December 17, 2004

I often get emails and letters asking me if it’s really possible to get a site placed on top of the search engine results pages (SERP’s), in other words on the very first page of Google and most of the other major search engines. The answer to that question is a definite yes- provided you follow some basic elementary rules of SEO, and if you adhere to some good, sound advice that time has proven us that it works.

Here’s a proven fact: first page listings are extremely critical to the success of your online business. If, like me, you read many surveys and statistical reports, you know that the average searcher on the Internet seldom goes past the second page of the SERP’s. In fact, 80% of most users stay on the first page and don’t even click on page two.

Amid all this, there is some good news for site owners and webmasters that need their site on the first page, if only you follow a few basic fundamentals rules of SEO that you are about to discover here.

Back to the real basics
Today, there are only two basic types of search properties: pure-vanilla search engines and search directories. What I call pure-vanilla search engines are engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and AltaVista that regularly crawl (or spider) the Internet, picking up new websites and updating old ones in their index. This process is fully automated, without any interaction needed from the site owner or its webmaster.

These search engines use sophisticated formulas and make heavy use of proprietary algorithms that analyze websites based on some of their meta information and, most importantly, their HTML code in their content to effectively rank sites.

On the other hand, search directories such as DMOZ (the Open Directory Project), Global Business Listing and others represent the second category of search sites. One of the main differences between pure-vanilla search engines and search directories is, to get your site listed on a search directory, you must actually “hand submit” your site’s URL on the directory's submission form. Unlike pure search engines, directories don't have automated spiders or “bots” to automatically add or update sites in their databases.

Instead, they are actually reviewed and added by real humans that carefully check every submission to make certain it will be indexed in the right category, and to decide if it's appropriate for the directory.

In general, most websites submitted to directories are usually ranked according to the information provided on the submission form, as opposed to actual information on the website, so, needless to say, the information you write on the form is very important.

The Open Directory, Yahoo and Global Business Listing are the main search directories in use today by most companies and, combined with the pure-vanilla search engines, are the ones that will truly offer your website the best visibility on the Web.

Many of the major search properties on the Internet today combine directory and search engine functionality. The major search engines such as Google, AltaVista, MSN, Lycos, Excite and HotBot all have some form of directory associated with them. The opposite is true of major directories such as LookSmart and Yahoo.

If no results from their human-edited directories match your search query, their search engines then search through a database of crawled websites to give you the results you are looking for.

As an example, Yahoo! Websites provides directory results, while Yahoo! Web Pages provide crawled results from Google. For a long time now, many site owners and webmasters have incorrectly believed that their sites were included in Yahoo's human-edited directory after seeing their sites appear in the Yahoo Web Pages results. In actual life, they are not in Yahoo's directory, but in Google's database.

Additionally, you should receive an email notification from Yahoo when and if your website gets included in their directory, once you have submitted to it.

Meta tags aren’t what they used to be
A common error site owners and webmasters still do today is put most of their SEO efforts into meta tags. I still see a lot of people that contact me and are still under the very false impression that all they need to do is to simply add a few keywords into their meta tags and then think that they will automatically get high positioning in the search engines.

The meta keyword tag might have been useful in the “old days of the Internet”. Since then, a lot of things have happened. Google does not even look at meta tags anymore, since it has been abused a lot by spammers.

In other cases, the real reasons a website will not rank high enough is because of a serious lack of good content on many of the pages in the site. For more information on this subject, please go to previous articles I have published on this website on how to write a powerful homepage that will rank highly in the engines, and my 12 steps on how to write powerful sales copy that will place your site right on top.

Make your website “search engine-friendly”
You should always strive to get your site as search engine-friendly as you possibly can. About the worst design and the most search engine UN-friendly site design you can get today are sites that were developed using Flash technology or sites that make use of heavy graphics. Additionally, almost everyday I encounter poor Web design, java-enabled mouse over buttons, as opposed to pure HTML hyperlinks or database-driven, dynamically generated pages that cannot be properly indexed by most of today’s modern search engines.

It is always sad for me to notify such website owners or webmasters that they will never see good visibility in their search engine rankings unless they go back to these pure and basic steps with their site designs.

What is truly sad is the fact that many of these people spent large sums of money on things like fancy designs, impressive graphics and such, and they get understandably frustrated and disappointed to listen to what I tell them. I guess the really smart ones listen and do whatever it takes, even if it means having to do substantial modifications to the “look and feel” of their sites. The other ones will continue to get very poor visibility (if any), with an ROI next to nil.

Importance of the right keywords and key phrases
You should always know ahead of time the identification of your exact keywords & key phrases for your industry or market. It is absolutely impossible to seriously optimize any site without knowing ahead of time the right keywords. Optimize your site for the wrong keywords and you will get lots of traffic, but traffic that will be totally unrelated to any of the products or services your company has to offer.

To realize the importance of what relevant content is, please click here.

Also, you should never expect good visibility for just one-word keywords for the simple reason that there are too many sites on the Web that already are trying to compete for single-word searches to be really effective.

Furthermore, it's next to impossible to create a single one-word search that will be effectively targeting your specific website, in your specific market niche.

As an example, suppose your website offers specialized production equipment for the film development industry. If you were to target two simple keywords such as “film development”, well obviously all you would get are people that need to get their film developed! Instead, using the professional facilities of Wordtracker, research your keywords to read: “production equipment for the film industry” or “specialized film development equipment” or keyword phrases that will be similar in wording.

For a good article in how to write strong keyphrases, please click here.

In the following weeks and months, I will continue writing similar articles such as this one that will help you in the better understanding of search engines and how they relate to search engine optimization.

A better understanding will yield better SEO practices which, in the end, will translate into greater visibility in the engines for your website, thus a significantly higher return of your investment.

(Updated from our previous February 2003 article).

Article written by Serge Thibodeau,
President & CEO,
Rank for $ales
Copyright (c) Serge Thibodeau 2003

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