As has been the case historically, the negative impact of these changes have been most dramatic for websites which achieved their placement status through manipulation of Google’s ranking system. Content generating websites, often called “content farms,” are likely feeling the biggest pinch. These sites produce large volumes of low-quality content in an effort to draw a high volume of search traffic, which facilitates their sale of advertising and affiliate sales commission.

As horror stories of websites dropping from 1st to 70th-place make dramatic headlines and stir uncertainty among Internet business owners, some search engine optimization (SEO) companies have used this mini-crisis to proclaim their own worth, saying that it takes “experts” to keep up on the latest trends and keep your website on top.

However, those paying attention see it differently: It was the very SEO companies that are now proclaiming their worth who put their own clients in this position to begin with, advocating tricks and tactics whose utility was destined to be short-lived. Those who buy into promises of unethical SEO practices will continually rise and fall with each new change, trading short-term gains for long-term progress.

Far from a radical philosophical change in how Google ranks websites, the recent modifications are just another milestone in a continual process which reinforces what has always been true: Websites that provide unique, high-quality content, speak in-depth on one or two topics, and show they’ve earned the respect and credibility of their peers will continue to rank better and better.

My advice is to focus on SEO fundamentals and to build your website for people rather than search engines. Speak honestly, write unique, fresh and useful content, and strive to build a strong network with other like-minded websites through cross-linking. In this way, you will become a valuable resource to your website visitors, align your company with Google’s principles and position yourself for long-term benefit.

For more information on the fundamental skills of ethical search engine optimization, check out my article Search Engine Optimization: The Basics.

GoDaddy maintained their annual appearance this year, pushing the “.co” domain extension. I was reminded how important it is to choose the right domain name for a business, and how frequently I see terrible domains. Let’s take a look at some important factors for selecting the right domain name.

What Is a Domain Name?

A domain name is the address of your website within the World Wide Web; it’s your www.whatever.com. Encoded and attached in the domain name are instructions that tell your internet service provider (such as Comcast or Qwest) where to find the special computer (called a web server) that houses the actual website.

It’s similar to putting a letter in the mailbox: You write an address on the envelope which the USPS interprets as a physical location and delivers your information. Domain names work the same way as the addressed envelope, except they do it at the speed of light!

Characteristics of a Successful Domain Name

Choosing the right domain name (e.g. www.JoesDomain.com) is one of the most important steps in creating a successful internet presence. Here is some basic information to help you make a sound decision for you business.

1. Try to choose a name that is exactly the same as your company.  (e.g. www.ElegantTechnologiesLimited.com)
2. If the name of your business is unavailable or not preferred, try a memorable word (e.g. www.Match.com), or a memorable phrase that’s associated with your industry (e.g. www.PrivateScubaLessons.com).
3. Be sure the name is clearly pronounceable.
4. Use full words, unless you refer to your business publicly with an acronym, such as NPR or ABC. It’s better to have a long name that makes sense, than a short name that seems obscure.
5. Once you choose a domain name, incorporate it into everything you publish. That should include your business card, letterhead, brochures, etc. Unless you are creating a business that will strictly operate on the internet, you will derive much of your website traffic from people typing your domain name into a browser directly.
6. Some companies find great success with a catchy, memorable name, even when it has nothing to do with their business. Monster.com is a great example. They are a job placement company, but they have found great success because of their memorable name and aggressive marketing campaign.

Search Engine Considerations

A domain name is a very valuable factor in the search engine algorithm. (See Search Engine Optimization: The Basics.) If you’re counting on solid search engine ranking for much of your website traffic, it’s a good idea to utilize primary search keywords in your domain name.

While search engines have gotten quite good at discerning individual words in a long domain name, it’s still worth considering a hyphen between words, especially if combining the words can create other words with different meaning (think of the classic “nowhere” vs. “now here” phrase).

Choosing a Suffix

The suffix is the dot-something at the end of your domain name, like google-dot-com (google.com). While many different options now exist, most people pay little attention to the suffix, making it easy to end up at the wrong website. For that reason, the .com suffix is still the best and most sought after… but also the least available. Many companies struggle trying to decide whether to use a shorter name with a less common suffix, or a longer name with a .com.

This quagmire reminds us to revisit the consideration of where your traffic is coming from: If your traffic will primarily be from search engines, the extension doesn’t much matter; if your traffic will primarily be direct- someone typing your domain name into their browser- the extension is crucial!

With the advent of so many suffixes, it has become somewhat trendy to create clever branding by using the suffix as part of a word. www.GoWestTobac.co (tobacco) or www.DesertCact.us (cactus) are hypothetical examples. While it looks cute, it makes for a terrible domain name! They’re difficult to pronounce, they prohibit the full word from being understood by the search engine, and they often use unheard of extensions.

Shopping and Buying Domain Names

Most of the larger domain registrars (companies that sell domain names) offer a search function to let you explore what domain names are available, and will make suggestions for expanding your search. There are literally thousands of domain registrars, ranging in price from under $10 (such as GoDaddy.com) to over $30 per year (such as NetworkSolutions.com). While you’re buying the same product at either place, the user-friendliness of the websites and the quality of the customer service are often times worlds apart. In general, avoid all up-selling during the purchase process: Most add-ons are unnecessary and what you may need can be added later.

I hope this information helps you choose the right domain name for your company. Please comment below if you have questions!

The value of top search engine rankings is a no-brainer for any company which benefits from search traffic. I hope by addressing some fundamental principles you’ll have a better understanding of how to make your site perform better in search results. This process is referred to as search engine optimization, or SEO.

All of the elements included below are things you should be able to modify yourself with a basic website editing program (I like Adobe Contribute), without having to get a web developer or programmer involved. It’s important to remember, too, that this article is titled “The Basics” for good reason; there are many other known elements that contribute to search engine rankings which are more complex and technical to approach (I’ll address them in future articles), so be sure you keep realistic expectations.

How Search Engines Work

All search engines have their own mathematical algorithm which defines a value for each element of your site to arrive at how closely your website matches any given search that someone runs. For example, one search engine may give a higher value to the heading of the page, while another will give a higher value to the page title. Unfortunately, we don’t know all of the elements that search engines consider in their algorithm or what value they place on each element; these are closely guarded trade secrets.

Search engines use computer programs referred to as “spiders” which constantly “crawl” through your website and across the Internet. The more “spider food” you can offer to the spiders, the more they’ll like your site and the more information they’ll have to accurately index and rank your website.

A Word of Caution

Two things are very important to consider before you go too nuts trying to achieve a top ranking:

1) Search engines are smart. Don’t attempt to fool them by trying to exploit a known ranking element. Search engines catch wise in a hurry and abuse will lead to your site being dropped like a bad habit. I’ve literally seen companies ruined overnight this way.

2) Remember that websites are designed for people, not for search engines. It’s easy to get zealous in your attempts to better your ranking, only to decrease your sales conversions because your website is so user-unfriendly.

It’s All About Keywords

As you’ll read below, the common elements of basic search engine optimization are keyword consistency and prevalence throughout your site and individual pages. Choosing your keywords and phrases is very important, and should not be approached haphazardly. The SEO-conscious entrepreneur should start each project with keyword research, which will guide the rest of the site development process.

As search engines have gotten better and better at reading websites to decide how to index them in the search results, content elements of the site have become very important to the overall optimization success of the site (content=extra tasty spider food). That’s why identifying and utilizing your top keywords throughout your content and other SEO elements is so important.

Keyword research is an extensive subject, and will be approached in greater depth in future articles.

Search Engine Optimization Basics

Alright, let’s look at some basic elements that will impact your search ranking, in no particular order.

Domain Name
Your domain name is your www.whatever.com. Search engines have gotten good at reading these, so it’s important that they contain keywords pertaining to your product or service. For example, www.DMCS.com means nothing to a search engine, whereas www.PrivateScubaLessons.com is illustrative of a well-chosen domain name. (Rock on, @ScubaDivaLaura!)

Page Name
The page name is the actual file name of each webpage of your site, which trails the domain name. On a static site, it might be www.domain-name.com/this-is-your-page-name.htm. This is another place to be sure the name contains keywords that pertain to your page. A bad example would be “products.htm”, whereas a good example would be “cheap-golf-swing-training-products.htm”.

Page Title
The page title is what shows up at the very top of your Internet browser window, above the address bar. It should be unique on each page, pertain to the content of each page, and try to pull-in some keywords to match the other elements of your site/page. Something nondescript like”About Us” won’t help your ranking.

Headings/Headlines
It’s important to understand that a “headline” to a person is not necessarily a “heading” to the search engines. Just because it’s big and bold and at the top of your page doesn’t mean the search engines will recognize it as a true heading. Search engines look for the content contained between heading tags in the code, such as <h1> or <h2>, to determine which chunk of content is the primary heading, the secondary heading, and so on. Most website editors will automatically insert the correct code tag when you use the text formatting options in the editor, often found in a drop-down menu.

(common text formatting)

Headlines currently seem to be given considerable value in primary search engine algorithms and should be chosen carefully. Imagine for a moment, that the only element you could assess a webpage with is the headline: “Welcome To Our Website” wouldn’t tell you anything, but “5 Tips for Reading Faster” would tell you exactly what you’d expect to find on that site.

Sub-Headlines
Sub-headlines give you another opportunity to tell a person or search engine what they’ll find on that page. You can be a little bit more lengthy with your sub-headlines, but don’t go overboard writing a full paragraph in Heading 2 or Heading 3 format thinking you’re doing yourself a favor.

Content
As I mentioned above, search engines have gotten very good at reading content and assessing for themselves what the page is offering. Be direct about what you offer and sprinkle keywords (tasty spider food) throughout, but remember that it must read well to a person, not just to a search engine.

This is easier said than done. One of the most common failures I see online now, is someone who tried to “keyword pack” their website content to the point that it reads like a broken record, usually something like:

“Welcome to Cheap Tropical Cruises, your source for cheap tropical cruises. Are you looking for a cheap tropical cruise? You’re in luck, we offer cheap tropical cruises, so call us to book your cheap tropical cruise today so you can go take a cheap tropical cruise!”

Yeah, you get the idea. Don’t be that person.

Anchor Text
Anchor text is the term given to written content that is also a link. For example, these linked words in blue are anchor text: Elegant Website Design Portfolio. Understandably, when a search engine reads anchor text, it expects to find what the words are describing on the page being linked to. Wouldn’t you? Be sure you’re linking the keywords in the phrase for the benefit of the search engine, even if the user might be perfectly capable of clicking something less prominent. If you say “Click here to learn more about our water rights mediation services” and only link the “click here” you’re missing a golden opportunity; linking the keyword phrase “water rights mediation services” will be seen much more favorably by the search engines.

Image File Names
Keeping with our theme of treating each element of your website as a description of the content represented by keywords, image names should not be overlooked. While a person will see and understand what an image is showing, all the search engine sees is an image file named “DSC13285.jpg”, which doesn’t tell it anything. Name your images thoughtfully, like “remote-car-starter.jpg” or “junior-golf-swing-coach.jpg” instead.

Image Alt Tags
Any decent website editing program should allow you to add an alternate tag to the image when you insert or edit it. The “alt” tag is the text that displays if the image is not available. This tag facilitates visually-impaired people to use your website (which by itself should help your ranking), and it also adds another element that the search engines understand. The tag should be descriptive of the image as well as incorporating your keywords. For example, “The x-model small day hiking backpack for women”.

I hope this gives you some tangible tips as well as some philosophical insight for search engine optimization. Please leave comments and questions below!!!