Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the science of preparing your website to be found and indexed (or cataloged) by the “spiders” the search engines send out to analyze your website. SEO is broken into two sub-segments, “On-Page” and “Off-Page” optimization.

On-Page Optimization

Simply put a Search Engines job is to identify, categorize and rank websites. Search engines send “spiders” out to crawl the web looking for new pages and new content. It then catalogs or “indexes” the content which will then be visible during searches. Spiders are not reading the site as you or I would, but instead looking at the HTML Source. Because of this they have no way of knowing what the most important keywords are if you do not help to identify them. The language that websites are written in is called Hypertext Markup Language or HTML for short and has a number of tags which search engines use to identify what is important or emphasized in your site.

HTML Tags which are used to indicate the heading to this sub topic are placed in a Heading 2 tag (or<h2> tag) which essentially gives the keyword an elevated status in the spiders eyes.  In addition to the Header tags (<H1>, >H2>, <H3>, etc) making words bold (using the <strong> tag) or emphasizing words (using the <em> tag) also helps the search engines identify the primary message of the page.

Title Tag is the most important On-Page weighted factor and is used by the search engines as the link pointing to your site as found in search results.

Alternate Text may be added to images and titles may be added to links which not only help the search engines identify what the picture is or where the link is going but it is also useful for the visually impaired who utilize special software which “reads” the page.  Making websites friendly this software is mandatory for government websites as part of Section 508 compliance.

Off-Page Optimization

Because they are unable to evaluate a website by reading its content and identifying if it is quality or not, they rely on the number of inbound links coming to a site to determine if it has valuable content. The theory is that if enough people are talking about it that its content is remarkable and has a high value.

Linkbuilding is a process which artificially enhances the search engines value for your website by increasing the number of links to your site. This can be done by placing hyperlinks inside of articles or press releases that you publish, adding your site to social bookmarking sites or leaving meaningful comments in blogs in your industry and leaving a link back to your website. If you outsource this process to a consultant you must ensure that they do not use techniques such as spamming guestbooks or adding links to websites which are in a “bad neighborhood” thus causing your site to be questionable in the search engines eyes.

Hiring an SEO Consultant

Should you wish expert assistance feel free to contact me. I have assisted clients in achieving and sustaining astonishing search ranking for many tough national and regional keywords. My clients are throughout the world but mostly focused in Hawaii, California and Oregon.