When Mr Singhal says, "Search over the last few years has moved from 'Give me what I typed' to 'Give me what I want'", he should know. Amit Singhal after all is a Google Fellow. Working with the company since 2000, the a 39-year-old elite engineer is in charge of Google's ranking algorithm - the formulas that determine which Web pages best answer each user's question.
What Amit Singhal is clarifying here is the fundamental evolution of how the search engines function and how they are approached by users, website owners and search engine optimisation (SEO) specialists.
Despite the fact that Google sits on the top spot in a list of global brands (new research estimates its value to be $86bn a 30% year-on-year increase) and serves hundreds of millions of searches every day, users still click away from Google millions of times a day, disappointed that they couldn't find the restaurant, the phone number or the background of that new band. Google is good at finding what users want, but it doesn't always find it.
It's the elusive quest to close the gap between often and always that drives Amit Singhal and hundreds of other Google engineers to constantly tweak, trim, caress and cajole the company's search algorithms towards relevance nirvana. The same applies across all the other search engine companies and if you're serious about your Internet presence and search engine listings it's something you'll give thought to as well. Consummate professionals that we are, we at SEO Consult are obsessed with closing that gap as well. The closer we make it, the better it is for our customers and the better it is for us.
The days of algorithms relying on webmasters providing on page data such as the keyword meta tags or index files in engines like ALIWEB are long gone. Meta tags provided an overview on each page's content. Solely relying on meta data as the means of indexing site information has long proved an unreliable method of identifying quality search returns. Keywords in the meta tag were not truly relevant to the site's actual keywords. Inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent and manipulated data in meta tags and other attributes within the HTML source of a page generated irrelevant searches. It's not only black hat SEO techniques to generate top rankings that has inspired the search engines to apply ever more sophisticated algorithms. It's the fact that as time goes on all manner of spurious and unusual interpretations, spellings, logic and intentions come to the fore.
It's by being able to identify that when someone types in Orange they are probably referring to the mobile phone operator and not the fruit that can lead the engine to more accurate returns. Geography and theming can also have a bearing on search returns, as can timescales, topicality and 'freshness'. There are in fact more than 200 types of information, or what Google calls 'signals', that go to determine relevance. Google is increasingly using signals based on the history of what individual users have searched for in the past, providing results that reflect an individual's interests. For example, a search for 'fender' will return different results for a user who is a guitarist than for a user who collects spare parts for old American cars.
The reason for identifying the increasing complexity, breadth and depth of the search engine algorithms is to highlight how absolutely essential it is to apply basic principles from the very outset when undertaking SEO.
Carefully defining business objectives is the starting point from which to establish your Semantic Space. It's vital to establish a vivid picture of the language, the words and the phrases that will entice appropriate visitors to your site. Also, it defines what you want those visitors to do - the call to action. Your optimum audience online will define your organization in their own terms. By clearly defining your message you can establish an overlap of terms that the audience uses and the ones you want them to use. This overlap is your semantic space and acts as the foundation for your entire campaign.
The key is finding the right terms and phrases, thus defining your semantic space correctly. Use the wrong ones, and you can waste a lot of time and money pursuing the wrong market, or even a non-existent market. At SEO Consult we employ a sophisticated process that chooses keywords by balancing search frequency, competition and relevance.
We compile a list of preferred terms then expand that list using data mining techniques to 20,000 or more semantically similar terms and phrases. The expanded list includes synonyms, common misspellings and alternative spellings, such as 'optimization' as opposed to 'optimisation', and related terms. We then run a range of separate search databases to establish the terms that really do draw interest. This enables us to calculate the Relative Position Index (RPI) and Click Through Potential (CTP) for each term.
Once you have the appropriate terms and phrases then it's a case of applying them throughout the rest of the SEO process.
When it comes to the world-class copy that each page should contain, there is no magic keyword density formula. Google has the strictest requirements allowing no more than 2% of each page's words as targeted keywords. A keyword density checker return of more than 2% is considered spamming. Yahoo! and MSN Search have much higher keyword density tolerances - up to 5% of total words. Smart SEO practice will identify that a trade-off is necessary, making sure that copy is optimized but still legible quality English.
Architecturally, an SEO keyword should be used in the title tag (ideally at the beginning), at least once or even twice (as a variation). Once in the H1 header tag of the page and at least three times in the body copy on the page (sometimes a few more times if there's a lot of text content). A keyword should be included at least once in bold and ideally should also be used at least once in the alt attribute of an image on the page. An SEO keyword should be used once in the URL and at least once (sometimes twice when it makes sense) in the meta description tag.
Links to targeted pages should contain appropriate anchor text, and support the main keyword. Supporting pages should be part of the overall theme, and provide additional keywords. Of particular importance is the need to have as many theme related pages as possible, especially in highly competitive situations.
Make it easy for the search engines. More importantly, make it easy for them on your terms; in your semantic space using the keywords and keywords that you have researched and selected.
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