Suppose you’re planning a trip to New York and want to go to a great jazz club. You’d probably start by typing in something like “Jazz Club in New York.” Let’s see what happens. Click here and keep this pop-up window open. You get, surprise, a list of New York jazz clubs! The way that the search engine (Google) knows what to display is based on complicated mathematical formulas devised by guys and gals in the Silicon Valley).
While the details are probably best left to your internet marketing company, the basics are easy to understand.
The Factors that Determine Your Ranking
First, the search engine wants to see that the website has words like “Jazz Club” and “New York” on its pages. You’ll notice that these words are bold on the Google page in the other window.
It also scans the title (the words in blue) for these phrases (New York and Jazz Club). Now, we'll get hypothetical. Let’s say a Jazz Club called Star Jazz comes up #5 on the list.
The search engine sees the words “Jazz” and “Club” in the title: “Star Jazz, Midtown’s best Free Jazz Club.” (They are bold here for emphasis.) Then it looks for those words in the domain name (StarJazz.com) and the name of the web page itself (StarJazz.com/freejazz.html).
But then the search engine wonders, what about the phrase “New York?” since it didn’t see those words yet. (Notice it doesn't realize "Midtown" is in New York.)
It will search an “invisible” part of each web page called the meta tags. They are a place designed specifically to tell search engines what the page is a
bout. (For simplicity, just focus on the words that follow “content=.”)
Here is an example: <meta name="description" content="Star Jazz Club Homepage. Live Jazz in Manhattan, New York every day.">
<meta name="keywords" content="jazz, free jazz, bar, club, NYC, Manhattan New York, Midtown, club, music, Broadway and 35th Street, Performance, Star Jazz”>
The Problem of Competition
See how often the words we typed in came up in these meta tags? (“Jazz Club” and “New York.”) It now sees that the club is in “New York.” That means that this site is probably very relevant to our search and the search engine may display it near the top of the list.
May Be Near the Top, You Say?
Don’t forget, there are several other “Jazz Clubs” in “New York.” If you owned Star Jazz, you’d be competing against every other jazz club in New York with a website that used those words. And that’s a lot!
What Search Engine Optimization Does
By having your internet marketing company perform Search Engine Optimization on your site, they fill your web pages and meta tags with the most relevant phrases for getting customers. That means they have to work with you to truly understand your business and the words that your customers will type in when looking for it.
Let’s say that Star Jazz really focuses on experimental jazz saxophonists. Why aren’t those words in the title, in the meta tags or on the web pages themselves? If someone types in “Experimental New York Jazz Saxophone” they might not find Star Jazz.
Since the search engine would only find the words “New York” and “Jazz” on the Star Jazz Website, it would judge it less relevant for a search that included the words “experimental” and “saxophone.” Let’s say for the search "Experimental New York Jazz Saxophone" it is ranked #45.
An internet marketing company will then optimize your site to target different sea
What it Takes to Be #1
Although it may sound simple, it’s not. Search Engine Optimization requires constant reworking and checking new phrases to see if they improve the site’s performance. It requires judging what terms produce visitors and which ones produce actual customers. (If you think it sounds like reworking a direct mail postcard, you’d be fairly correct.)
That’s why Search Engine Optimization takes real collaboration with an internet marketing company that understands your business. Along with Pay-per-Click advertising, it is one of the best ways to get your site seen.
And that’s something we’re all searching for. |
