The more relevant content your site has, and the easier it is for people to use, the higher your rank will be. One thing you absolutely must do is use proper Meta Tags. This makes it easier for search engines to recognize your website. While a Meta title will make it easier for people to locate it by name, a Meta description will also make it easier for people to find it by the topic it contains.

A lot of people don’t think it is really necessary to worry about website optimization, but let’s look at it this way. When you come to a website that you may have seen before, and you recognize it from its layout, do you read it again?

Now let’s suppose you think you can optimize your website for yourself. I suppose it could be done, actually I am fairly certain it could be done, but I am also absolutely sure that by the time you found out all the things you need to do to optimize your website, you would lose lots of money. Unless you are familiar with link popularity, pay per click, frames, better indexing and know what search engines look for, you can not do website optimization as efficiently as someone who specializes in that area.

When you make use of the Meta title, this enables a user to find your webpage by searching for you by name. The Meta description, when properly applied enables the user to find you based on the content of your page. Entering your webpage in the proper category in a search engine is also very, very important.

The Success Behind Website Optimization

In order to really get the answers to your question, I highly recommend you go straight to the net’s leading site about this issue here. Go there now!: ethical search engine marketing firm Or search engine marketing experts Or search engine optimisation services

Post from: Google Watch

The Secret To Success Using Website Optimization

Those who have been in the industry since the late 90’s have seen huge changes in SEO. The industry has really matured. But in the grand scheme of things, if you were to plot SEO on a product life cycle chart you would see that the industry is still in its’ infancy. SEO – Introduction Stage – Starting about 1998

Companies who were around in the introduction stage often had to build product awareness and develop a market for SEO. In the early ‘2000’s, many of our clients had just build their first websites. This was a significant investment for them and they thought that now that they have a website, the online sales would just flow in. Many didn’t realize that they had just invested serious coin into an over-priced business card. Because nobody could find them.

At this point, there was little consistency in the product. And as the algorithm got more complex, the SEO offering varied more. Some companies were offering to “submit to hundreds of search engines” (some still are) whilst others were offering usability, analytics and site architectural input in addition to on-page and off-page SEO.

SEO – Early Growth Stage – we’re still just at the beginning of it.

In the early growth stage, smart SEO companies are beginning to think about building their brand and to increase market share. Demand is increasing as more customers understand the benefits of “getting found”. There is some competition at this stage but because the market is broadening so much, competition is limited and there is still a huge amount of camaraderie within the industry. 10 years into it, it?s easy to assume that our industry is more mature than it actually is. We’ve only just begun.

Customer Implication

Demand has already started to increase but it is going to skyrocket. And it’s going to come from all types of business from very small customers to Enterprise type of businesses.

Up until recently, the neighborhood dry cleaner didn’t care if someone across the country found their website because they deal within a 5 km radius got very little benefit from optimizing their website. Now as local search gets much better, those local business will become much more serious about the opportunities online

It is also likely that we’ll see a lot of growth from Enterprise clients. These clients previously resisted SEO due to the complexity of working within legacy back-end systems. As technology increases and back-end systems become less expensive for more capability, we’re going to see companies replace their antiquated CMS’s with Search Engine Optimization friendly options.

Another change that this stage of the product life cycle will bring is in our relationship with the client. As SEO becomes a bigger part of the mainstream marketing mix, our customers will become more and more knowledgeable about SEO (we?re already starting to see this).

We’ll move from having a sales / consultative role to being a thought partner. Our clients will have a good understanding of what needs to be done but they’ll outsource it to us because we’re more efficient at implementing.

Competition Implication

With high growth in revenues, low barriers to entry, and no certification required, the SEO industry is prime for attracting any and all new entrants. There have always been new competitors. But the face of our competition is going to change greatly. Up until now competition has focused primarily on small start ups and web design firms who decide to add a search component. Some stick around but many are wiped out with the next major shift in the algorithm. This phase of the SEO life cycle is going to attract better capitalized, stronger competition from many sectors. These new entrants are attracted to SEO by the potential for profits not by the fit with their offering.

We are already starting to see traditional media firms seek to protect their eroding revenues by grabbing a slice of the online pie. But WalMart has shown us that future competition could be anyone. And it will be.

No all new entrants are attracted by dollar signs. There are also companies that are feeling increased pressure to offer a more well rounded package. As the integration of offline and online marketing services increases, customers are putting more pressure on agencies to handle the full scope of their marketing spend including the online component.

Although we’re already starting to see increased competition, many existing SEO companies aren’t feeling the pinch yet because demand is also increasing. One implication of increased demand coupled with new entrants to the market is the impact on supply. We’re starting to experience a shortage of experienced SEO talent SEO talent is a scarce resources. And this scared resource is not yet being renewed at a fast enough pace. Whilst some colleges are starting to offer digital media / internet marketing diploma, these grads know very little about what it takes to optimize a website.

Moreover, what they do know is limited to theory. It?s one thing to know that links are important to ranking. Its an entirely different thing to know how to effectively build links. So what?

Who cares where we are in the product life cycle?

Although we’ve already experienced a lot of growth, this growth is nothing compared to what we?re about to experience. In this next stage of the SEO life cycle, we?re going to see shifts in our clients, competition and product offering. Knowing that this is coming, will allow you to prepare. If we know that face of our competition is going to change from other small to mid sized SEO’s to large Agencies and Enterprise size companies in totally unrelated industries then we can prepare for this by determining how we’re going to differentiate ourselves from the new entrants.

And if we know that there is going to be increased pressure on skilled resources then we should be developing in house training programs now. The future is now. And it’s only just begun.

Post from: Google Watch

SEO is about to Grow Up

What will ultimately replace search engines?

This is a question I am asked frequently, and therefore have given considerable thought to. Ultimately, whatever it is, it has to compensate for the weaknesses of search though right? So, what are the weaknesses of search relative to the ideal search solution (he says knowing that we’ll never stop searching for things we need, so search itself will never die, only transform into something more efficient)?

a) the potential to be gamed by people ? and we all know this is a tremendous issue for search b) poorer conversion rates than word of mouth, meaning a better solution is possible c) too many irrelevant results ? people need a means to cut through the ?crap? to reveal the most relevant results d) local search results are questionable ? too many small local business have no representation, or do not appear at all in localized search results

This then begs the question; what if a solution could be found that would minimize all these weaknesses?

As it happens, I think I have found the solution, or at least what I believe Yahoo is working towards (and if Yahoo is, I’m assuming Google is too) ? integrating word-of-mouth (WOM) into search. Let me elaborate.

Intuitively I?ve known for sometime that search engines would use what they could glean from social media to help improve their algorithms. For eg.; when Yahoo bought Del.icio.us, I gave them full marks for the purchase because it made perfect sense to me that Yahoo could then integrate bookmarks into their algorithms to reduce reliance on the much abused linking elements. In fact, both Dave Harry (Google Bookmarks the New Ranking Signal?) and Bill Slawski (Google Bookmarks and Personalization) have written about this method of personalization extensively.

What I couldn?t fathom though ? was how search engines could possibly integrate word of mouth into their results, to dramatically improve results. Everything found so far in Google, Yahoo, and MSN patents seems to suggest personalization based on your own behaviour. Our behaviour though is often based on the knowledge of friends. As individuals, we are experts at very little, and tend to rely greatly on our networks of friends and acquaintances for advice aka word-of-mouth. This WOM element is completely abscent from present day search results ? and as searchers we?re currently forced to gather friends? thoughts and recommendations from elsewhere, and they?re certainly not integrated or woven into the algorithms.

Then – came the AHA moment!

The AHA: Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us, Google Bookmarks (when shared), and a few others, are forms of word-of-mouth. They enable the passing of information amongst friends ? online. WOW! HOMERUN! TOUCHDOWN! GOAL!

How Can Search and WOM Be Joined?: Its simple really! If you begin to look at each of the social media for their strengths, you?ll start to get glimpses of the jigsaw puzzle Yahoo is constructing (my understanding of Google?s vision is less clear). Stumbleupon and Del.icio.us are essentially opinion sites. You voice your opinions (word of mouth knowledge) about web sites, pages of specific web sites, products, and even services. Thumbs ups and associated comments on Stumbleupon and saves on Del.icio.us could be viewed as recommendations. This is a form of word of mouth! – Search Engine Optimization

Now, lets take it to the next level, and start to reorganize the search results based on the cummulative opinions (thumbs ups and downs, and saves) of your ?friends? ? as identified by their (ie. the search companies) summarizing your friends on various networks (including Yahoo mail I might add). Relevant pages (as determined by in-page and off-page factors) can then be reordered to show those liked by the most friends first, followed by those favoured by sequentially fewer friends. Those with a negative friend score ? completely buried. In the middle ? all those results not yet scored by friends. Where insufficient friend input exists (eg. how many of your friends will have given a thumbs up to a 2007 Nissan X-Terra?), possibilities include:

a) searchers seeking out more knowledgeable friends in the space b) the engines themselves could layer feedback from the masses on top of standard search results c) the engines can merely revert to the algorithm as it would otherwise exist at that time

This means your friends opinions have a tremendous impact on the results you see?!

Interesting eh? Might even be a solution to the local results problem search engines face. Will you be happier with the search results? ABSOLUTELY, and if not, merely modify the “trusted friends” in your networks, and your results will change. In essence;

“you are responsible for the quality of your own search results”!

Now, I can hear a collective “whooooooah” from all readers. How you ask can the major search engines do this if all searchers aren?t on Stumble or Del.icio.us? You first need user critical mass on Stumbleupon, Delicious, Google Bookmarks et al for this to work! Well, consider; if you’re not on Stumbleupon or Del.icio.us, then the search engines would merely revert to their algorithms they would otherwise be using. How convenient!

It also means much less gaming of search engines, and social media sites. Wow – a win-win all around!

Conclusions: In the end, its the ultimate solution and a win-win all around:

1) Searchers are given information they can make much better decisions with – when they need it. Searchers become responsible for their own results, and have the power to constantly improve them. Noone else to blame but themselves if they don?t like the results.

2) Search engines themselves are happy, because well, searchers are happy. Also, with the integration of WOM into search, search plays an even bigger role in the purchase decision ? meaning more searches, and higher revenues.

Post from: Google Watch

The Future of Search: Integrating Word-of-Mouth into Search