Introduction

There is plenty of talk between business owners concerning Search Engine Optimization (SEO.) As a result a plethora of consulting and development firms have begun to offer SEO services. Some are reputable and others are charlatans. I thought I'd take a few moments to publish some helpful information regarding SEO.

Definitions

One of the biggest issues with SEO is an inconsistent usage of the phrase. There are a few concepts I will be discussing here and would like to establish each phrase's definition.

• SEO - the ability of a web site to be indexed properly by search engines.
• Relevance - how relevant a web page is comparison to a specific search phrase.
• Domain authority - how important a given web site is regarded to be by authorities such as Google and Yahoo!
• Traffic - the amount of times unique users access a web site's content

Perspective

Each of the four concepts above is used in determining where a website shows up in organic (non-paid) search queries. Each search engine has its own proprietary math for calculating the search ranking but each uses these four concepts in the calculation. SEO, as defined above, is the least significant of these four concepts. Many firms however are equating SEO to #1 in search queries. While this may be true in cases where the entire subject matter field is low in the other three categories, generally speaking, SEO is not enough to raise your search rankings above others.

How Search Engines want to work

The first step in a successful internet search is the building of an accurate index by the search engine. It is during this indexing period that the search engine communicates with your website (crawling.) It is during this time that SEO plays apart. If your website has a high degree of SEO, the search engine will accurately and efficiently index your site. If there are problems with your SEO, the index may be incomplete and will likely reduce the search engines confidence in your site.

When a user types a search query in a search engine, the user is expecting to be given the most relevant, dependable set of results. For most search engines, the most important variable in calculating ranking is domain authority (DA.) Google calls DA PageRank. DA is a measure of how popular a website is on the internet. This means that mainstream, established sites are going to have a higher DA than newer, smaller sites. Building DA requires strategic and purposed steps. It is not an overnight venture. You have to start publishing content that people care about. Short of doing that, your DA will remain low.

Another component is relevance. If the keywords occur repeatedly on a page and elsewhere on the site (keyword density) the website will have a higher relevancy (in regard to that specific query.)

The user that is making the query doesn't care if your site has SEO or not. The search engine "cares" because it's not sure if it's information is accurate. If there is comparable data with equal or higher DA and relevancy, the search engine will raise the rank of the alternate site.

SEO components

There are three basic components to making your website easily indexable by search engines.

Sitemap.XML

The first thing that a search engine is looking for when it begins crawling your site is file called sitemap.xml. It is an inventory of pages on your site that contain both their locations and last update time. Having an accurate sitemap.xml file allows the search engine to be certain that it has an accurate picture of your website. There are several tools that can assist in creating a sitemap.xml.

You must remember to update the file each time a page is updated. I have too often seen websites that have an outdated sitemap.xml file. Under trained webmasters are updating site files, but failing to change the modified date on the sitemap file. When a search engine checks the update dates in its database and compares it to the date on the sitemap.xml file, it assumes the content has not been updated since it's last crawl and subsequently does not index the new information.

Once you have an accurate sitemap.xml file, it is ideal to submit it to Google, Yahoo! and Bing through their webmaster interfaces.

If you do this process manually, it can be time intensive and expensive. This is why consulting firms that provide this service are so pricy. If you are using a content management system for updating your website, it should handle all of this work automatically.

HTML validation

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the primary computing language used in web sites. Just like any other computing language, it can have errors. You can validate a site's HTML by going to http://validator.w3.org. If you find HTML errors on your website, you should have the developer who created your site correct them. Different web browser can handle the errors differently. This means that the page can display fine in Internet Explorer but look horrible in Safari. In regard to SEO this can be a bigger problem if the search engine program that is crawling your site errors out. This can result in an incomplete index of your site but will at a minimum decrease confidence in your site by the search engine.

A content management system such as Drupal can use HTML purification filters to remove all errors that occur from uploading new content.

META tags

Web pages can have META tags embedded in them that the user will not see but search engines will. They were used much more in earlier years of internet searching and are decreasing in prevalence. A good content management system will allow for adding of META tags directly through the interface.

Automatic SEO

As I've hinted at earlier, SEO can be accomplished automatically with the application that is running your website. This approach is much more efficient than a manual method used by a consulting firm. It is also less expensive. The Drupal based applications that we develop at Herring Consulting handle all these components of SEO and can generally be developed for under $3,000 (a fraction of what will be paid to a SEO company.)

Beware of SEO scams

Guarantees of #1 search rankings and other promises that seem too good to be true are too good to be true!!! I have met many heartbroken business owners who have been taken by individuals and companies making lofty claims in regard to SEO. SEO is important and is easy, but in a competitive market will not be enough to throw you over your Goliath competitor.

Summary

SEO is one of the handful of components used in determining organic search ranking. It is simply a matter of configuring your website so that it can be easily indexed by search engines. Modern content management systems such as Drupal can automatically handle these SEO components without the need of recurring fees to SEO companies.