. They are called “normal” or “organic” results because they are not paid for or have any outside influences on them. These results typically garner between 60-70% of user clicks on the search results page. These are the results you are working to try to move up in.

Search Engine Ranking Factors:
Reference – http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

1. Keyword Use Factors: The following components relate to the use of the user’s search query terms in determining the rank of a particular page.
   1. Keyword Use in Title Tag: Placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page’s HTML header
   2. Keyword Use in Body Text: Using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page
   3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis): Topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords
   4. Keyword Use in Page URL: Including target terms in the webpage URL, i.e. seomoz.org/keyword-phrase (Tends to help with CTR – Click Through Rate – Ends up bolded in search results )
   5. Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag: Utilizing keywords in the meta description tag in a webpage’s HTML header
2. Page Attributes: The following elements comprise how the Google interprets specific data about a webpage independent of keywords
   1. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure: Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page
   2. Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages: Do links on the page point to high quality, topically-related pages?
   3. Age of Document: Older pages may be perceived as more authoritative while newer pages may be more temporally relevant
   4. Amount of Indexable Text Content: Refers to the literal quantity of visible HTML text on a page
   5. Quality of the Document Content (as measured algorithmically): Assuming search engines can use text, visual or other analysis methods to determine the validity and value of content, this metric would provide some level of rating
3. Site/Domain Attributes: The factors below contribute to Google’s rankings based on the site/domain on which a page resides.
   1. Global Link Popularity of Site: The overall link weight/authority as measured by links from any and all sites across the web (both link quality and quantity)
   2. Age of Site: Not the date of original registration of the domain, but rather the launch of indexable content seen by the search engines (note that this can change if a domain switches ownership)
   3. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site: The subject-specific relationship between the sites/pages linking to the target page and the target keyword
   4. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community: The link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world
   5. Rate of New Inbound Links to Site: The frequency and timing of external sites linking in to the given domain
   6. Relevance of Site’s Primary Subject Matter to Query: The topical relationships between the full content of a website and a user’s given query
4. Inbound Link Attribute: These pieces affect Google’s weighting of links from external websites pointing to a page
   1. Anchor Text of Inbound Link
   2. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
   3. Topical Relationship of Linking Page
   4. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community: The link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world
   5. Age of Link
   6. Topical Relationship of Linking Site
   7. Text Surrounding the Link:
5. Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes: These components may negatively affect a spider’s ability to crawl a page or its rankings at Google.
   1. Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots
   2. Content Very Similar or Duplicate of Existing Content in the Index
   3. External Links to Low Quality/Spam Sites
   4. Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages
   5. Overuse of Targeted Keywords (Stuffing/Spamming)
   6. Participation in Link Schemes or Actively Selling Links
   7. Very Slow Server Response Times

5 Responses to “What is SEO?”