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Search Engine Optimization
Here is a fact: There are 100 million Web sites with domain names and content on them. This unsurprising figure was put forth by Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, of which there are about 47 or 48 million active sites. In 2005 Yahoo! announced that its search engine index contained more than 19.2 billion documents. Given that Yahoo! does not cover all documents on the Web, it is reasonable to expect that the real number is higher. Internet World Stats puts the figure of internet users at 1.3 Billion.
So many companies ask, how will their prospective or current customers ever find them in this maze? The starting point for finding most information on the web is a search engine. And to get into a respectable page rank among millions of websites and pages is not the easiest thing to do.
Search engines run automated programs, called “robots" or "spiders” that use the hyperlink structure of the web to "crawl" the pages and documents that make up the World Wide Web. Once a page has been crawled, its contents can be "indexed" - stored in a giant database of documents that makes up a search engine's "index". When a request for information comes into the search engine, the engine retrieves from its index the entire document that match the query. Once the search engine has determined which results are a match for the query, the engine's algorithm (a mathematical equation commonly used for sorting) runs calculations on each of the results to determine which is most relevant to the given query. If the search engine does not consider your site relevant, its possible that the site will appear so low below in the results that no one will ever reach to it.
So how do you ensure that your site is search engine optimized? As a first step we use our expertise to work with you to understand your goals, and then suggest a strategy, that includes but is not limited to:
- How to improve page ranks
- How to use keywords and meta tags to your advantage
- How to use directories submission as a tool
- How to achieve search friendly usability
- How to use persistent navigation and accessibility to improve indexing
- How to use search engine submissions as a tool to improve page rank
- How to use Robots.txt to your advantage
- How to use inbound links to your advantage
At a more granular level we help you achieve your goals by following these simple steps:
- Create usable, readable pages for people because search engine algorithms calculate relevance from a human perspective.
- Ensure easier navigation allows crawlers to reach all parts of your site.
- Include title, description, and keywords meta tags in the HTML header.
- Use keywords in meaningful headings.
- Use keywords at the beginning of the page in text.
- Use keywords in the URL or filename.
- Create alt tags for graphics containing keywords.
- Validate all HTML to ensure it can be ‘seen’ by the search engine.
- Use robots.txt and robots meta tags to keep search engines from indexing what they shouldn’t.
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