Search Engine Optimization (Lovingly referred to as SEO) is one of my pet projects and at the same time, one of my pet peeves. There are a TON of web service companies that want to guarantee high search engine rankings, by some special skill that they can do fairly quickly and with some nifty fee structure.
The desired result is that if you type in "Widget" into google's search form, that the results will then have a link to your nifty "widgetstore.com" somewhere near the top of the page. Google returns millions of links to websites for any word (or combination of words) that you type in, but most people only look at the first few. A few loyal Internet surfers will even look at the links on the first few pages of results, but if your nifty "widgetstore.com" is on page 359, you are not going to get any visitors to your site from searchers.
So how do we get your nifty "widgetstore.com" up where people can find it, especially when they really need a Widget. The answer does actually lie in Search Engine Optimization. Now there are lots, and I mean LOTS of companies that are very aware of the fact that you don't know what that means. They even know that you don't know that they don't really even know, or that they don't want to put in the real effort required. They will take your money with a straight face and give you some very minimal results, and may even get you black listed. That's right, if Google or Yahoo or any other Internet search company catches you cheating, you could have your website removed totally…. not even displayed on page 359.
So for this intro, I want to point out what Search Engines are trying to do. The old saying is that if you help them get what they want, then they will help you get what you want.
Search Engines offer information… Good information. That's their product. When you type in "Widget" they want the first link to be the most important page on the Internet related to "Widget". If there is an international consortium on Widget that maintains the world-wide standards and definitive guide to Widget, that's the link they want on top. The second link should then be the second most important, etc. etc. etc. all the way to page 359. That's the product they offer.
There are too many pages for search engines to rank each page, so they use a few tools to find your site, index it and rank it. What's important for you to know is that they are using a series of formulas to get the job done. These formulas are changed on a regular basis to accomplish one thing… Make the information better. If someone has figured out a trick that gets a page about "Gizmos" up at the top of the "Widget" list, it might actually work, but rest assured that the formula will be changed and the Gizmo site will get black listed.
I could go into the different formulas that are used, and I will eventually, but for now, the best thing that you can do is to make sure that your site has good information about your topic. If your info is good, it will make its way higher in the list. I will take some time over the next little while to talk about maximizing your site for the Internet, but DON'T pay for a guaranteed - lock solid - solution by some guy that claims they have found a cool trick that will make you popular.