Search engine optimization – often abbreviated as ‘SEO’ – refers to the steps that should be taken to make a website more easily and accurately indexed by search engines such as Google and Yahoo.  Making sure that your site is properly indexed by the search engines is important because search engines provide a free mechanism to direct interested visitors to your site.

Unfortunately, many site owners do not understand the processes and logic used by the search engines in creating their giant databases of indexed websites.  As a result, these site owners become potential victims of scams or less-than-scrupulous consultants who make ‘internet marketing’ promises.  In fact, some of the recommendations of certain ‘internet marketing’ consultants can actually be counterproductive and cause your site to be blacklisted by the search engines.

As with most things in life, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.  There is no miracle secret or shortcut to search engine optimization.  The truth is that your best strategy for creating a site that is easily and accurately indexed by the search engines is to follow some common-sense guidelines.  Below are the recommendations and SEO services that we provide to our clients: 

1. Deliver high-quality relevant content to your audience.  Without a doubt, the most important element to performing well in search engine results is for your site to contain real honest-to-goodness high-quality relevant content that is meaningful to your intended audience.  This should be a no-brainer.  After all, why build a site in the first place if you don’t have something meaningful to say?  (I don’t know, but there are lots of garbage sites out there that don’t say much…)
2. Deliver the bulk of your content in traditional text format.  The search engine web crawlers (the search engines’ automated browsers that navigate your site and index your content within the search engine database) cannot interpret images, JavaScript, or Flash Animation.  So while images and multimedia should certainly play a key role in building an interesting and informative site, such tools must be used in conjunction with – not instead of - the written word. (Despite this fact, I am too often disappointed with the big-budget websites of major corporations that opt to entertain me with multimedia instead of educating and informing me with written content.  Come on guys, you can do better…)
3. Build a site that is easy to navigate and understand.  Building a site that is easy to navigate, easy to understand, and pleasant to view should be your goal to benefit all of your visitors, not just the search engines!  The site should incorporate a clear hierarchy, a sensible structure, and text-based links. Be careful not to overwhelm any page with too many links.
4. Use search-engine-friendly URLs.  The term ‘URL’ stands for ‘uniform resource locator’ - which is the unique page address that appears in the address bar at the top of your browser when you view a web page.  In many cases, the URL of a page is generated automatically by the site’s content database and ends up as a string of database details that is seemingly meaningless to a human reader and provides no indication of the nature of the content displayed on the page.  Such a database string is not search engine friendly.  In contrast, a search engine friendly URL is a page address that uses real words, makes sense to a human viewer (and search engine web crawlers), and is indicative of the page’s content.  (For example, the default unfriendly URL on this page would be http://www.springhilllim.com/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=61&id=33&lang=en&task=view.  We have modified it to the much friendlier http://www.springhillim.com/index.php/FAQs/What-is-Search-Engine-Optimization.html.)
5. Generate a site map in XML format.  ‘XML’ stands for ‘extensible markup language’ and is a programming language that is designed to carry data (as opposed to display data).  XML files don’t make much sense to humans, but they are a fast and simple way for software applications to accept and interpret data.  The leading search engines, Google and Yahoo, have adopted a protocol to use site maps in XML format as an important supplemental mechanism for crawling and indexing websites. (This might sound intimidating, but it’s not.  You can use existing software applications to generate your site map XML file for you.  Then you simply need to remember to submit the XML file to the crawlers.)
6. Create descriptive and accurate TITLE tags and META tags.  TITLE and META tags are small bits of code that are inserted into a web page to communicate information to browsers and crawlers that will not be visible to human viewers.  While the value of these tags toward SEO is often overstated, they are nevertheless potentially legitimate tools to assist the search engine crawlers in understanding the nature of your page and its content.
7. Share links with other relevant sites.  Search engines will follow links from one site to another.  So if other well-ranked relevant sites link to your site, then this will help the crawlers find you and positively influence your site’s position within the index.  So contact other site owners directly to let them know that your site is online.  If you have done a good job with our recommendation #1 (high quality content), then other sites will have a good reason to link to you.
8. Request a visit from the web crawlers.  This might sound obvious, but it is important.  While the search engine web crawlers are sophisticated, they are not omnipotent.  So if you want them to find, crawl, and index your site, then you need to let them know that your site is online and request a visit from their crawler. Most search engines have an automated web crawler request function that allows you to submit your website’s domain name to the crawler que.  Here are a few:

What Not To Do
As stated above, there are certain activities that some marketers suggest in an attempt to trick or manipulate the search engines.  In most cases, the search engines are sophisticated enough to recognize these activities.  And when they do, they will usually penalize the offending site or remove the site entirely from their rankings.  So, quoted almost verbatim, these are the things that Google specifically suggests that you not do:

• Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
• Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
• Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.
• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don't send automated queries to Google.
• Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.
• Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

So there you have it: search engine optimization in a nutshell. There are no mysteries, and there are no secrets.  These are the systems that are recommended by the search engines themselves and that we employ with every site that we build.  If you follow these guidelines, you too can create sites that are friendly to search engines and are listed at the top of their indexes. Or better yet, since you are busy running your own organization, hire us, and we’ll take care of it for you.
 
To put SpringHill Interactive Media to work for you, please contact Jennifer Larew, Co-Founder and President.