If you own a business and have an e-mail address, chances are about 100 percent that you have been solicited by people promising to put your Web site at the top of search engine results.
These crude come-ons can obscure the importance of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. There is probably no better long-term way to bring traffic to a Web site than making sure that site comes up in relevant searches on Google, Yahoo and MSN.
The problem is that SEO is part science and part art, and going too far can hurt your business.
The science part has to do with how to structure your Web site to make it easier for search engines to index the information it contains, and to prioritize the content. Part of this is making sure your site has an address that is search-engine friendly.
If pages on your site have question marks or ampersands in the address, you have work to do.
Also, make sure the title of each page correctly identifies your business and what's on the page, and matches the keyword people might use to search for your site. There are many other technical tips on how to make a site SEO friendly.
You also want to get as many other Web sites to link to your site as you can, especially if they are relevant to your business. Search engines judge links to your site as a sign that other people think your site has relevant content.
But this is where the art side can come into play, and it's sometimes a dark art. Asking other sites to link to you is perfectly acceptable. But some so-called SEO experts use automated programs to place links to your site on hundreds or thousands of other sites as comments, known as comment spam.
They can also create fake blogs to post your links, known as splogs. Not only do these methods earn you ill will among your fellow Web users, it also can lead to you being penalized by the search engines that catch on to this and other tricks to increase your inbound links.
There always will be a war between the search engines and those trying to game their results. As soon as the search engines figure out they are being gamed, they change the way they rank sites. Then the gamers find new ways to move their sites to the top, and the battle continues.
SEO is a very complicated subject that I barely have touched on here.
It's important to get someone experienced in this subject to help you get better traffic to your site, but beware of the unscrupulous operators who promise unrealistic results. Remember, not everyone can be at the top of the list. If it sounds too good to be true ...
- Contact Kirk Caraway at kcaraw
ay@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1261.