What the hell is SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization "is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website or web page... from search engines via "natural" or unpaid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing which may deal with paid inclusion. [source... Wikipedia]
Wow. That's a mouthful. The essence of it is that your webmaster/designer/programmer, etc should be using certain tools to optimize your site for the best rankings possible. A few years ago when the interwebs was really getting popular (i.e. tech bubble), all it took to optimize a site was to have keywords in your meta tags. Now, you have to have alternate descriptions for all images (and they have to be unique), your keywords are still okay, but they should be unique to the topic of each page of your site, you should also have your keywords that you want to target peppered throughout the readable text on the site (w/out getting spammy about it), you need to have links on other sites (blogs for example) that link back to your home page, and more recently, you need to be a part of the social networking buzz (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Technorati, etc). There's a lot that has to be done, and it all needs to be constantly updated. Because of everything that has to be done now to optimize it, no one should be promising or otherwise guaranteeing that your site will land on the first page within a certain period of time. At minimum, it takes 3-6 months. Yet by personal example, my company's site "Flying Tomato Design" doesn't show up even in the first 10 pages of the Google search and we've been around for three years. So, it's vital that the consumer understands that proper SEO is a process that won't yield immediate results. So with all that said, let's take a minute to understand what bad SEO is.
Bad SEO. Go lay down.
Bad SEO techniques, or Black Hat SEO are attempts to improve your site rankings by doing things that are considered unacceptable by search engines. Or, there could be some sort of deception involved. One bad technique is hiding text on the page. So for example, let's say that you have a black website that is sized 800x600px (roughly the size of a 5"x7" picture). Some developers would create extra room outside the visible area and put text there in a black font. That extra text is then read by the search engine, but it's not normally caught unless you're looking for it.
Another bad technique is called cloaking. This is where a different page is displayed depending on if it is a human reaching it or a computer.
Now what? Well, if you're caught using such techniques, you could be penalized. For example, your site can be reduced in the rankings or eliminate your site from their database entirely. Such actions can be taken automatically via computer or by manual review. One great example (mentioned in the same Wikipedia article) harkens all the way back to February 2006 when Google removed both BMW Germany and Ricoh German for black hat SEO tactics. They quickly issued an apology and fixed the bad code and were restored to Google's good graces.
Good Boy, Seo.
So, we have an idea of what is bad practice. What are some of the good SEO behaviors? Firstly, this is called White Hat SEO. These are techniques that are obviously recommended as good design. White Hat SEO tends to result in a long lasting ROI while sites that use Black Hat SEO generally are shut down and/or altogether banned. It's kind of hard to pin down, though what these techniques are as the search engine companies are constantly evolving. However Google has a great article to help educate the layperson to the basics of SEO, what to expect from web design companies, and even some good questions to ask in your search for a good company.
As I said, though, the search engine companies are constantly evolving their algorithms. A good example of this recently is with Google. I read an article a few weeks ago on Gizmodo.com about how Google is changing things up. Unfortunately, I can't find the article right now, but the essence of it is that Google will start to change to index sites live. So, when you go out and search for "iPhone", it will index all sites that mention "iPhone" in real time. The way it's done now is on a 24 hour cycle at best. So in that environment, it's nearly impossible to fraud the system. However, it does make it harder on web developers to make sure that their client's content is up to date.
In short, SEO is an ever evolving game. As I mentioned above, it's not a science, but it sure as hell is complicated and it takes time for your site to get ranked high. That's not a cop-out. That's reality.
The shameless plug.
Now for a shameless plug; my company, Flying Tomato Design provides the following SEO services at this time (the list changes as the industry does):
- backlinking
- help you get your social networking setup and integrated with your site/blog
- alternate description tags for images
- specific keywords for each page of your site
- we won't serve as your text editor, however, we will look it over and if we can cram more keywords into your text, we'll make that suggestion
I hope you've found this brief read about SEO helpful. I do plan on more in depth articles to come!
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About: Chris: I own Flying Tomato Design, a small web design company based out of Spokane, WA USA. I'm not afraid to admit it; I'm a geek. I'm into Transformers and Star Wars. Although I'm not so far into it that I still live in my mother's basement. I've got a great wife and two wonderful kids. I enjoy playing my guitar when I get time, I like sushi and long moonlit walks on the beach. : ) Thank you for taking a few minutes to read this, and thanks for your support. Check me out on Facebook and Twitter. |
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April 21st, 2010 - 13:14
Thanks for a great post and interesting comments. I found this post while searching the web for downloads. Thanks for sharing this post.
April 21st, 2010 - 19:15
Thanks for sharing and stopping by! I’m glad you found it interesting enough to stick around and comment. : )
April 21st, 2010 - 13:51
I thought it was going to be some boring old post, but I’m glad I visited. I will post a link to this site on my blog. I am sure my visitors will find that very useful.
April 21st, 2010 - 19:14
Thanks, I appreciate the compliment and of course the back link ; )
May 13th, 2010 - 17:10
This is a really good read for me, Must admit that you are one of the best bloggers I ever saw.Thanks for posting this informative article.
May 14th, 2010 - 06:21
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May 15th, 2010 - 00:59
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May 15th, 2010 - 01:05
Great post full of useful tips! My site is fairly new and I am also having a hard time getting my readers to leave comments. Analytics shows they are coming to the site but I have a feeling “nobody wants to be first”.
May 15th, 2010 - 01:07
Wow, very interesting article. It’s funny how history can be twisted in so many different ways. These photos certainly give us clues, but I guess we’ll never know the true story. . . .
May 15th, 2010 - 01:11
Amazing, truly excellent information. Your blog is really awesome. I bookmarked this and will come back once again. . . .
May 15th, 2010 - 05:32
Been looking for this article for long time ago and finally found here. thanks for sharing this post. appreciate!
May 15th, 2010 - 05:49
Hey, I’m having a problem viewing your site in my browser. Could you please check this. My browser is Opera 7 btw.
May 15th, 2010 - 08:22
Thanks everyone for your compliments! To @carrental… I’m using WordPress. @Uncontested, if you’re really using Opera 7, you seriously need to upgrade. That browser isn’t compliant with today’s standards. Opera 10 is great and has a lot of great additional features that you can take advantage of.
May 16th, 2010 - 14:58
Hi! I just now read your blog post and I liked it. I was wondering if you are planning to write additional articles to go in addition to this one?
May 17th, 2010 - 06:16
Took me awhile to read all the comments, but I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be very useful to me and I am sure to all the commenters here! It’s always nice when you can not only be informed, but also engaged! I’m sure you had fun writing this article.
May 17th, 2010 - 21:09
hey,Fantastic blog post dude! i am Tired of using RSS feeds and do you use twitter?so i can follow you there:D.
PS:Do you thought about putting video to the web site to keep the readers more entertained?I think it works.Sincerely, Amelia Dimitry
May 18th, 2010 - 20:53
Hi Amelia.
I do use Twitter a bit, but on my business account it’s just designed to RT my new blog posts.
I’ll be doing some screen cast tutorials soon, so keep an eye out.
May 18th, 2010 - 22:26
Good blog with some useful information. I will be back.
May 21st, 2010 - 11:07
Thank you for such a informative blog. Where else could anyone get that kind of information written in such an incite full way? I have a project that I am just now working on, and I have been looking for such info.
May 21st, 2010 - 20:23
Hi… I don’t know if you’ve been making changes, but your pages aren’t displaying correctly for me. The edges of the text are running into each other. I didn’t do this the other day. I don’t know if it’s something on my computer or if you’ve made a change… Just thought you might want to look at it. Thanks!
May 21st, 2010 - 20:29
Thanks for letting me know. I did remove a section for a featured video and put a spot for an ad in, that could be messing it up. What browser are you using and what OS?
May 22nd, 2010 - 07:58
Couldn’t be written any better. Reading this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
May 22nd, 2010 - 12:21
Your feeds are fed into other blogger’s RSS feeders, making it syndicated or putting in another way, people out there will subscribe to them and receive online copies of your text.
May 23rd, 2010 - 10:16
Nice to be visiting your blog again, it has been months for me. Well this article that i’ve been waited for so long. I need this article to complete my assignment in the college, and it has same topic with your article. Thanks, great share.
May 23rd, 2010 - 17:02
Hello, I found your blog in a new directory of blogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, Your blog looks good. Have a nice day.
May 23rd, 2010 - 22:48
By far the most concise and up to date information I found on this topic. Sure glad that I navigated to your page by accident. I’ll be subscribing to your feed so that I can get the latest updates. Appreciate all the information here
May 24th, 2010 - 01:17
Aw, this was a really quality post. In theory I’d like to write like this also – taking time and real effort to make a good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate alot and never seem to get anything done… Regards…
May 24th, 2010 - 22:20
i know i’m a little off topic, but i just wanted to say i love the layout of your blog. i’m new to the blogegine platform, so any suggestions on getting my blog looking nice would be appreciated.
May 25th, 2010 - 03:00
Hi vey nice interesting blog im from newcastel i found this on aol I’m in the crane hire company business,i found this blog very interesting good luck with it i will return to this blog soon
May 25th, 2010 - 08:17
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May 26th, 2010 - 03:20
Very informative text. I’ve found your site via Yahoo and I’m really glad about the information you provide in your posts. Btw your blogs layout is really broken on the Kmelon browser. Would be really great if you could fix that. Anyhow keep up the good work!
May 26th, 2010 - 14:18
K Melon? Isn’t that based on the Cocoa engine that Firefox is based on? It looks great in FF (currently 3.6.3), IE8, and Chrome. They could be using some different code to render the page. I suggest trying a standard browser as the code the site is written in is PHP and CSS, which should be rendered pretty consistently across platforms.
May 26th, 2010 - 20:06
Hi. I wanted to drop you a quick note to express my thanks. I’ve been following your blog for a month or so and have picked up a ton of good information as well as enjoyed the way you’ve structured your site. I am attempting to run my own blog but I think its too general and I want to focus more on smaller topics. Being all things to all people is not all that its cracked up to be.
May 26th, 2010 - 21:22
Hey – nice blog, just looking around some websites, seems a really nice platform you are using. I’m currently using WordPress for a few of my sites but looking to change one of them over to a platform similar to yours as a trial run.
May 27th, 2010 - 10:34
i know i’m a little off topic, but i just wanted to say i love the layout of your blog. i’m new to the blogegine platform, so any tips on getting my blog looking good would be appreciated.
May 27th, 2010 - 17:05
I think what you have there is good. However, on the home page, you use a lot of images and very little text. Read my blogs about SEO to see why that’s a mistake.
May 28th, 2010 - 09:39
Thank you for such a fantastic blog. Where else could one get this kind of info written in such an incite full way? I have a presentation that I am just now working on, and I have been looking for such information.
July 5th, 2010 - 07:50
Thanks for sharing these tips. Great post. SEO has been the most effective and most used strategy in online marketing. It comes in many aspects such as backlinking, keyword search, etc.