Looking for 'Mr. Google': Some thoughts on SEO

The less something is understood, the more it's written about. So, to help fill the knowledge gap, I thought I would offer comments that reflect my basic understanding of what you can do to improve your ranking on Google...and other search engines, if they're out there. Please post any comments or corrections to help refine the topic.

The consulting services collectively known as “search engine optimization” or SEO are what most people mean when they’re discussing page rank. In today’s search-driven world, it is incredibly important, especially for popular & frequent consumer purchase items.

According to many search marketing authorities, as much as 75% of consumer purchases today start with an internet search.

What is ‘SEO’?.

Google has proprietary algorithms that rank and re-rank web sites’ content to help people find useful answers to questions. The most relevant (and popular sites) appear on page 1 or page 2. (If you don’t appear on the first few pages of search results (SERPs or search engine results pages), you have an SEO problem.)

Since no one knows exactly how Google works, many, many consultants are in the business of charging clients to make educated guesses.

Many companies (and unscrupulous SEO consultants) spend inordinate amounts of time plotting and scheming to get Google to rank one site above another. Many Google employees spend inordinate amounts of time trying to outsmart unscrupulous SEO companies. Google usually wins.

Because Google is a thinking, evolving organization with its own personality, it is easy to anthropomorphize it into a living being -- a benevolent despot if you will -- called "Mr. Google".

I’m not really interested in the cat-and-mouse games between SEO firms and Mr. Google. Most of that effort is zero-sum and pointless activities aimed at achieving temporary and unsustainable advantages.

But there are some basic truisms of web site design that you should know that will help Mr. Google find your site and rank your content. None of it is particularly esoteric or unusual, but it is another wrinkle in the marketing communications puzzle that you need to manage.

To attain a high SERP rank, you must convince Mr. Google that your site – and all its pages – are highly relevant to the given search term.

The key phrase here is given search term. This is where a good SEO specialist can help you identify the range of search terms (keywords and phrases) that will be most associated with your company and your marketing strategy.
These keywords and phrases must appear prominently throughout your site for Mr. Google to acknowledge and recognize your site as relevant.

Content relevance is straight forward: does each page have the correct “concentration” of the most likely search terms on each page. Repeating key terms 3-5 times is about right. You can see this concept by searching on some key terms like “biodegradability marketing claims”. When you see the search results, view the “cached” copy here.

Examining the top three ranked sites and you will see highlighted keywords. This is one clue about the “secret sauce” for search ranking. Notice the top three search results are from .gov domains.

This makes for web copy that is, at times, cumbersome and repetitive.

Agency: “Here’s your search-engine optimized web content.”
Client: “This is awful. Why do you say the same thing over and over again using different words?”
Agency: (sigh)

And yet it is valuable to use different terms since many people won’t search for you using the same phrases. It is NOT the best way to write a brochure or an ad but it is preferred when writing for the web.

PageRank is a bit more difficult to describe but it comes down to:

1. Link Popularity: How many sites link to YOUR site?
2. Link Relevance: How many of those links are from relevant sites (relevant to the search term)?
3. Link Strength: The most important criteria: how many of those relevant links are popular or authoritative (widely linked TO themselves)? .edu and .gov are particularly prized since they are sites less likely to be “commercial” and thereby objective and above corruption. (Ha!)

The rest of search engine optimization comes down to common sense (and a bit of coding):

1) Is the text on your site easy to read by Mr. Google’s robot (“Googlebot”). In other words, does each page on your site use Adobe Flash illustrations and code before text content? If so, Mr. Google will get bored and distracted. This is loosely known as “spiderability”, so-called since Mr. Google’s robot is known as a web spider (for crawling all over the world-wide web. Get it.)
2) Are important and relevant phrases highlighted in bold or Headline fonts?
3) Are pictures labeled with descriptive & relevant phrases? (Known as “alt-img” tags, these phrases should contain keywords and phrases as well. (Alas, Mr. Google’s robot is blind and can’t understand or appreciate fancy animations or pictures.)
4) Are the words you use to describe your content the same words most people use to search to find your content? Do you try to use different phrases, even though they are presumed to be repetitive?
5) Are you in business temporarily or for a long time? Is your domain old or new? Will it expire in one year or ten?
6) Do you make Googlebot bored (by making it read the same copy over and over, week after week), or do you give him something new to read every time he visits?


Self- Analysis and Self-Help

Here are some thoughts about evaluating your place in Mr. Google's world:

1. Check your page rank. Overall, PageRank is like a Richter scale, sort of logarithmic: a PR6 is ten times better than a PR5. Most competent B2B sites should be at least a PR4~5.

2. Check your in-bound links, especially from .edu and .gov domains. Do what you can to legitimately attract links backs from employees of government or academic institutions.

3. Check how many pages of content are indexed in Google. More is better. Aim at creating new, fresh content on a regular basis. The content should be filled (but not stuffed) with relevant keywords. The page title tags should also be directly related to the content.


Recommendations To Improve Your Page Ranking

1) Actively solicit everyone you know to link to your home page, specific articles within the site, or both. Bribe or threaten anyone from authority sites like from government or education. Those links are the most “prized” in terms of PageRank.

2) See about getting your site listed in on-line directories on topics directly related to your business. These links will aid in your relevancy score.

3) Check to make sure your site's news release section offer a plain text version of all your press releases. While Google can index PDFs, it has an easier time with plain text.

4) Put your Biography on the “About us” section. If people don’t remember your organization, they will Google your name. Be found.

5) Blogging is like flossing and Listerine. You hate to do them, but they’re most effective if you do it daily.

6) Do more press releases on topics, especially if it is something related to pending legislation. This will get you and the organization in the news and get more traffic. There is a service called http://www.prweb.com/that is pretty good at getting news out to multiple sources.

7) Introduce yourself to other bloggers in your industry, both upstream and downstream from your markets. They will write about (and link to) your site, helping spread your marketing messages while building relevant back links and traffic.

8) Submit your website to the DMOZ directory (http://www.dmoz.com/). This is a human-edited directory that tries to list to high-quality, authoritative websites. If you are accepted, you are considered to be a high-quality, authority website, with all the benefits and privileges that title confers. The downside is that, because it is human edited (and free), DMOZ is swamped with thousands of submissions; acceptance, if it comes, may take years.

If you have $299, a faster alternative to DMOZ is the Yahoo Directory. In seven days Yahoo will review your site and (generally) post it in a highly-ranked directory. Perhaps not as prestigious as DMOZ, but certainly a good way to improve you page rank. Be sure that you are not already listed, since fees are non-refundable.

The website http://www.seomoz.org/for some tools related to “spderability” of your site.

Google itself offers a powerful tool that allows you to see many useful items about your site. Check out: http://www.google.com/webmasters/#utm_medium=et&utm_source=us-en-et-bizsol-0-finderB-all&utm_campaign=en


These are some basic concepts and tips that will help make your site rank better in most searches. Note this is NOT a graphic design exercise but a content exercise. Most web designers will be able to give you a highly attractive site but the long-term marketing performance depends upon sustained efforts in content development and careful attention to detail in search terms.

-SPS-