SEO-ology of Web Site Design

Outline of Pre-Production and Web Production Process Phases

Search Engine Optimized Web Site Design and Internet Marketing

Research

Category
Competition
Content review of web site

Key-Phrase

Collect
Organize
Prioritize
Create Key-Phrase Strategy
Create Key-Phrase Structure

Edit new content and optimize inner pages on current site

(Optimization may require some page content revisions and structural re-design)

Home Page revisions
Additional Inner pages and page revisions

Create distinctive Meta tags - per each page

Title
Descriptions
Key-Phrase

Create and define Inbound Link Strategy

Client Approval

Revised Copy
Revised Content
Review new research data with client
Review, revise marketing strategy and planning

Construct Optimized Inner pages

Site Map

Create or revise and add as link to Homepage  (Re-launch the optimized pages)

Build out site with “Content Pages” using quality content and aligned Key-Phrase strategy

Create distinct per page Meta tags and Key-Phrase strategy for site revisions and build out

Refine and adjust Inbound Deep Link Strategy and align with additional sections/pages

Client Approval - Re-launch web site with revised organic web content and page structure

SEO Guidelines - Standards and Practices Information

Source: wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization - 2007

2007 / Current Search Technology: Search engines consider many signals

To reduce the impact of link schemes, search engines have developed a wider range of undisclosed off-site factors they use in their algorithms. As a search engine may use hundreds of factors in ranking the listings on its SERPs, the factors themselves and the weight each carries can change continually, and algorithms can differ widely. The four leading search engines, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Some SEOs have carried out controlled experiments to gauge the effects of different approaches to search optimization, and share results through online forums and blogs.[8] SEO practitioners may also study patents held by various search engines to gain insight into the algorithms.[9]

Optimizing for traffic quality

In addition to seeking better rankings, search engine optimization is also concerned with traffic quality. Traffic quality is measured by how often a visitor using a specific keyword phrase leads to a desired conversion action, such as making a purchase, viewing or downloading a certain page, requesting further information, signing up for a newsletter, or taking some other specific action.

By improving the quality of a page's search listings, more searchers may select that page, and those searchers may be more likely to convert. Examples of SEO tactics to improve traffic quality include writing attention-grabbing titles, adding accurate meta descriptions, and choosing a domain and URL that improve the site's branding.

Relationship between SEO and search engines

By 1997 search engines recognized that some webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and even manipulating the page rankings in search results. In some early search engines, such as Infoseek, ranking first was as easy as grabbing the source code of the top-ranked page, placing it on your website, and submitting a URL to instantly index and rank that page.[10]

Due to the high value and targeting of search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. In 2005, an annual conference named AirWeb[11] was created to discuss bridging the gap and minimizing the sometimes damaging effects of aggressive web content providers.

Some more aggressive site owners and SEOs generate automated sites or employ techniques that eventually get domains banned from the search engines. Many search engine optimization companies, who sell services employ long-term, low-risk strategies and most SEO firms that employ high-risk strategies do so on their own affiliate, lead-generation or content sites instead of risking their client websites.

Some SEO companies employ aggressive techniques that get their client websites banned from the search results. The Wall Street Journal profiled a company, Traffic Power that allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.[12] Wired reported the same company sued a blogger for mentioning that they were banned.[13] Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.[14]

Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community. All of the main search engines provide information/guidelines to help with site optimization: Google's, Yahoo’s, MSN's and Ask.com's. Google has a Sitemaps program[15] to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website. Yahoo! Site Explorer] provides a way for webmasters to submit URLs, determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and view link information.[16]

Getting into search engines databases

As of 2007 the leading contextual search engines do not require submission. They discover new sites and pages automatically. Google and Yahoo offer submission programs, such as Google Sitemaps, for which an XML type feed can be created and submitted. These programs are designed to assist sites that may have pages that aren't discoverable by automatically following links.[17]

Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled. [18].

Some search engines, notably Yahoo!, operate a paid submission service that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or cost per click. Such programs usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but do not guarantee specific ranking within the search results.[19] SEOs and webmasters have expressed indignation at having to pay for Yahoo! organic search listings.[20]

Preventing search indexing

Main article: robots.txt
To avoid undesirable search listings, webmasters can instruct spiders not to crawl certain files or directories through the standard robots.txt file in the root directory of the domain. Additionally, a page can be explicitly excluded from a search engine's database by using a meta tag specific to robots. When a search engine visits a site, the robots.txt located in the root directory is the first file crawled. The robots.txt file is then parsed, and will instruct the robot as to which pages are not to be crawled. As a search engine crawler may keep a cached copy of this file, it may on occasion crawl pages a webmaster does not wish crawled. Pages typically prevented from being crawled include login specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as search results from internal searches. In March 2007, Google warned webmasters that they should prevent indexing of internal search results because those pages are considered search spam.[21]

Types of SEO

SEO techniques are classified by some into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Professional SEO consultants do not offer spamming and spamdexing techniques amongst the services that they provide to clients. Some industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who utilize them, as either "white hat SEO", or "black hat SEO".[22] Different hat colors do not necessarily imply differences in ethics as much as differences in business models. White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites will eventually be banned once the search engines discover what they are doing.[23]

"White hat"

An SEO tactic, technique or method is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and/or involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines[24][25][26][27][28] are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White Hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.

White Hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, making that content easily accessible to their spiders, rather than gaming the system. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,[29] although the two are not identical.

Spamdexing / "Black hat"

Main article: Spamdexing
"Black hat" SEO are methods to try to improve rankings that are disapproved of by the search engines and/or involve deception. This can range from text that is "hidden", either as text colored similar to the background or in an invisible or left of visible div, or by redirecting users from a page that is built for search engines to one that is more human friendly. A method that sends a user to a page that was different from the page the search engine ranked is Black hat as a rule. One well known example is Cloaking, the practice of serving one version of a page to search engine spiders/bots and another version to human visitors.

Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms or by a manual review of a site.
One infamous example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices.[30] Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's list. [31]

Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing Distinctions

There is a considerable sized body of practitioners of SEO who see search engines as just another visitor to a site, and try to make the site as accessible to those visitors as to any other who would come to the pages. The focus of their work is not primarily to rank the highest for certain terms in search engines, but rather to help site owners fulfill the business objectives of their sites. Indeed, ranking well for a few terms among the many possibilities does not guarantee more sales. A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic search results to pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site's conversion rate.[32]

SEO, as a marketing strategy, can often generate a good return. However, as the search engines are not paid for the traffic they send from organic search, the algorithms used can and do change, there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, SEO is often compared to traditional Public Relations (PR), with PPC advertising closer to traditional advertising. 

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