The Truth Bar

While most people will tell you that SEO is all about building links to Web sites, there is one expert who will tell you that SEO is about building a searchable Web ecosystem. The step away from simple link building toward creating a searchable Web ecosystem spans orders of magnitude in thought, theory, and practice. The Art of SEO has been covered by many people but its science has been addressed by only a few.

Science is the accumulation and cataloging of knowledge. The knowledge can be gathered by empirical means through observation and experimentation or it can be acquired through logic, mathematics, and statistical modeling. In search engine optimization many people have attempted to describe the art of SEO through statistics and models but their logic does not hold up well. That is because they don’t fully understand the science of SEO.

Search engine optimization is not the study of how to rank Web sites in search engines. It is the study of how search engines, searchers, and Web sites all work together. Of course it is the goal of many people to develop highly the art of SEO through practice and application of both theory and science. The challenge in bridging SEO theory with SEO science lies in truly understanding how the many parts of the system work together.

Some people in the SEO industry try to prove preconceived notions with very elaborate arguments, detailed graphs, and numerous unsubstantiated anecdotes. Their efforts deserve recognition because they rise above the buzzy noise of mostly useless muck articles but they still lack the credibility to advance the science of search engine optimization. When SEO art does meet SEO science, however, the result is a beautiful thing to behold.

One of the most powerful aspects of any web marketing strategy is how do I deliver the goods in the major search engines, e.g Google and Yahoo. How do I get my site to rank substantially in Google or Yahoo?

One of the most powerful facets in doing better in the search engines (assuming the fundamentals like brilliant content are already set up) is finding links to your website. You can garner this a couple of different ways, some taken positively by the serps and some not so positively.

One of the sure styles, that the search engine engineers think is satisfactory is link building with articles.

Fundamentally this necessitates composing a great article, rather around something from your business, and then publishing it to a free article directory.

You really shouldn’t underestimate the importance of link building. If there is one point that takes precedence to the search engines, on the whole, it is links. Sure, there are loads of other signals, like the domain name, but you are deluding yourself if you imagine you are going to be listed well, and easily noticed, if you do not possess any links.

Building links with articles is easy. It is something the search engines say is okay. And, it adds value to the web, by providing valuable content that might be interesting or useful to users. The real question is what are you waiting for?

Let me start off by saying I’m not a marketing guru or work for a fortune 500 advertising company. I don’t even have a marketing background. But if you don’t have money to blow on optimizing your site, then listen up.

Search engine optimization guidelines are more mysterious than Michael Jackson’s bedroom. About once a week I read about how Google’s algorithm is changing. They must have a dozen mad sciencetists working around the clock. Google just wants to be the perfect search engine. That’s all well and good, but gives us a breather here! Maybe they’re trying so hard cause they no longer hold 80% of online searches. MSN and Yahoo have built their own proprietary software, leveling the playing field a bit. A study done by www.searchenginewatch.com shows Google under 50% for US online searches. Yahoo is second with 21% while MSN ended third at 12%.

So what does that mean? Actually…not much. Unless you’re ready to do a PPC campaign or your company is a household name the odds of getting listed right away on the big three are pretty slim. But don’t despair. With a little patience and some hard work you will get listed.

So here are the steps:

Submit submit submit. Forget about the big three along with their affiliates for now. Instead submit to the multitude of search engines that will post your site for free. If you like I can send you my list free of charge. Just email me at cortes_will@yahoo.com with the subject title “Free List”. Remember, you’re playing the numbers game here. Most of them are free with incentives to pay if you want your site reviewed quickly. Also submit to directories and comparison shopping portals such as www.bizrate.com. Here’s a tip when submitting to directories. Directories such as www.lookdirectory.com don’t rank your sites. They place them by category alphabetically. Just because your company name is Zachs Toy Zebras, doesn’t mean that’s what you have to name your site when submitting it. You can call it #1 Toy Zebras. Now your site will be placed right on top for all to zee, I mean see.

Fine tune your keywords and they will come. Make them as relevant as possible. For example, let’s say you sell Susuki speed boats and your company name is Jacks Suzuki Speedboats. Your first keyword should be Susuki speedboat, not speedboat or boat. You’re selling to a specific market that will search for a specific item. If your keyword terms are too broad you’ll probably get more traffic but not necessarily more sales. This could get costly if you’re doing a PPC campaign. Remember that tag word K.I.S.S.? I’m changing it to “Keep Is Specific Stupid”. Also have the first sentence on your page say Suzuki speedboats. When those little web bots come strolling to your page they will see the term Suzuki speedboat in the store name, first keyword and first sentence in the page body. A very relative site to the web bots. Here’s a perfect example. I did a search on “Suzuki speedboat” and this site came up number four. The URL is www.globalsuzuki.com/gcm/spotlight/marine002.html You will notice the word Suzuki as part of the company name. Now if you right click on the page and view source code you can see that the title tag says “Suzuki” and close to the top of the body are the words Suzuki. Do you think that’s a coincidence? Also, if you do a search in MSN for “reverse balding” or “stop DHT” you will see my site www.endbalding.com in the top four and three spot respectively. Feel free to view my source code to validate what I’m saying. It took a little over a month to get my page listed on MSN.

Make sure to use the H1 tags on your main page. Primarily as a header for your product. Web bots see this tag as an important item. Now don’t misuse these tags and place them all over your site. You might get penalized for that. Given that the H1 tag is so large it may not look quite right on your page, don’t fret there is a fix. All you need to do is place the tag between your H1 tags. Use whatever font size you feel is right for your page.