Importance of Search Engine

Optimization for Search

Engine Rankings

Search engine optimization has evolved over years. In good old days, tweaking

on-page parameters like meta tags, headlines, alt tags, keyword shoving and

anchor texts used to fetch good results. This is less likely these days since the

techniques are simple to implement. As a result there is no dearth of optimized

websites.

Be that as it may, for new websites it is always a good idea to start doing all

that before exploring other avenues. In this article I will look at why search

engine optimization is necessary, proceeding to unravel basic issues in this

game before touching on aging factor which I believe is the cornerstone of

success on the web.

Why search engine optimization?

When you are looking for information on a topic on the web, you usually query

your favorite search engine for search terms relevant to your topic. The search

engine on its part displays a list of web-pages which it thinks are closely related

to your search term.

The web-pages that appear at top are considered more important than the

ones that appear successively below. Question arises as to how search engines

must know which pages are more important for the search query.

This is where you step into the realm of search engine optimization. For all

your painstaking effort, if your webpage is not considered important by search

engines, you will remain undiscovered forever.

Remember, search engines are not humans. They are machines which is why

you need to let your webpage talk to them to achieve top ranking.

If search engine optimization is important, why is it that many website owners

still do not feel any need for it? One may say they are naïve, so they are. I have

come across many of them who strongly feel that after a website is launched,

nothing more needs to be done.

There is a perception that once a website is there in world-wide-web, it is

bound to be ‘known’ soon. Known to whom? ‘Why, Google will know me’ is a

common refrain. It is only much later that one discovers that nobody, not even

Google knows his site.

To be true, Google’s knowing your website is not a big deal. Just have an

already-indexed website point a link to your main page. Google will shortly find

out your main page and from there your other pages as well. This is exactly the

way Google is indexing billions of new webpages everyday.

On the flip side, suppose your webpage has nice description of trekking in

Himalayas. You have provided good information and pictures on the subject in

the page. Yet if I am to search for the term ‘trekking in Himalayas’ in Google,

will I get to see your webpage in the first 20 or 30 results? Perhaps not.

Because, even though your website is indexed by Google, it still does not know

that your webpage on ‘trekking in Himalayas’ is important enough to be listed

high for the term.

If indeed optimizing your web content is necessary, how do you proceed? As

mentioned in the beginning, search engine optimization is an exercise of

dressing up your webpage based on a chosen set of keyword phrases. This is to

be done in such a way that the content appeals to human visitors as much as it

does to search engine robots.

If we have understood the inevitability of search engine optimization, let us

briefly touch upon some basic issues.

1. Search engines list a webpage, not a website. This means one has to

optimize individual web-pages (except those that are public disclosures) while

maintaining overall aim and balance of the website.

2. Optimization of a webpage, in its primitive, centers around strategically

locating one or more keyword phrases in that webpage. Number of keyword

phrases to be used and frequency of each will depend on total number of

content-words in that page.

3. Optimization for search engines is not an one-off exercise. Rather it has to

be an ongoing effort to create web-pages. Websites that are veterans of many

years have thousands of web-pages in their database.

4. Search engine optimization usually does not fetch immediate result. For new

websites, specially in case of Google, it can be a long wait, sometimes several

months.

5 If your website generates lot of traffic by itself, it has a fair chance to rank

high in SERPs’ (search engine result pages), even if you have not done much of

an optimization.

This means that your product or service is so unique that simple word-of-

mouth publicity is enough to bring in torrents of visitors, while also ensuring

prominent rank in search results.

6. Search engine optimization is not merely an exercise of shuffling keyword

phrases. The content has to make sense to readers. In other words, ensure

that your content passes usability test.

7. Apart from keyword-enriched content, there are more factors responsible

for achieving top rank, specially building quality links that point to your

website. To search engines, incoming links are like ‘votes’ in favor of your

website. A good quality link carries considerable weight in the eyes of search

engines.

8 Finally, lest one forgets, optimizing for search engines is only one part of the

game. The other equally important necessity is to retain and satisfy your

visitors.

There is a saying, which when roughly translated, means ‘seasoned paddy-

grains make more rice’. In SEO parlance, nothing beats if you are at it for years.

Search engines love the aging factor. Create good content. Allow it to settle.

Revisit it to update occasionally. Repeat the cycle.

In other words, search engine optimization is all about letting it known that

your website is a treasure-hub of great relevant content that only gets better

as time passes.

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