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Search engine optimization for TechforLTC 5/2003 This client needed to drive traffic to their new site and have it appear in relevant search engine results. It was my job to help them achieve the desired results. Below is a copy of some general guidelines and recommendations I gave them when we started to work on this process. The results were excellent. The site currently ranks #1 in Google and Yahoo for the targeted search terms of "Long Term Care Technology," and "Technology for Long Term Care." The last time I checked there were over 65,000,000 results for these search phrases. Search Engine Optimization – Recommendations for www.techforltc.org There are many factors in getting a site to appear in search engine results. The first step is to optimize the site for search engines. This involves using descriptive Title, Description, and Keyword Meta tags. Some search engines use these to match user searches with relevant sites. It is also important to include descriptive page titles and text in the body of each Web page. We have already done all of this. The second step is submitting the site to search engines. There are basically three search engines that are important to be listed on. The three search engines with the highest usage; Google, Yahoo, and MSN respectively, account for over 95% of search traffic. Engines such as Excite, HotBot, Lycos, and WebCrawler have all become relatively unimportant. Search engines generally work one of two ways. As Automated Crawlers that follow links on the Web and pay particular attention to Meta tags, or as Human Directories that rely on manual categorizations. It seems that Google used to operate primarily as a Crawler, but now also relies on Human Directories. Yahoo relies mostly on Human Directories. Google, Yahoo, and MSN all use pay for “placement services” to highlight “Sponsored Links” at the top of search result pages. Overture is the primary “pay for placement” service that feeds search engines. It’s debatable how cost effective their service is. So how do we get the site listed on the top three? Yahoo is currently taking “suggest a site” submissions for free. However, this process can take several weeks before a site is listed. There are ways to expedite the submission, but it costs $300 or more. I wouldn’t recommend paying for this service yet. Google doesn’t currently accept site submissions, but it relies heavily on the Open Directory Project (ODP), which does accept submissions. Google then supplies most of the results for Yahoo and MSN. Therefore, the process starts with the ODP and then filters through to the major search engines. Even if we follow these steps there is no guarantee on where the site will be displayed in search results. For example a Google search for "long-term care" returns over 6,800,000 results. The Sponsor Links that are displayed at the top all are paying Google a lot of money for that placement. The other top 20 results are all returned either because those sites have worked very hard to have their sites display, or those are the most popular sites for long-term care. It can sometimes be difficult to supplant those sites that already exist at the top of the search results. Search engines have also gotten smart enough to rank sites based on how much traffic a site gets through their results. For example if someone searches for “Technology for long-term care” and then clicks on techforltc.org, that will help the site’s ranking. Another important factor is how many other sites (preferably large sites) link to our site. Getting the site to appear in the top of search results doesn’t happen overnight, and it will be an evolving process that improves as the site receives more traffic. There are all kinds of tricks that people use to try and improve search engine placement. For example, spamming a site’s meta tags, setting up redirect pages (doorways) with lists of keywords, or setting up fake pages on free web hosting sites to increase the number of sites that link to them. I don’t think it’s been proven that any of these methods are very effective. There are also services and tools that charge to submit a site automatically to hundreds of search engines. Unfortunately you end up paying to have your site submitted to search engines that have almost no usage. And these services don’t necessarily guarantee a high placement on the top three. Next Steps for TechforLTC.org 1. Create a list of search terms and phrases that are important for the
site to appear under. (PRI)
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