Alternatives: Search Engine Optimization

         This article got a little longer than I had planned so will be breaking it up into 2 parts. Part 1 is done and Part 2 will be next week or as soon as possible after that.

         According to StatisticBrain, people used Google search just over 9 billion times per day (yes billions with a “B”) in 2016. Sites like Google, YouTube, Bing and Yahoo! are the primary drivers of nearly all Web traffic.

         When folks are out searching the Internet, they usually have a question they need answered or a problem they need solved, and you want your business to be found by potential customers who are looking for the products or services that you offer! In order to do that, you'll need to understand how search engines work. You want to construct your web pages and website in a manner that makes it as easy as possible for search engines to connect people with your business.

What Are Search Engines?

         

         The dictionary definition is: "A program for the retrieval of data from a database or network, especially the Internet." But you already knew that. A search engine is a simple program – usually a website – where you type in a question or problem or phrase you want more information on, and then it delivers you results that are relative to your search. There are five main search platforms that I consider important to Internet Marketing for local and national business: Facebook, LinkedIn, Bing, YouTube and (most crucially) Google. As you gain experience with Internet marketing, you'll want to expand your focus to all of these platforms, but for now, Google is the most important search engine you need to know and the one we are going to talk about.

Google

         With roughly two thirds of the market share, this is the search engine you most likely use on a daily basis, and the one you need to know the most about as you begin marketing on the Internet. Google was started back in the late 1990s as a simple search engine, and has grown into one of the largest companies in the world, with a reach that pervades nearly every aspect of the Internet. Though it has expanded into many other business segments like maps, social media and Email, the core of Google still revolves around its search feature. Going forward, we'll focus on Google, because the bulk of your marketing efforts should be geared toward this company's platforms.

How Do Search Engines Work?

                  The Internet is incredibly huge – there are billions upon billions of pages out there – so search engines organize and catalog them (called indexing) to help other folks find what they're looking for.

Crawling 

         There is a kind of program that search engines run, often called a "crawler", "bot", or “spider” that moves from URL to URL on as many web pages as they can find and judge relevant, gathering information on their content and metadata (data about the data on your page). The spiders collect information from hundreds of signals on a web page and report back to the search engine.

Indexing

         After spiders have reported back, Google parses the information they've collected and indexes web pages based on their potential relevance to certain topics or phrases. 

The Key Difference

         The terms "crawling" or “spidering” and "indexing" are sometimes used interchangeably, but they're different things. Just because a site has been crawled doesn't mean it's been indexed. Essentially, Google learns about URLs out in the sphere of the Web and schedules them to be crawled – once they're crawled, Google can figure out how to organize those URLs in terms of relevance, which is the act of indexing. Google may decide to ignore a page after it has been crawled in which case that page would not be indexed.

Types of Searches

         The classic mode of searching is through text – a user types in something they're looking for, and Google returns a list of links they can click on that are likely relevant.

         There have been some major changes to the way Google handles text searches, which we'll cover shortly. Suffice it to say (for now) that Google no longer simply reads what the user has typed into the box – it actually attempts to figure out what the user intends.

         The world is changing, and people are accessing search engines in very different ways than they did when Google was first launched back in 1998. One of Google's algorithms, known as Hummingbird (we'll cover that shortly) was launched to better accommodate different kinds of search, like:

·  Voice. Most smartphones have a feature where you can input text by voice. However, people speak differently than they write, and Google had to account for this when reconfiguring their algorithm. They are also competing with Apple's app, called Siri, a kind of virtual assistant that one speaks to in order to engage, and who responds with search results, weather, local business information and more – also by voice. And have you noticed the microphone in the Google Search box?

·  Visual. You've probably heard of Google Glass, the once future way and groundbreaking invention from the search giant. It was (and I think still is) a set of glasses one wears that gives them a Heads-Up Display of information as an overlay on the real world they're perceiving. They received a patent for a "Gaze Tracking System" which tracks eye movement and pupil dilation. The Hummingbird update builds more semantic, organic understanding into Google search to be able to process data like where users are looking, and what kind of emotional response they are having.

The Algorithm

                  Google has several patented algorithms that determine how high a web page will appear on their search results page. One of the major reasons that Google established such dominance in the search market is because of the ingenuity of these algorithms – they collect data from hundreds of signals or "clues" to try to guess what a human is looking for, then serve up results based on an engineered concept of what's important to human beings.

The Signals

         Google regularly changes its algorithm to place emphasis on some signals over others, but here's a list of some of the most important factors the search giant considers when deciding which pages are relevant. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it includes some of the most important in my opinion:

· On-Page Factors:

o Quality of the content

o How long people stay on a given page

o How "fresh" and substantial a web page's content is

o How ad-heavy a web page is

o How well HTML considerations like titles, descriptions, headers and structure describe and enhance the page

o How well the site architecture lends itself to search engine crawlers (spiders)

o How quickly the page loads

o How relevant URLs are to page topics

o How old your domain is, operating in the same way

o Mobile compatibility (getting more important all the time)

· Off-Page Factors:

o Do you have a Google My Business (or GMB) page linked to your site

o Are you using rich snippets to display your picture on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages)

o The quality of pages from which inbound links exist

o The relevance of outbound links

o The number of inbound links

o Whether you've purchased links

o Whether you've spammed other sites

o Whether you're a trusted authority

o Whether your site verifies its identity

o Whether your site hosts pirated content

o How often your content is shared on social media

o What country visitors are located in

o What city or local area visitors are located in

o Whether people regularly visit your site

o Whether your social media contacts have favored the site

The Evolution of the Algorithm

                  Google's search algorithm has undergone many drastic changes in the last 2 decades of doing business. In an effort to defeat spam artists and "dark arts or black hat" marketers, they regularly change their algorithm and signals to try and ensure that people using Google for search get the highest quality, most relevant pages. In 2013 is was estimated Google changed it’s algorithm (or algo) an average of 2 times per day. My hunch is it could be more today.

PageRank

         This is one of the algorithms that Google uses to rank websites – and happens to also be the first algorithm they used back in 1998 when they launched. PageRank counts the number and quality of links to a given web page from other pages, which gives Google a sense of how "important" it is. PageRank is built on the assumption that important websites have many links from other sites. Page Rank also said to be named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google has mostly been depreciated or taken out of the mix as of this writing.

Panda

         Panda was a Google algorithm update in 2011 that attempted to lower the search rankings of low-quality sites and help Google's customers to find more relevant, high-quality sites. It was developed by human quality testers that visited thousands of sites and ranked them according to a list of factors of "What counts as a high-quality site," which Google then published online in an attempt to help webmasters "step into Google's mindset."

Penguin

         Penguin was the name of Google's algorithm update back in spring of 2012 that attempted to decrease the rank of pages that were "gaming the system" using black-hat SEO techniques to deliberately manipulate the company's search index. According to Google, few websites actually lost their rankings for specific keywords, but those that did tended to be run by "dark arts" marketers that were filling their pages with thin, spammy content that didn't provide real value to web surfers.         

Hummingbird

         Google's algorithm – code-named "Hummingbird" – was launched in September of 2013. At the time it was the biggest change to the search engine's algorithm since 2010, when the company applied the "Caffeine Update," which was intended to optimize their indexing capability. Unlike Panda and Penguin, Hummingbird is not a tune-up, but an entirely new algorithm (even though it does use some parts of the old one.)

         The point of Hummingbird was to make sure Google was equipped to handle modern search needs. As such, it's better equipped to handle concepts like "Conversational Search" and other, newer forms of accessing search engines. The algorithm is now more sensitive to the multiple possible meanings of individual words, rather than phrases.

What Else Did Hummingbird Change?

         Another point of Hummingbird was to make a transition to "semantic search" – meaning search engine technology that works harder to parse the meaning of customers' search queries using smart engineering and a healthy dose of artificial intelligence. 

         The artificial intelligence Google is employing uses something called "inference rules" to improve its search. Essentially, the algorithm draws conclusions based on premises and syntax in a user's search, and then executes a formal logic procedure called "forward chaining" to tease out what a customer is actually searching for. It accomplishes "chaining" by starting with the data given by the customer and "reasoning" (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) its way to a hopefully accurate approximation of what someone is looking for.

What Hummingbird Means

         It means that search queries now get results built around the holistic theme of the query, rather than results that perfectly match certain keywords. Once again, "content is king." Google is solidly on the side of its users when it comes to search rankings – folks that have a problem or a question want high-quality answers, not just a page filled with screaming, blinking ads. Hummingbird was a powerful move on Google's part to fight back against unscrupulous marketers and spammers trying to use the search engine's popularity to sell products without offering people real value. It means that sites need to focus in on quality of their content.

         It also means that you need to learn the new rules of Search Engine Optimization.

The Next Furry or Feathered Creature

         Pandas and penguins and hummingbirds, oh my! So what is next for Google, now that the search giant has rolled out its latest incarnation? A couple of years ago, Google's Matt Cutts elucidated the company's "Moonshot changes" which included some important pieces of information that show the direction the company was headed in. One of the most revealing topics within "Moonshot" was a concept called Deep Learning. 

Deep Learning

         Google is focusing on something called "Deep Learning" that allows users – especially those searching by voice – to refine their searches within a pre-established context. For instance, if you were traveling, and wanted to know the weather in both your city of departure and arrival, you wouldn't have to search "what's the weather in x?" and "what's the weather in y?" You could ask "What's the weather in x?" and once you had the results, ask, "What about in y?" This is important, because it shows that Google has a strong focus on making search intuitive for people, and engineering their search engine around the natural, organic way that users communicate, rather than forcing them to adopt a new linguistic or technical modality in order to use their service.

Going Forward

         As you probably know by now (or need to) Google identified several trends that can give you an idea of what the company is trying to accomplish going forward:

·       The importance of mobile. The computing market is becoming increasingly dominated by smartphones, and more and more people use their phones to access the Web every day. Mobile optimization is huge and will become even more important.

·       Artificial intelligence. Hummingbird was just the beginning – Google is apparently working on training their systems to be able to read at an elementary school level so that it can better deliver search results to users.

·       Spam-fighting through authorship. Google has begun making tools available for people to tie their identities to an authorship profile in order to fight spam, and has started identifying high-quality authors to feature more prominently in their results.

·       Fighting ad-heavy websites. Some websites are lacking in aesthetics – or in some cases, are downright difficult to use – because of the preponderance of advertising on them. Google wants people finding high-quality content through their search engine, so they have already begun to take steps to combat this.

·       Guest blogging as a way to gain links back to your site was out, but may be back in. Google stated this used to be a “respectable” thing to do but became spammy and should be avoided. Signs re this is acceptable again if done properly on high authority sites, the key here being “authority” sites.

What Can I Do? 

         Simply put, you can work with Google to make sure your web page is as friendly to their crawlers and algorithms as possible. The process by which you accomplish that is called Search Engine Optimization. While true, relying solely on Google for guidance in this area is like asking your banker for the keys to the vault. It’s probably not going to happen.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

         Search Engine Optimization (also known as SEO) is all about optimizing your website to rank as highly as possible on search engines. It's sometimes known as "Organic Search," because it differs from Pay-Per-Click advertising in that you don't have to pay for each individual that sees your listing (pay per impression) or clicks (pay per click) on your link, but more on that later. 

For Next Time…

This article got a little longer than I had planned so will be breaking it up into 2 parts. Part 1 is done and Part 2 will be next week or as soon as possible after that.

Any questions please let me know and go do something massively positive for you and everyone around you.