The Search Engine Optimization Workshop
Getting started...
Every successful project begins with a good
plan.
Every good plan begins with good information.
Changing trends in search engines and
keyword use...
Search engines and the way people use search
engines have changed dramatically since the
early days of the web. In the early years
"Build it and they will come" really
worked. Any site you put on the web would have
some top positions in search engines. Today,
after 10+ years of Internet and web expansion
(*estimated at 320 million new pages per week)
things have changed.
In the early days doing a search might have
returned a few thousand web pages. Today the
same search would return dozens if not hundreds
of millions of pages. The tremendous number of
competing pages makes it unlikely that your page
will be anywhere near the top of the search
results without using some sort of optimization
techniques.
Fortunately for the millions of small
business websites, people have also had to
change their search methods to find what they
are looking for. Where a one or two word key
phrase was the norm in the early days, today's
searches are more typically three, four or more
words. Single keywords are still used but to a
much lesser extent. Using longer key phrases
means there are fewer sites competing so your
specific page has a better chance of being
ranked.
This also means that each unique key phrase
will produce fewer clicks to your site.
Obviously, longer key phrases means fewer
searches for that exact set of keywords. In
addition, search engines are now using
contextual relationships of the keywords used in
a search to the content.
These changes have ushered in a new phase in
optimization design. Optimization means creating
large quantities of content target to specific
key word sets. Each page brings in less traffic
so there have to be more pages to generate the
same amount of traffic.
The ultimate result of all of these changes
is that search engine optimization can no longer
be simply key word focused. Optimization must be
contextually focused. Search engine optimization
is about creating content around a set of
contextually centered key words and key phrases.
* "What’s New on the
Web? The Evolution of the Web from a Search
Engine Perspective", Alexandros Ntoulas (UCLA Computer Science),
Junghoo Cho (UCLA Computer Science), Christopher Olston
(Carnegie Mellon University), May, 2004
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