Understanding How Links and Content Help You

Search engine optimization is defined as the process by which we make our site more visibly and materially suitable for search engines to display as a match for search terms input by consumers.

Sound confusing? Let’s look at it from the other end.

A consumer sits down and types in ‘pet clothing’. A few seconds later, a list of websites featuring content associated with the keywords ‘pet’ and ‘clothing’ pop up. There are probably pages and pages of results. These are called the Search Engine Results Pages, or the SERPs.

You want your site to be on page one of the SERPs. In fact you want it ‘above the fold’ meaning that you see it without having to scroll down. This term is borrowed from the newspaper era, when the most important stuff was always above the fold, and therefore more visible. Basically, you want to be in the top ten results, or better yet, the top three.

So how do you get there? How do you convince the search engines that you are the best site for the job? Well, first you have to be crawled by spiders on the web.

Don’t freak out, spiders are simply spies sent by the search engines to scout the internet for things of interest. They look at your site and report back to the nest.

One of the things they see is your content. You want keyword rich content that shows clearly what your site is all about. If I produce pet clothes, I want my site to be full of words like ’pet’, ‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘clothing’, and phrases like ‘warm dog sweaters’ and ‘ cheap cat booties’. This gives the spiders lots of information about my site and its value.

You also want quality links, that are coming into your site from relevant sources and don’t appear to have been paid, traded or bargained for in any way. These natural, or ‘organic’ links show that you are respected already by the internet community.

Once the spiders have crawled your site, collected the data and sent it back to home base, the search engine will decide how much weight your site has. This will depend on a variety of factors; Your content, your links, your appeal – all of this can count for or against you, so take heed and try to optimize your site to yield the highest traffic possible

Watch your keywords, and always be on the lookout for new ones you can add. There might be a sudden fad of poodle skirts for poodles, and I wouldn’t want to be behind the crowd.

And (I said this in the last post, but it bears repeating) PLEASE remember to utilize and photo or video assets you may have – with the advent of visually driven search on the horizon you can’t afford not to!

Remember, your site is only as good as the stuff you put on it and the stuff that leads to it, so post great content, acquire good links, and share your info with as many people as you can.

***Tomorrow: Links to Nowhere – the deadly 404 message***