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Search engine optimisation for beginners

SEO is a trade that exists solely on the internet, and even then it is comprised almost entirely of the hot air of so-called "expert opinion." Plenty of it blowing around these days as search maintains position as one of the most important marketplaces in the modern business world. Many DIY webmasters will end up searching for blog entries, articles, informational web sites, etc to help get them up to speed. The problem is that in most cases certain key terms are flung around like household names while the people doing the flinging are way out of touch with the average web browser. What some of us don’t realize is that not everyone knows even the basics of SEO.

Glossary of Search Engine Optimisation Terms

This list of twelve SEO-related definitions in alphabetical order (with notes) serves as a great companion for your initial SEO reading. Read alone it will get you up to speed on some key terminology that you’ll need to know to intelligently engage the ever-changing world of SEO.

Algorithms

A search algorithm is, in short, the incredibly complex mathematical formula that a search engine uses to "rank" web sites for keywords. Based on a huge number of variables and calculations, algorithms are among the most closely-guarded secrets on the internet. Why? Imagine if they were leaked - suddenly the less-than-honest would have a very specific guideline to follow in climbing to the top of search results in a less-than-organic way, ruining the quality of Google's search results and their entire competitive advantage with it.

Bot or Bots, Robots, Spiders & Crawlers

Googlebot, for example, is a search engine crawler. Googlebot periodically traverses the web in record time, indexing content, links - everything contained in page source code - and storing it in Google’s search index. Then, when a user visits Google and enters a search phrase, the index, filtered by the algorithm, is what the user gets. Please note: there is some delay in this process since the results you’re getting are from the index and not the live web.

Directories

When webmasters realized just how much power inbound links have in determining search rankings they quickly set out to do two things: 1) get inbound links and 2) set up web sites where other webmasters could achieve inbound links (meaning big traffic revenues for the site). Hence the directory farms you’ll find today. Link building has been a priority on the list of any SEO-savvy webmaster for years, and as a result "quick fix" directories that allow streamlined listing submissions get a ton of traffic. However, Google and the other major search engines are on to this tactic, and the word among SEO "experts" is that the benefits of listing your site at directories are diminished if not gone.

Frames

Frames are a way of laying out a website with multiple documents in one browser window. Essentially, there is one main document which contains the frameset tag - this document specifies the dimensions/placement of the frames and also the documents that will "populate" those frames. From an SEO standpoint the use of frames for your layout is not recommended. Since frames do not use links in the same way, and since links may point to one frame from another, they may cause serious problems for crawlers. Additionally, there are almost no uses for frames that can’t either be 1) duplicated with other methods or 2) thrown away without much fuss. If your site was built with frames and you’re thinking you don’t want to rebuild - it might be tough luck if you’re interested in optimizing for search. Consider it a learning experience - build yourself a CSS-based layout.

Gateway Pages / doorway pages

Although there isn’t a real consensus about what these pages are, their function is always cited as their definition. In other words, these pages are created to "rank well in search engines" by playing to the algorithms. Often viewed as "spammy," "gray hat" or even "black hat." However, any page written with search in mind, and geared towards search, can be construed to be a "gateway page." The difference between a page well-optimized for search and a "gateway page?" No clear lines there, but quality of content is probably the determining factor.

HTML

Okay, most of you probably know this one, but there are probably some of you who don't. HTML stands for Hyper-Text Mark-up Language, and it is the core building block that has made the web the greatest modern tool for business, social, informational, political and any other causes. Search engines look exclusively at a web page’s HTML code to determine its relevance. Therefore, it’s a good idea to pay attention to HTML and familiarize yourself with proper tagging techniques if you’re hoping to get a good handle on SEO.

Link Popularity

Inbound links are probably the most important optimization point for web pages. Number, quality, trust - these are all factors that affect the value of an inbound link. Going back to the HTML root of search, link popularity (in terms of quantity) measures how many pages point to your site using anchor text ( link text ).

Link Building

In short, the process of gaining links at other web sites pointing in to pages on your own.

Link Baiting

The process of generating high-quality content on your pages that users will appreciate and link to voluntarily.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are found at the top of a page’s source code. They are used to specify certain things that might not be found in the page content. They also allow webmasters to put up certain "flags" that search engine crawlers can react to. There are many Meta tags available for use, and many of them can help with SEO to a great extent and for a variety of purposes. However, Meta tags are no longer used in the way they originally were - as a place to stuff keywords to drive your site up in rankings. Some webmasters out there are still doing this, but they are decidedly behind the times and unaware of the impending, or already cast-down, penalties.

Search Engines

If you don’t know what a search engine is congratulations on finally making it out from under that rock. Search engines are essentially programs that scan an existing index of the web based on a query of search terms, or keywords, that a user enters. However, the word more commonly refers to companies as a whole - Google, for example, controls a search engine, while Googlebot is the crawler that gathers content for its index, but most users and webmasters think of a search engine as the whole package.

Search Engine Marketing

Most often this refers to Pay-Per-Click marketing in which an advertiser bids on chosen keywords and writes several ads to be displayed should their bid achieve placement. These ads are displayed in the “sponsored” section of search engine result pages (SERPS). However, in some circles this term is used to refer to any action taken to gain rankings both paid and organic.

Search Engine Optimization

This one is open to interpretation. It is quite often used to encapsulate a huge amount of different tactics. On-site optimization, off-site optimization (link building, etc) and many other techniques all feasibly fall under the SEO blanket. However, there is an obvious difference between optimizing a page's code to be clean and search friendly and writing link bait that will be popular and get linked to.

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

The pages resulting from a search engine query run by a user. Webmasters review these pages to determine where their pages are ranking for certain search terms.

Spamming

Basically, any unnatural effort to bring a page higher in search results. What constitutes spam is open to some interpretation, but the only interpretation you need to worry about is that of the major search engines. If Google, for example, considers a technique "spammy" you’d be wise to cease at once.

Submission

For SEO this has traditionally meant submitting a web site to search engines so they’ll know about and crawl it. SEO firms offered submission services as a big selling point to bring in clients. However, for a long time now submitting your site to search engines hasn’t done jack. They’re all much smarter now - just focus on gaining quality inbound links and your site will be indexed in no time.

This is just a sample of the core vocabulary associated with SEO. Is this all you need to know? Absolutely not. But in my experience these are the words and phrases that newcomers have the most trouble with. If these definitions help one person have a better understanding of SEO, then I will be satisfied.

My top 10 ways to improve search engine rankings are based on 7 years of banging my head against the world wide web’s search engines and reading numerous books on top 10 SEO tactics. Let me say first of all that there are a lot of books, sources and tutorials that make promises of getting your website into the top 10 spots on the major search engines. Most of these are self promoting and the end result is that you have to hire these people to accomplish the things they say you can do on your own.

So I want to preface this by saying that this article on how to improve search engine rankings is not necessarily a do-it-your-self guide. In fact, the art of SEO can be time consuming and irritating to say the least. Some methods require the help of companies like mine so I write this in hopes that you will understand what it really takes to gain exposure, realize what you can do on your own and determine when you need assistance.

One final point I want to make is “Don’t use any SEO Company that can’t explain what it is doing and that makes claims of using secret software that you can never see or use”. Yes, SEO can be complex but not to the point that you can’t understand what is being done. A good SEO company is able to educate you on what is being done and explain that it is best to leave some techniques to the experts.

My 10 Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking

1. If you are using a shared host, ask your host for a dedicated IP address for your site. This means that no one on the net shares this IP with your site. It is yours and yours alone. Many shared servers have tons of related sites on them. Having your own IP separates you from those sites.

2. Make sure your site validates as a search engine friendly site. The best site to use for this purpose is The World Wide Web Consortium. Their markup validation service will tell you if your site conforms to W3C standards and whether or not the search engines can read your site. If your site has errors, these may stop the bots from properly indexing your site.

3. Make sure you have a contact page with an address and telephone number and a form of some sort so people can contact you. Don’t list your email on the site unless you want spammers to send you tons of junk mail. Make sure the form you use on the site uses captcha (challenge-response system). Have a Privacy Policy Page and Terms of Services page and ensure that they have at least 300 words of text each. Most sites have these pages, but I strongly recommend you not copy. Find examples, but use your own words and include keywords related to your site. Make the pages personal to the reader.

4. Every page on your site should have at least 300 words or more. Don’t write a 2 paragraph page that has little to no real information. Provide details and give examples.

5. Create a FAQ or Tutorial page on your site. Make each subject link to its own page and focus each page on 1 or 2 keywords. As a start, try to add 10 of these types of pages to your site. You can come up with ideas for FAQ’s or Tutorials by reviewing your industry and trying to determine what people might not understand about it and the kinds of questions they might ask. Then post the questions and the answers. This is an easy way to add great content to your site and to help potential clients feel secure about your service.

6. Add a blog to your site. Have your blog designed to match your site so that as it draws traffic your readers know this is your main site of business. This will add value to your site, plus improve your search engine rankings. Create categories and write frequently about your industry to keep your readers interested and your content fresh.

7. Create Link Bait using your blog. There are very few services that offer this on a professional level and it can be very complex. I suggest leaving this service to the professionals because it requires time and knowledge and can be difficult and frustrating to do. The idea is to add unique and detailed content about your industry which creates enough buzz through various channels to motivate others to refer and link back to your blog. This can be a huge asset to your business because many writers love to provide plugs to quality content.

8. Post to Directory sites that have good inner page rank, especially on the page where your site will be listed. Use unique anchor text for each posting. Again, this may be one of those tasks best left to professionals because, if done correctly, your site’s search engine ranking can be dramatically improved and, if done incorrectly, can be a waste of time, effort and money.

9. Text Link Brokering is another creative and effective way to build more anchor text back links. Find related and quality ranked sites that will list your site in text format. Generally, this requires a one time, monthly or yearly fee.

10. If you have a product or service to sell, offer affiliate incentives. Post these incentives on affiliate forums and elsewhere to generate interest in getting others to promote your service for you. Be sure you have a solid affiliate back end in place to provide your affiliates with dependable stats and access. Then, have people write reviews on your program’s tracking and payout reliability to generate additional buzz.