Search engine optimization is one of most popular online
marketing tool for any website. With most websites looking
forward to increasing the online sales of their
products/services, search engine optimization can be a very
cost-effective tool to target and procure your customers online.
In this paper, we will discuss about search engine optimization,
its benefits and how you can optimize your website for top
search engine rankings.
1. What is search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization (also known by various other names
like search engine ranking, search engine promotion, website
promotion, SEO etc.) is a method through which a website is
given top rankings in various search engines. According to a
recent industry study, 1 in every 20 people go to the second
page of search results pages, but only 1 in every 100 people go
beyond that. So, by top search engine rankings, we mean that
your website should be within the first two pages of the search
results, preferably in the first page (i.e. within top 10
rankings).
2. What are the prime benefits of search engine optimization?
§ Top search engine rankings result in more pre-qualified
business leads coming to your website which in turn can convert
to greater sales for your organization.
§ Search engine promotion is one of the cheapest methods of
advertizing for your organization. Compared to advertizements in
the newspapers/magazines or in the television, search engine
promotion costs many times less and can bring more traffic to
your websites, thereby providing greater ROI.
§ Search engine optimization enhances online brand identity of
your organization.
3. What are the key factors for your website to have top search
engine rankings?
Search engines change their algorithms frequently, thereby
forcing the search engine optimization companies to
re-strategize their search engine optimization techniques.
However, the following attributes are basic and play a major
role in procuring top search engine rankings.
a. Keyword Research – Keywords play the most vital role in your
search engine optimization campaign. Keywords (can be 1, 2, 3 or
more words) are the search terms which a surfer types in the
search box of a search engine to reach your website. Let us
consider that you are an “India-based Outsourcing consultant”
interested in optimizing your website for top search engine
rankings. The following are some of the keywords which surfers
will type to reach your website -
Keywords bpo bpo india bpo outsourcing services business
outsourcing services business process outsourcing offshore
companies offshore outsourcing offshore outsourcing services
offshore services outsource india outsourcing companies
outsourcing consultants outsourcing india outsourcing services
outsourcing services company
Keyword research tips –
· Always target keywords that best describe your
products/service. · Try to find multiword potential keywords
compared to single keywords. · Try formulating keywords which
give answers to as “why/how/what …….?” · Utilize your server log
files to know what your customers searched most while visiting
your site. · Use keyword generator softwares like Wordtracker
(http://www.wordtracker.com) or Overture
(http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/) ·
Include popular common misspellings (e.g. viagra typed as
viagara etc.) in your keyword list.
b. Title of the webpage - <title>……< itle> - Title has a deep
impact on your website’s search engine rankings. Experience
shows that most companies use the following as title of their
index page which can prevent them from getting top search engine
rankings.
<title>Welcome to the website of XYZ.com< itle>
For example, let’s continue with the above example of
“India-based Outsourcing consultant”.
An ideally optimized title should contain the top 3-5 keywords
of your business, e.g. outsourcing consultants, outsourcing
india, outsource india
Optimized Title - <title>Outsourcing Consultants, Outsourcing
India, Outsource India< itle>
c. Description Meta tag of the webpage – Description of a
webpage also plays important role in getting top search engine
rankings.
Optimized Description - Develop a suitable description based on
your top 3 keywords
<meta name="description" content="One of the most reputed
outsourcing consultants offering outsourcing India services and
strategies on how to outsource India.">
d. Keywords Meta Tag of the webpage - This meta tag was of great
importance at one time. But rampant manipulations (i.e.
multiple, often non-relevant keyword stuffing in the “keywords”
tag), leading to abuse has resulted in search engines giving
lesser importance to “keywords” tag while ranking sites.
Nevertheless, you can always place top 3 – 5 keywords of your
site in the “keywords” tag.
Optimized Keywords - <meta name="keywords" content =
"outsourcing consultants, outsourcing india, outsource india">
e. Importance of Content/Keyword-enriched optimized pages for
top search engine rankings –
Well, if there is one aspect which holds supreme importance in
search engine, specially in Google ranking, then it is this.
Yes, content! The popular industry say – “Content is King” was
perhaps devised by watching Google’s love for content. Develop
content based on the top keywords related to your business.
While developing content for your web pages, keep in mind the
keyword density (KD).
Mathematically speaking, Keyword Density is the ratio of the
total number of time a keyword is repeated divided by the total
content words. Since KD is normally represented in percentage,
the above figure is to be multiplied by 100
For example, if you have developed a web page of around 250
words on the keyword “search engine optimization”, and that
particular keyword (search engine optimization) is repeated 10
times, then Keyword Density (KD) = 10/250 * 100 = 4%
As a thumb rule, Keyword Density of an optimized page for top
search engine rankings should vary between 2 – 7 % (this figure
varies among different search engines)
4. Submission of Keyword-enriched optimized pages – After you
have finished content development for the optimized pages based
on the keywords targeted for top search engine rankings, submit
those pages to various search engines.
a. Google - http://www.google.com/addurl.html
b. AlltheWeb - http://addurl.alltheweb.com/add_url
c. AltaVista - http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new
d. MSN - http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm
5. Role of Link Popularity in top search engine rankings –
Link popularity has assumed tremendous importance for getting
good ranks in Google now a days. In fact, what started as a
friendly reciprocal link exchange program among various
webmasters has now become a sub-industry within the SEO industry
itself, with thousands of link farms popping up every day! Yes,
if you are interested in getting top ranks in search engines,
especially Google, then you must pay effort in building up links
for your site.
a. Create a html page, preferably named as
“Resources/Links/Partners” and place a link of this page from
Index Page of your site. This page should never be more than 1
click away from the index page of your site, else webmasters
won’t be interested in participating in the reciprocal link
exchange program.
b. Target both “industry-related” and “non-industry-related”
websites as your link exchange partners. For example, if you are
providing outsourcing services, then try getting links from
“industry-related websites (i.e. websites dealing with
outsourcing services, maybe your business rivals!). This is
important, because if 10 of your rival sites give links to your
site, then Google will surely pay importance to your site,
because getting links from rival companies are difficult. Your
site MUST be of some high caliber, else the other 10 sites won’t
have linked! Also, try procuring links from top ranked general
informative websites as well.
c. Always exchange links with websites which have high Google
PageRank (PR) of at least 4, the more the better! (both Index
Page as well as Resources/Links Page of the Link Partner’s site
should have PRs of >=4) [PageRank is a proprietary tool that
Google uses to determine the importance of a page and varies in
a scale of 0 (least important) to 10 (maximum importance)].
d. Have a link code ready for participating in link exchange
program. Here is a sample link code for an India-based
Outsourcing consultant.
<a href = “http://www.indian-outsourcing-consultant.com” title =
”indian outsourcing consultant”></a> - Indian outsourcing
consultant providing guidance to companies willing to set up
outsourcing centers in India.
Always prefer a text link (as given above) in comparison to a
banner link, where your chance of Google and other search engine
spiders finding the potential keywords is limited only to the
“alt tag” of the banner. Also, Google pays importance to the
text of the incoming link/anchor text (i.e. the incoming link
text must contain high potential, relevant keywords), so develop
a link text with title (”indian outsourcing consultant“) which
will help you in Google Ranking.
e. Refrain from javascript link code because Google spider finds
it difficult to index.
Key SEO Factors
· Targeting the right keywords for your website · Title of your
webpage · Description Meta tag of your webpage · Keywords Meta
tag of your webpage · Quality, Informative Content · Link
Popularity
Conclusion -
With Google’s numero uno position in the search engine market
being threatened by arch-rivals Yahoo! [bought Overture, the
largest PPC search engine recently, who in turn bought Altavista
and Alltheweb] and Microsoft’s MSN [believed to be developing
its own search engine], it is no doubt that the search engine
industry is going to experience tremendous changes in the next
few months. The recent Google “Florida” Update is just one of
the many upheavals that we may be witnessing in an industry
where the only constant factor is the “change”. However, the
various techniques outlined in this paper are basic and are we
believe that following them you will be able to achieve top 10
ranks in Google and other search engines.
About the author:
Prabuddha S Raychaudhuri is the Founder & CEO of Search Engine
Optimization Guru Pvt. Ltd.
(http://www.searchengine-optimization-guru.com). Services
include Top 10 Google and other search engines rankings, Pay Per
Click (PPC) targeted traffic campaign, Paid Listing Management,
Keyword Advertizing. Prabuddha holds a Bachelor Of Engineering
(B.E.) in Construction Engineering and can be contacted at
prabuddha@searchengine-optimization-guru.com.
