[Sigia-l] Techniques for Search Engine Optimization [SEO]

[Christopher Fahey]

Patrick Debois wrote:
> A customer of mine is very keen on getting its 
> site listed in the top of google rankings.
> I told him there is no garante for this and 
> a lot of companies just sell basic things like 
> metatags,links and the right keywords.
> 
> Are there any good resources (book,websites) 
> on this subject?


You're talking about two different things, in theory. 

"Search Engine Optimization" is what you can do to your own web site to
optimize it for being accurately and optimally indexed by search engines,
and this mostly boils down to using proper HTML coding techniques. Believe
me, most web sites do this extremely poorly and have only themselves to
blame for their poor positioning. The quality of your own code is half the
battle.

"Search Engine Marketing", on the other hand, is the other, more seedy half
of this battle. SEM is what you can do to *other* web sites (including to
the search engines themselves) to optimize your ranking. This includes
everything from simply submitting your site to an index all the way to
paying for words and bribing other sites to link to yours.

I collected a couple of good and simple links on this recently, so you're in
luck:

---------------------------
Search Engine Optimization
SEO and Your Web Site
<http://www.digital-web.com/articles/seo_and_your_web_site/>
  "We all know the importance of having a Web site rank well in search
engine results for searches on specific keywords/phrases. If your Web site
doesn't have a page appearing in the top 10 search engine result positions
(SERPs) the chances of someone clicking on your listing, and actually
visiting your site, drop dramatically. If you're not in the top 20 you have
almost no chance that someone will scan through the SERPs that far to find
your page."

Search Engine Marketing
Organic vs. Paid Search Engine Placement
<http://www.digital-web.com/articles/organic_or_paid_marketing/>
  "Both paid Web site marketing efforts and efforts to generate organic
traffic have their benefits, but leveraging the long-term benefits of
organic traffic can mean the difference between a successful and
unsuccessful Web site."


Search Engine Submission Tips
<http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/>
  "This section of Search Engine Watch (formerly called A Webmaster's Guide
To Search Engines) is primarily for webmasters, site owners and web
marketers. It covers search engine submission, placement and marketing
issues. It explains how search engines find and rank web pages, with an
emphasis on what webmasters can do to improve their search engine rankings
by properly submitting, using better page design, HTML meta tags, and other
tips."


Search Engine Marketing: Google Adwords, Overture & more
<http://www.knechtology.com/adword-campaign-management.html>
  "A SEM campaign consists of purchasing ad space on a specific search
engine or family of search engines. The great advantage of this over old
traditional web site banner ads is your ads are now targeted to a specific
key word or phrase that are entered into the search engine. In essence, when
a user enters in a phrase that matches the phrase you've chosen, your ad
appears. This way you're ensuring that your ad is only displayed to people
who are actually looking for your product or service."
---------------------------


Cheers,
-Cf

Christopher Fahey
____________________________
Behavior
http://www.behaviordesign.com