Lesson #01 Search Engine Overview: Key Factors
Written By Cyndalie

One of the most arduous steps for webmasters new to search engine marketing is finding a consistent source of solid, reliable, tried-and-true information from which to begin. With so much conflicting information about search engines found on the Internet, how is a webmaster to know where to start an SE marketing campaign without having to learn the hard way of trial and failure? The Traffic Lounge series is aimed at providing just that - consistent and reliable information in which to learn basica and advanced search engine marketing techniques. The goals of this first lesson is to first cure webmasters of common myths and mistakes that have often detrimental or long term effects.

Here are 7 KEY FACTORS webmasters need to be aware of before beginning any type of search engine marketing campaign:

1. Your pages must be optimized BEFORE you submit them to search engines or expect them to appear in the rankings. This series will get into various optimization and keyword selection techniques in future lessons, but for now get it in your head that if your page is not optimized, it will not rank. There is no point even submitting your pages if your pages have not been optimized for ranking (extending beyond the Meta tags). Consider optimization as the final touches on every public web page you create before regarding them as completed.

2. Never use automated submission scripts when submitting to the major search engines. What webmasters may think is a means of saving time can only end up doing more damage to your efforts than good. Why? When using automated scripts and software, your submissions are often routed through the server the script or software is hosted on. Therefore all submissions that are performed using the same script, are submitted to the engines originating from one IP address. To the search engines this is a red flag because not only does it look like ~100,000 submissions a day are coming from one "person", using automated means of querying or submitting to the search engines is a violation of their terms of service. The end result is that they will either completely ignore your submissions, or temporarily blacklist your URL's from appearing in the index. Taking a few extra minutes to manually submit to the search engines is worth knowing that your submissions made it into and that they will be viewed as valid. The Traffic Lounge series offers lessons on how, when, and where to submit.

3. There is no need to resubmit your pages every week or every month. Submitting too often can have the opposite effect than what you desire. Why? Some engines cache page submissions until the next full indexing (typically once every 4-6 weeks). When you submit a page for inclusion once it enters this queue. When you submit the same page again you are telling the engine to remove the page from the queue. In the same right, submitting a page that is already indexed is telling the engine to remove the page. How can you tell if a page is indexed? Type in the domain name slash page name with the file extension and search the engine. If the URL comes up in the results it is indexed. To find out if the page is ranking, copy some unique text from the title or body of the page and search for that text in quotes. If the page comes up in the results with a full title and description, it is ranking and fulling indexed (cached) in the engine.

A good rule of thumb is to submit a page once every 4 weeks UNTIL IT APPEARS IN THE INDEX, and then do not resubmit unless it disappears from the index altogether. If a page is indexed but not ranking, try linking the page to/from pages that are ranking before attempting a resubmission. Google recommends that rather than submit individual pages, to link them to the main pages of your site (which are currently indexed) and let the crawler index them as they are found.

Page age and the age of your domain is a key factor in many search engines that is commonly overlooked or not even considered. With most engines, the older a page is the better it ranks. I have seen many instances of pages ranking in the top ten that were submitted 4 years ago and never resubmitted or updated. Alternatives to resubmitting should be considered to keep a page consistently indexed. One tactic is to include a <Meta name="revisit after" content="7-days"> in your Meta tags when originally optimizing a page. This tells the engine to come back and re-index the page periodically to index changes. If you update your page every day, indicate the engine to revsit every 3 days. If you rarely update your page, 7, 15, and 30 days are good choices. Having an engine revisit your site more frequently will not affect your overall ranking. Another option for keeping a page indexed is to make minor changes to the page. Even without a revisit tag, the engine will recognize the page as updated when compared to its cache and re-index it.

4. An SEO's biggest enemy is DOWN TIME. Down time that occurs within the first 8 weeks of submitting your site to the major search engines can result in the spider not being able to find your page, therefore passing over your submission or removing any indexed pages under that domain. Be sure to have a reliable web host, that your optimized pages have not been overwritten, and that the site will not be redesigned or moved to a new web host in those first crucial weeks of submission. Down time often sets search engine marketing campaigns back weeks since engines usually only index sites every 1-3 months.

5. Keep in mind that the way you submit to any directory such as ODP (Dmoz.org), Yahoo!, Looksmart, and other non-crawler based indexes, determines how you will rank. Default directory listing by category are often alphabetized. If the keywords or keyword combinations you want to rank for do not appear in the domain name or title and description that you submit, or in the title and description that the editor assigns, you will not rank for them. Yahoo! and Open Directory Project editors will modify your submission more often than not. The key to limiting the amount of "damage" they can do to your submission is to have your domain name similar to either the name of your company or contain keywords that describes the primary content offered. For the description, stay away from the common "we have keyword, keyword, and keyword". Try something like "Provides keyword for the keyword and keyword markets". Always write it in proper sentence form and make all keywords in the description appear essential rather than keyword-stuffed. Many webmasters will buy keyword specific domains to use for the sole purpose for submitting their sites under the paid Yahoo! submission service.

6. Not every algorithm is unique. Search engines cycle pages, algorithms, and even cycle databases of pages. By creating doorway pages and search-engine-friendly properties you can submit a steady influx of pages (maximum 2 per domain per day) that will cover a year-round range of algorithms. The end result is that you will get into the groove of what the algorithm is looking for and have pages ranking somewhere all year long. And since search engines commonly feed off of each others current algorithms and databases, your pages will eventually be ranking for years to come.

In more recent cases in the advancement of algorithmic technology, search engines are beginning to recognize and rank pages on their ability to drive click throughs deeper into a site, and noting the rankings with a lower number of back clicks (to the engine to continue searching) as highly relevant. Engines like Google are also starting to collect overall stastical information about the sites in the index. Combined with a longer domain/page age and high stats, relevancy in long term high rankings is becoming more prominent. In accordance, making your entry pages highly effective can help your rankings in the long term.

7. There is no magic formula. This includes dynamic page generation and cloaking and bridging techniques that are often learned the hard way to be short term marketing strategies with long term repercussions. The key to creating high ranking pages is well written content, keyword consistency throughout the code of the page, and innovative HTML optimization techniques we will review in the coming weeks.

There is no magic number of characters in the title, description, keywords tags or body of the page. There is no one coding trick that will solidy rankings. There are, however, guidelines that we will review in this Traffic Lounge series.

This essential background information is key to starting on the right foot and making the most out of your SEO efforts. Made mistakes in the past? No worries! This classroom will help walk you through how to correct errors and continue to build on and improve your search engine marketing work.