Marketing companies all over the United States are talking SEO. You might hear, “Let us handle your site because we know how to make your site SEO friendly.” They throw the phrase ‘quality search engine placement’ out there and ask, “Would you like to be higher in the index for searches on Google or Yahoo?”
So what is SEO you ask? Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia describes it as “Search Engine Optimization, which is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via ‘natural’ (‘organic’ or ‘algorithmic’) search results for targeted keywords.”
Some marketing companies like to say they have SEO figured out and use techniques to try to trick the search engines into indexing your site high on the list. This type of hacking includes repeating unrelated phrases in the background. This can be done by matching the text color to the background so it blends in and no one sees it. Another method would add your web site’s URL to a link farm. A link farm is a group of unrelated web sites hyperlinked together on a page that tries to spam a search engine’s index. One of the most used techniques consist of filling a web site with repeating keywords, especially in the meta tag portion of the code.
This sort of trickery is one reason that large search engines are no longer using the Meta Tags for indexing site URLs. These techniques will work for a short time, convincing you that the marketing company did their job. But what most customers don’t know is that when the search engines catch on to the trickery they will remove the URL from their indices and then no one will find your site through a search engine at all.
Accomplishing a high rating for search results takes careful consideration of how search algorithms work and what people are searching for. SEO involves a web site’s code, presentation and structure of information, along with knowing what might keep a web crawler from spidering (scanning) the entire site. Successful Search Engine Optimization techniques include writing content that is different and complementary to the site’s marketing goals (which include terms related to possible phrases used in a search for your site). Also, we make sure that the content is formatted in an accepted and search-engine-friendly manner: for example, using text, images, and HTML instead of a Microsoft Publisher file for newsletters. Using the latest tools available to build web sites helps also, such as validating code and using CSS layouts instead of tables.
Page navigation needs to relate to the site and have live text and not images. Search engines do not search images for text phrases. Text within an image is seen as photo not a search phrase. An easy way to test to see if a certain piece of text is actually readable text for an search engine is to highlight the phrase and see if it will copy and paste. If it will paste without the background, it is readable text for a search engine.
The API Web Services department pays close attention to Search Engine Optimization, and will help you maximize the value of your site. All of our newest sites are built using the most current methods, to give you and your customers the best experience possible on the Web.