Search Engine Optimization
In my view the whole SEO thing is really pretty simple.
When I use the word “Google” I will be generally referring to the big search
engines as well.
Google is trying to provide the searcher, a human, with the
highest quality search results; results that accurately reflect the topic of the
keywords used in the search.
To do this Google has to think like a human as much as
possible. Some of the things that influence Google are the title and other
meta-tags, the number of pages a site has, the relatedness of the pages, the
text on the pages, headings, picture alt descriptions, internal linking
structure, spelling and grammar etc. Google even looks at how cluttered a page
is, how many ads appear on it and where they appear.
Google has the ability to find relationships between
related words. For instance, if you had a website about shoes, then you should
have pages about sneakers, and slippers, and even socks. Google can detect
those relationships and use them to help determine the importance of your site.
Google also analyzes the links pointing to your site from
other sites. Incoming links are very important since there will be a large
number of quality sites competing with you for the top page on the search
results. Ties in site importance go to the one with the best link score. Google
looks at a number of elements involved with the link to determine how important
the link is, and how relevant to the keyword phrase.
Google examines the anchor text, the link text, the
destination URL in the link, the text around the link on the page, the topic and
quality of the page the link is on, the same for the website the page is on, and
obviously the total number of links that point to your site.
It even examines the order and location of the words within
the element such as anchor text. The closer to the beginning the more weight the
keyword phrases have.
Google loves text. Google does not see images. There are a
number of factors Google uses to analyze the body text on your pages. These
include the keyword density, the keyword location within an element, headings,
spelling, grammar etc.
There is nothing magic about it, just spoon feed Google the
information it is looking for. Pretend you are creating your site for humans.
Google wants good SEO for your site. Google tells you everything you need to
know to get high rankings.
None of the above is worth anything if Google doesn’t index
your pages. There is no excuse for not getting your pages indexed. Google tells
you exactly how to do it, and leans over backwards to help you.
You should have a strategic plan for getting higher
rankings in the search engines that includes a linking strategy to obtain
incoming links. Incoming links are hugely important.
If you have the ingredients i.e. lots of high quality
content that searchers are looking for, all you need to do is present the
information to Google properly so that Google recognizes the importance of your
site, the relevance of your content, and associates your content with the proper
keywords.
Long tailed keywords
To extract the maximum benefit from the hordes of people
looking for stock photos, ethnic or not, you must do keyword research. And then
use those keyword phrases properly.
Let's say you have a stock photo website.
You want to attract visitors who are looking for stock
photos to purchase. You could optimize your pages for the keyword phrase
"Stock Photos". It would seem logical.
But wait! If you were going to search for a stock
photo you would of course know something about the photo you were looking for.
You would not enter "stock photo" into the search box. Let's assume you are
looking for a stock photo of a woman riding on the back of an elephant.
You might type in "woman elephant stock photo", or "stock
photos of elephants" or "elephant pictures" or god knows what. The more
words in the phrase the narrower the focus. It's the long tailed key word
phrases that are the most important.
If you are trying to attract buyers of elephant stock
photos you don't want to waste your time with the keyword "elephants".
With just one keyword you will be competing with an impossibly large number of
websites, many of which will specialize in elephant stuff.
Two word phrases are much better. When someone
searches for "pictures of elephants, elephant pictures, photos of elephants,
etc.) then they could be potential customers. Or they might be kids doing
a school paper on elephants.
Three or more keyword phrases are where the action is.
Searchers looking for stock photos and especially professional stock photo
buyers like art directors will use much longer keyword phrases. They don't want
to wade through thousands of images. The phrases become " stock photo
woman riding elephant, or stock image elephant and woman".
There is a high probability that anyone using those search
terms are buyers.
If 50 searches per day are done for “Stock Photo
Elephant” and 250 searches per day are done for “Elephant Stock Photo”, then
it’s better to optimize for the latter. Optimize for what people really search
for, not for what you think they will search for.
There are a number of keyword research tools available
online, so find one you like and use it. Keyword tools can tell you how
many searches are done on a particular phrase per day, how much competition
there is, and other relevant information. They show you exactly what is being
searched for. Use them.