SEO Services | SEO Approach | SEO Algorithm
Overview of SEO Services
Currently, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of search engines on the Internet providing access to information on the Web. Each search engine has nuances that make it different from the rest. While these search engines usually return different results, they all perform the following three tasks:
• Crawling or “spidering” the Web to gather information from billions of existing Web pages
• Storing the encoded Web page information in a database or index
• Maintaining an algorithm that scores the relevancy of its indexed content and returning the most relevant Web pages, ranked in order, in response to user queries
Figure 1 shows a simple diagram that displays the process a search engine goes through to provide search results to an end user.
Figure 1: Search Engine Indexing Process
Crawling the Web
Each search engine has its own robot or spider that gathers information on Web pages. The exception is the meta search engine, which submits keyword phrases to a group of search engines and gathers the results. A spider is a software program that moves from page to page by following hyperlinks across the Web. It gathers content from various pages to store in its search engine’s Web page index or database.
Internal and external links are very important because these elements make the content of the website visible to search engines and because spiders follow only links from one Web page to another and from one domain to another. The practice of following links allows the search engine to pick up changes to the content more frequently and also plays a big role in determining which pages of the site are the most important.
Some examples of specific search engine spiders are:
• Googlebot (Google)
• MSNbot (MSN)
• Slurp (Yahoo!)
Search engine spiders generally begin crawling the Web at popular or authoritative websites. For example, Googlebot often begins its crawl at the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org), which is hosted and administered by Netscape Communication Corp. This is a human-edited search directory and is seen as an authority on relevant websites. Google sees it as the best place to start populating its index with legitimate and relevant websites. From there, the spider begins to travel and follow links throughout the Web. To keep an accurate index of the continuously changing Internet, search engines send out thousands of spiders at one time.
Indexing the Website
Whenever a spider crawls a new page, it stores information about the page in a large database. The particular pieces of information stored differ for each search engine, but in general they include the text, links, and other content found on the page. The amount of information indexed is massive, but it is usually compressed and encoded so that a search engine still understands what each page is about and can recall the page quicker when a search engine user makes a query.
Algorithms Drive Relevant Search Results
The algorithm that evaluates the relevance of a page’s content determines a search engine’s success in achieving quality results. The algorithm analyzes the Web pages found in the index, ranks each page, and returns the results to the user. Each search engine’s algorithm uses different methods to understand which Web page is most relevant, popular, or authoritative on the specific keyword phrase.
The algorithm looks at the number of times the queried keyword phrase appears on the page, as well as its location on the page. An algorithm can designate the URL, body copy, meta data, and anchor text of incoming links—both internal and external—as “high importance.” Again, the importance the algorithm places on each of these variables is different for each search engine.
Most search engine algorithms have limitations when evaluating pages for relevance to a query. For example, a search for “heart attack” will not return results that exclusively discuss “cardiac arrest” even though they are essentially the same topic. Therefore, if a site wants to be found on every keyword phrase important to its business, it must contain content that carries all those keyword phrases and have a significant amount of incoming links with the keyword phrases in the anchor text.
The Importance of Being Visible
The number of unique website addresses has almost topped 77 million, according to a new report. How do consumers find their way through all these sites? The answer is search engines. JupiterResearch forecasted that the number of individuals accessing the Internet in 2010 will reach 178 million, up from 138.4 million in 2004. With numbers like these, appearing as a top result during search engine queries is growing more difficult every day. Website owners can no longer expect to appear in the top results without a significant SEO effort.
The goal of our SEO services is for a company’s website to appear high in the search results for keyword phrases important and relevant to its business. Being visible on important keyword phrases drives qualified traffic to a website and increases its conversion rate.
You’ve probably heard of Google, Yahoo, MSN and others. These are the big players in the search engine business and millions upon millions of people use them every day to find everything from stock tips to home stuff. Google serves more than 59 million unique visitors each month and more than 200 million searches every day and that number keeps on growing. Even if you’ve never thought about search engines before, these statistics illustrate how important it is for your website to be listed in them.
But being listed isn’t enough; you also need to achieve a high ranking in the search results to benefit from the considerable amount of traffic they can send to your website. If a website is not in the first three pages, it may not even be seen by customers. Let’s imagine your store is located near the front entrance of that mall and your competition is located near the centre. Where will your customers go first? Naturally, they will visit your store first for a number of reasons:
* Your store visible
* Your store has a convenient location
* Your customer’s time is limited
This is what our SEO services can do for your online business: move it from a listing that is somewhere in the first 1000 search results to the first page of search engine’s results: like putting it near the entrance of the world’s larget mall.
Even if searchers find a website at the top of a query’s search results, the website still needs to entice the searcher to click on the listing. Improved keyword selection, content enhancement, title and meta data optimization, and URL optimization can all help encourage users to click a listing. SEM Expertise’s SEO services will guide your site through all of these strategies.
Fluctuations in Search Results
Our SEO services are not a one-time project that produces permanent results. It is an ongoing process of optimization, content creation, link initiatives, and analysis. The rankings a site holds today are not guaranteed tomorrow as fluctuations in visibility are normal.
The battle for top positions in the search engines is constant. As your sites SEO efforts take hold, so do those of competitors. Normal business activities also have a bearing on search results. your sites technical team could make what is considered a minor change to the website and lose many rankings as a result. These fluctuations have to do with actual modifications to websites—optimization efforts or technical changes. There are also other forces at work that are out of your sites control.
The search engines do their part to shake up rankings. Changes to the algorithm, updates to the index, shifts in the way results are displayed, and additional or new sources for results will all affect the visibility of a website within a search engine. This evolution is why it is important to continually track visibility and analyze the results of your sites SEO efforts.
Search’s Long Tail
Most Internet marketers know the top 5–10 keyword phrases that account for the significant traffic reaching their site. They often are unaware, however, of the keyword phrases that comprise the “long tail” of their search traffic. This group of keyword phrases is more specific and focused and is queried far less than the top 10 keyword phrases. This secondary keyword phrase set could generate as much (or more) revenue for a business than the top keyword phrases if marketers understand how customers convert on the website. Any successful SEO strategy must focus on more than just the top ten keyword phrases.