Understanding SEO Basics
This article describes what search engine optimization is; how to use it to increase traffic to your website; and how to analyze your web traffic data in terms of its significance to your business and incorporating it into business planning and operations.
Finding Useful Information on the Web
Most Internet users find information by using the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, bing, etc.) to locate relevant websites. The search engines use a variety of methods to index websites and to rank them according to the relative quality of the information they contain for a given search. The goal of the engines is to present search results that have a high probability of containing the information the user is searching for. The search engine scripts (alsk known as "bots", or "spiders") analyze the language on a website to determine whether or not it is a good match for a particular search, and the website is ranked in the search results accordingly.
Social networking is also coming into play, as the information on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., provides the search engines with data that is being collected and ranked by actual users.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization, or "SEO", is the label given to the various strategies and tactics that are used to increase a website's ranking in the search engine results. Search Engine Marketing or "SEM", is the label given to the marketing strategies and tactics employed with search engines. These are basically the same as for SEO, but with a shift in emphasis towards marketing analysis. We generally just use "SEO" to mean both.
The goal of a website owner is to be listed as close to the top of the first page of search results as possible, for those search terms most relevant to their organization. If users can't find your website because it is buried too deeply within the search results pages, then your site might as well not exist, and its potential for supporting your organization will never be fully realized.
How to Achieve the Goal of a High Search Engine Ranking
There are a number of ways to achieve this goal, including paying the search engines directly for a higher ranking (with paid adwords), creating a site that many other sites will link to, embedding targeted search term keywords within the website source code, linking to your site from your social network account, blog comments, etc.
The best way to achieve and maintain a high ranking in the search engines is by developing and maintaining a well-structured, content-rich site that is updated on a regular basis.
Website Visitor Data Basics
First, you need to understand a couple of basic technical concepts about how the web works.
Web Servers
A website is a collection of files that are stored in their own location on a host Web Server. The Web Server is a very large computer that has direct access to the network of the Internet. It's possible to set up your home or office PC to be a web server, but most people rent space on a commercial host.
Web Server IP Address
The host server has an ID number: it's IP address. This is the 4-part number like this: 111.222.333.444. Your website on the host also has its own IP address within the server. This is like an apartment address within a block apartment building.
your web site may have its own IP address, which the server reponds too but knows to direct requests to your website. Alternatively, and more commonly today, your website's IP address is the server's IP address, and the server knows to send the request to your website, because the client sends the name of your website with it's request. This is called Name-Based Virtual Hosting.
Web Traffic is Tracked in the Server Logs
Everything you do online leaves an IP address trace. The reason is that when you do a search or open a website page, those actions are translated into requests from one computer to another. For example, when you opened this page, you sent a request to the host server where the Circuit-Riders.net website is stored.
The file request is basically a message that is sent from your computer to my server when you click a button or a link. The message says: "Hi there! I am Host Server number 111.222.333.444, and I would like to get the following file from you." The host server says "Hi there! I know you. Here's the file you requested." The host server then puts the file for this page onto your computer: the file is downloaded to your computer. This is something that most people using the Web don't appreciate. You're not looking "through" the browser to a file on a remote computer: you're looking at a copy on your own PC.
This request "handshake" exchange between your computer and the Circuit-Riders.net host server is recorded in the server logs. So every time you click on a button or a navigation link of any kind on a website, you leave a record of that request in the host server log files.
This is your web traffic data. The data is collected automatically. Whether or not you use it to grow your business is entirely up to you.
What the Server Logs Tell Me
When I review the visitor statistics data for my website, I can see your request for this page stored in the server logs. The logs tell me a lot. For example, I have a good idea of how you found this page. I know how long this page was left open (but I don't know if you're reading it or if you've walked away from your monitor). I know what city you're in, and I know if you go to another page in this website, or leave. I know if you return.
If you found this page by doing a Google search, I can see what search term you used.
However, unless you send me an email or fill out my Contact form or buy something from Flameskimmers.com, I don't know that it's you sitting at the keyboard and reading this article. But if you contact me in a way that tells me your personal identity, I can go back and trace your route through my store.
What would you have to do to generate the same information from a brick and mortar store, for example? You could probably put together the surveillance camera video of your customers shopping through your store with the date/time stamp of their purchases and figure out their identities, but it would be a challenge.
Web Traffic Analytics Packages
Although you can read the server logs directly, or create scripts to analyze them for you, most people use some kind of data visualization tool to collect and review their web traffic data. There are several analytics software packages available. Most commercial hosts will provide an analytics interface with your account (GoDaddy.com, for example). The most popular tool is Google Analytics, which is free.
Basically, the way this works is that when you sign up for a Google Analytics account, or if you sign up for help from an SEO web marketing agency, you will be given several lines of source code. This code is a script that must be placed on every page on your site that you want to be tracked. The script collects the visitor traffic data, and sends it to the analysis tool being used.
SEO Is a Time Game
SEO is essentially a time game, whether you're trying to achieve a high ranking organically or through paid adword campaigns. The search engine bots will visit most websites every 6-8 weeks. If you have not added any new content since the last time they came by, it will be counted against you: they will lower the value ranking of your site, and your site will sink a little in the search results. It will become a little harder for users to find it, causing it to sink still further. Ignore your site long enough and it will sink like a rock.
However, if you have added something new for the bots to find, using the same keywords and phrases you have targeted for your SEO, then your site will rise in the search engine results. There is an appropriate way to use paid adword marketing strategies, but in our opinion, the organic, natural method of SEO will net more solid traffic over time, and be rewarded by the search engines accordingly.
Driving a website higher in the search engine results takes a little time and savvy, but it's not rocket science. The best investment you can make of your time, effort, and money is to educate yourself and focus your resources on developing your website to be a powerful tool for driving your business.
Target your resources and put your money where it will do the most good. Understand where your money is going and know how to judge the results for yourself. The following steps will help you get started.
Language Matters
The best way to summarize SEO is this: language matters. The search engines are looking for websites with quality content. I.e., language. They do so by analyzing the language on your website (the source code and the "natural" language contents that users see), and judging it according to certain criteria. The more good "marks" you get, the higher your site will be listed in the search results. If you want a high ranking, give them what they're looking for. It's as simple as that.
Basic SEO Checklist
- Read Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
- Analyze your website according to Google's guidelines.
- Make the necessary changes to bring your site up to
recommended standards:
– Use valid, standards-compliant source code. If you can't easily read the text content buried in your code, neither can the browser bots.
– Create a solid set of meaningful keywords. Don't stuff your pages full of every word association you can think of. Less is more.
– Use consistent language in your text and image ALT tags. - Add some new content to your website every 6-8 weeks for the search engine bots to detect. The search engines are looking for quality, so give it to them.
- Check your server statistics package regularly; at least once a week and preferably every day. Learn what the numbers mean by reading the Help.
- Read about Google's free analysis tools and learn how to use them. Again, read the Help.
- Develop meaningful business cross-linking strategies with other businesses and professionals in your field.
- Learn how to Use SEO for Business Intelligence.
Website development requires time, effort, and money. Put these resources into developing your website and you won't have to pay or trick people into finding you. If you give your visitors what they're looking for, they may come back for more.
Sobering Statistics for Paid Adword Campaigns
Here are some sobering statistics on paid adwords from Google Exposure, LinuxJournal.com, Doc Searles, Feb 1, 2010:
"Citing a "Natural Born Clickers" study by ComScore and Starcoma, Ad Age last year reported that "the number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of Internet users account for 85% of all clicks... What's more, the 8% of Internet users that compose a majority of clicks is also down by half from the last study, which found 16% are responsible for 80% of clicks. The 2008 study found half of all clicks come from lower-income young adults."
Main SEO Advice
What is our main SEO advice?
We've been doing SEO development, analysis, and consulting since 2004. Our main piece of advice is this:
DO NOT spend one penny on paid adwords or an SEO marketing campaign until you understand exactly what you are doing.
Until you understand your website's current Baseline status, it is pointless to pay money to increase it. The risk of missing your target goals, or worse – being ripped off – is extremely high. Even for technically savvy business owners.
SEO Services
We believe that our most valuable SEO service is working with business owners and managers to understand how to use website traffic analytics data for business intelligence. Your website is one of the most powerful business tools you have to drive your business.
We have completed numerouos SEO research and analysis projects since 2004, saving our clients money (some of them thousands of dollars a month in wasted paid adwords), while increasing their website traffic and sales at the same time.
More SEO Information
- Understanding SEO Basics,
by Mary Ecsedy
Provides an overview of Search Engine Optimization, including a Basic SEO Checklist. - What's a "bot"?, by Mary
Ecsedy
aka "spiders", "crawlers", etc. - Introduction to
Search Engine Optimization ("SEO") – Carnegie
Mellon University Lecture Notes, by Mary Ecsedy
This is Mary's SEO presentation from her SEO lecture on 10/12/2009 at Carnegie Mellon University.
– Mary Ecsedy, 10/17/2010; updated 11/24/2010
