Understanding Search Engines

by David Leonhardt ~ November 19th, 2003. Filed under: Internet Sales And Marketing, Publishing Basics.

Understanding Search Engines

Part One: How Search Engines Connect Authors and Readers

Maggie knows how to find what she wants. She lets her fingers do the walking – not in the Yellow Pages, but at Google.com. She wants to learn about bread baking, and you have just written Bread Baking Made Simple . The good news is the Google and other search engines exist for one simple reason: to help Maggie find your book.

Google will show Maggie 534,000 resources on “bread baking”. Unless she fails to find what she wants on the first page, or top 10 results, she will never find your book listed 124 th in the results. (Actually, if she does not find what she wants in the top twenty or thirty results, she is likely to refine her search to “easy bread baking” or “home bread baking”).

How do you get into the top 10 results so Maggie can find your great book? You might have heard a lot about “search engine optimization” and “ranking analysis” and “algorithms”. It all sounds very complex, but it really works on a simple 1 – 2 – 3 principle.

A search engine will show Maggie only resources (websites) it has on record. So make sure to submit your site to the key search engines and directories. You do not need to hire somebody who will charge you big dollars to do this. Nor should you fall for any of the auto-submit software or services. This should be done by hand, and anybody can do it. You can do it yourself.

The search engine will rank highest those websites it feels are most important. This means you have to show that your website is most important. There are a few simple things you can do. First, make sure you have content. Text content equals importance on the Internet. Links, both coming in and going out are key. Connectivity equals importance on the Internet. Get listed in the major directories ( DMOZ.com , Yahoo.com , Zeal.com , JoeAnt.com , etc.), as this also is a measure of importance.

The search engine will show Maggie the most relevant high-ranking resources. Google might rank Travelocity.com very high, but it is totally irrelevant to a search for bread baking. How does a search engine know which websites are most relevant for Maggie’s search? By the number of times “bread baking” shows up in text on your web page. By the variety of ways it shows up on your page. By the web pages you link to and that link to you.

Are you ready to roll? Possibly. Some of this you can easily do yourself. But there are three places that are worth spending money to help all the Maggies out there find your website and your book.

The first is choosing the right keywords. It might look simple, but “bread baking” might not even be the best keyword phrase to focus on. It might be “easy bread baking” or “home bread baking”. The most searched terms might not be the best, nor the term with the least competition.

The second is to prepare a link strategy. The “link exchange” pages that are getting more popular each day are also becoming less effective each day. Here are just a few of the factors that will affect whether Maggie discovers your book:

The total number of incoming and outgoing links
The importance of the sites you link to and from
The relevancy of the sites you link to and from
Which pages on their sites and on yours
What you include in the incoming and outgoing links
Where on the page the links are placed
How many links are on those pages
How many pages are linked to or have outgoing links
The ratio of links to content on the pages involved

You can implement the strategy yourself, but it is worth hiring somebody to put it together for you. Ask the person what factors he would consider when building a strategy for you. If he does not mention several of the above, your money is better spent elsewhere.

The third place to invest is to have somebody knowledgeable review your html code. Chances are that you have missed numerous opportunities to let the search engines know your website is relevant, and possible some opportunities to show it is important.

David Leonhardt is author of Don’t Get Banned by the Search Engines , a primer on avoiding the most common webmaster search-engine mistakes and missed opportunities.

http://thehappyguy.com/SEO.html . Contact him at Part Two: Five tips to improve your chances with Google et al.

“Dear David: I just released my new book, Baby Toy Safety . Before I set up my website, what should I do to make sure gazillions of people find me through the search engines?”

I can’t promise you billions, but there are a few things you should do to make it easy for search engines to find you. I assume you have already decided to submit your site to the major search engines and directories. I assume that you will develop some sort of linking strategy (hopefully a better strategy than most websites use today). I also assume you will have picked key search terms for all the pages on your website.

Beyond that, here are my top five tips for making your website easy for those “gazillions” to find it.

A picture might be worth a thousand words, but search engines don’t read pictures. Make sure your key search terms are written out in text, not part of a graphic title you hire somebody to prepare for you. That also means you should not just show the cover of your book, but also write out the title, and possibly a keyword description with the title.

Have several pages of articles related to your book’s topic. Use a different keyword search term for each article. For instance, one article might use frequently the term “safe toys for babies”, while another might use the term “baby safety”.

What’s the URL of your website? Your name won’t help you there, nor the title of your book. You key search term will. In this instance, I might pick www.baby-toy-safety.com , for example (if that is one of your top keyword phrases). Hire somebody who knows what he is doing to develop the right keyword strategy for you BEFORE you choose your domain name.

What’s the title of your page? I don’t know how many times I see titles such as “Article” or “Contact us”. Don’t expect the search engine robots to get all excited about that term. And don’t expect anybody to search for that term. Much better to title your page “Free article on safe toys for babies” or “Contact the *Baby Toy Expert* today”. By the way, this is the single most important place to include your keyword phrases.

What about that navigation menu that appears on every single page of your website? Does it say “Contact the baby toy expert?” Or “about the baby toy expert”. Or links about baby toys?” Need I say more?

If your book is about life insurance, you have little hope of hitting the front pages of any search engine. “Life insurance” is such a competitive search engine marketplace. Unless, of course, people are searching for “book on life insurance”. Even then, I suspect you will need much more than these five tips.

In fact, there are dozens, if not hundreds of things you can do to win the search engine race. These top five search engine optimization tips are a great start, whatever your book is about.

David Leonhardt is author of Don’t Get Banned by the Search Engines , a primer on avoiding the most common webmaster search-engine mistakes and missed opportunities.

http://thehappyguy.com/SEO.html . Contact him at Info@TheHappyGuy.com