Understanding the nuts and bolts of search engines

Web analytics is a challenging topic -- one that seems to change daily. With new software/resources and "black hat" tricks constantly taking shape, it's no wonder companies have trouble keeping up. Americans tap search engines more than 12 billion times a month to find everything from song lyrics and shoes to recipes and weight loss tips (Steiner, 2010). And data indicates that most visitors don't look past the first 10 or so search results. It’s easy to see why SEO is a hot topic.

Understanding how the various search engines work and what they look for when scouring the Web is a critical piece of the overall marketing strategy for today's business. Are consumers reading what you are sending? Do they click on links in your newsletter (or, better yet, do they even open it)? Web metrics is the key to understanding what your consumers want and need. Yet even companies who have this information may not always know what to do with it or, on some levels, they may not have the right people who can tell them what the information means. As Rand Fishkin notes in his beginner’s guide to SEO, search engines do have their limitations, so incorporating the “right moves” will help increase traffic to your site (Fishkin, 2005).

This week in class we were asked to do some searches of keywords to see where certain things fell in the Google search ranking. Because I spent a lot of time looking at Hasbro for class last semester, I decided to do a search for "toy companies." While Hasbro did show up as one of the top 10 listings, I found it very interesting that when looking at its Web site, the use of the word "toy" only shows up once on its main page. Wouldn't you think a toy company would use that word on its main Web page more than once?

Search engines pick up on the number of times a keyword is listed on a page or on the links found on other sites. It would probably be beneficial for Hasbro to incorporate the use of the word "toy" on its site so that when Web crawlers or "spiders" search through the hundreds of thousands of Web sites, Hasbro will move further up the search chain.

Another  interesting piece of information I picked up this week was the use of site maps in helping to move  a company's ranking higher on search engines. I had actually thought site maps had become passe. However, by mapping out a site layout for your Web page, you can identify key areas/key words that you want search engines to pick up and include those specific links on the site map. By adding the map to your main page, you have added more opportunities for a search engine to recognize those keywords, further enhancing your presence in searches via the Web.

There are numerous equations that decide where a company falls on the list of search engines. Paid advertising (search engine marketing), social media, and keywords are just a few pieces of that equation. As companies continue to struggle to make their organization the first stop on the search engines, strategic planning using the various tactics for search engine optimization must be in place (and constantly updated) in order to make that happen.

References:
Fishkin, R. (2005, Dec. 5). Beginners guide to SEO. Retrieved January 18, 2010, from http://www.seomoz.org/article/bg1

Steiner, C. (2010, Jan. 10). The latest tricks for getting found online. Forbes. Retrieved Jan. 12, 2010, from http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/12/search-engine-optimization-tactics-entrepreneurs-technology-seo.html