Here’s a good question from a friend:

I’ve read that PR (Page Rank)  is becoming less important these days because of the change in algorithms used by Google and the rest. What’s your take on that?  William Jeansonne, M.B.A.

I’m not so sure about PR becoming less important, don’t really think it was ever all that important to begin with. We are dwelling into what goes on behind closed doors at Google so I can only speculate based on my experiences. Here is an official statement about PR from the Google Webmaster page. 

“When a user enters a search query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the Page Rank for a given page. Page Rank is the measure of the importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your site’s Page Rank. Not all links are equal: Google works hard to improve the user experience by identifying spam links and other practices that negatively impact search results. The best types of links are those that are given based on the quality of your content.” 

From my experience and Google’s statement, I believe it is safe to assume that PR has little to do with where a page is placed in search results. Certainly PR is not the leading or even close to the top priority for improving SERP. I have seen many times that good SEO with relevant keywords can easily achieve top placement and place higher than sites with a good PR rating. However if there is allot of competition for your keywords or phrases then a good PR is going to be beneficial in beating the competition to the front page of Google. 

From my experience Page Rank has little to do with the placement of your site within search results.  If you’re thinking PR is what gets your site to the front page then I have a car from New Orleans I want to sell you. Page Rank has little to do with how your keywords perform in search engines. I would like to add however that PR does have some value towards Search Engine Results Placement (SERP) but only in isolated cases.

You see search engines place your search results based on a score derived from your SEO efforts for any given search word or phrase. What this means is that if someone is looking for “hat racks” and your site is SEO’d for “hat racks” you will get a specific score based on the quality of your SEO for that term, let’s say your score is 2.78. Now there could be other sites that sell “hat racks” and they too could have a score of 2.78 for the term. So when there is a tie in search scores, which site gets placed highest in the SERP? This is where a good PR comes in handy. The site with the highest PR gets placed higher than those sites with the same search score but lower PR.

While it is true PR has little to do with SERP of your site it is something that should not be ignored. PR alone is not the factor that will get you front page exposure; however, it does provide a measure of the value of your website. The higher you’re PR the more valuable the site is in terms of actual sale value and increased traffic/sales.

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I have done SEO work on scores of websites. All those websites achieved the goal of better SERP (in most cases 1st and 2nd page placement). However the most common complaint I hear is there is still not enough traffic to the site. After taking the time and effort of doing all the proper things to achieve SEO it turns out that traffic to a site can still be disappointing. While front page exposure on search engines is the main goal of SEO, this by itself, in some cases, does not guarantee enough traffic to achieve success.

In the first ten years or so of the Internet the best way of getting traffic to a website was by doing On-Page & Off-Page (minus Social Media Marketing) SEO. However it is starting to look like 1st page on Google doesn’t cut the mustard like it use to. So what’s the deal? I still know that being on the 1st page of search engines is a huge benefit but why isn’t it bringing  the tons of traffic we all envision?

Hears my speculative guess. “Social Media“

There is so much social media activity going on these days that people no longer have to depend on search engines to find what they are looking for. By being involved in Twitter, FaceBook, Squidoo, LinkedIn, etc. one has access to thousands of links and other forms of information that lead to what they might be looking for. Instead of using a search engine, people find their way to products, services, and information VIA the social network.

What do you think?  Is there still value in SEO for the search engines. Will social media take over so completely that search engines become fossils of the Internet? Is Social Media networking more valuable to a website then search engine results placement? Should we coin a new term (SMO) – Social Media Optimization?

Jump on board lets hear what you have to say.

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If you’re like most of us, you get emails from SEO Companies promising to get Top-10 Search Engine placement for your website. Consider for a moment, if these people could truly and honestly deliver on that promise, they wouldn’t have to advertise. Word would get out and website owners would come running with wallets open. But the fact is they are advertising for your business and people are not running to them for Top-10 placement.

Top SEO companies (if they were any good) should themselves be ranked very high for terms like “Search Engine Optimization”, “Internet SEO’ and “SEO”. Next time you get an email guaranteeing Top-10 placement; do a search for “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO to see how highly that company ranks for those terms. Chances are high that you won’t find them anywhere in the search results. No one can honestly deliver a Top-10 position for every site using legitimate SEO techniques. Any SEO company that makes such a bold guarantee typically will do a number of things designed to trick the search engines into ranking you higher for your keywords.

The problem with tricking search engines, especially Google, is that those techniques will work for a short while, but they will certainly stop working at some point. Deliberately tricking the search engines to gain search engine ranking is called ‘Black Hat” and is considered fraudulent and punishable by death (no just kidding on that).

When Google redesigns or updates their search algorithms (their formulas) for ranking websites — it’s called the “Google Dance” — millions of websites get new page rankings. The reason Google (or Yahoo or Bing) takes the time, energy and expense to redesign their algorithms is specifically to get rid of those websites who have managed to trick the system and rank well by using shady or underhanded tactics.

If you’re in a big hurry to rank high in the search engines, go try one of those Black Hat SEO companies. If they are at all effective, you will get ranked well quickly. But as soon as Google “Dances”, you’ll see your page rank fall like the 1929 stock market.

But that’s not even the bad part about using Black Hat tactics. The worst part is that Google will de-list any site from their index that they think intentionally used tricks to gain position or page ranking. That means that they aren’t going to list your site any more until you jump through a few Google hoops and prove you’re going to play by the rules.

People with high ranking, long lasting, successful sites, achieved that status by implementing “White Hat” or legitamate SEO techniques. These people would not dare touch a Black Hat technique. They have real businesses to run, with real employees and families to support, and they aren’t about to risk having the traffic to their website shut down for the sake of a quicker ride to the top. You should feel the same way. I hope you’re wearing a white hat, if not good luck.

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More and more people these days are using websites as a way to help pay their bills. Some people are even using them as their sole source of income! Creating a thriving, successful website isn’t easy and it takes a lot of hard work. One of the keys in making a website successful is to know how to execute SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization” properly.

What is search engine optimization? Simply put, it’s basically the process of increasing and improving the quality and volume of traffic to a specific web page. When someone types a specific search term into a search engine, that search engine begins scanning its internal database, looking for that specific phrase, or “keyword.” Then the search engine returns reference to the web pages that best match the search terms. The higher up in the search results a web page is, the more likely it is to improve its traffic flow.

Search engine optimization is a strategy web designers and SEO specialist use to ensure a web page is one of the first web pages returned on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). SEO really becomes important when the competition for a given product or service is high. You may have the best thing going for consumers but if your search engine placement is low your traffic will suffer. So to give a web page an edge, people employ SEO tactics to place keywords within the content of their pages to improve their chances of getting traffic.

Here are 7 essential tips to follow when deciding to implement SEO.

• First choose your keywords or key phrases carefully, keeping in mind that you should select only one, two or three at most for each page you decide to optimize. The keywords/phrase must be relevant to the page and must be terms that people will use to search for your product or service.
• SEO is done on a page by page basis. Each and every page of a website can be optimized but you should concentrate on 1 – 3 pages of your site (more if the site is large). No need to do SEO for an About Us or Contact Us type page.
• If possible select a URL for your site that contains the main keyword/phrase for the Home page of the site. It is difficult to find the perfect URL these days so consider being creative by using dashes (-) in the URL. I.E. ( my-site-is-the-best.com)
• Make full use of Meta Tags. There are three important Meta Tags (Keywords, Description and Title). Search engines use the information defined in these tags to help determine what the page is about. Place the most important keyword/phrase as close to the front of the Meta Tag definition as possible. Keep keywords/phrase to a minimum, using too many keywords will dilute the value.
• Use the keywords/phrases within the content of the page. When you place text on the page, be sure to use the main keyword/phrase often but without excess. Overuse of the keyword/phrase can be deemed spammy by the search engines and make the page hard to read by the visitor.
• Use the keyword/phrase in main headers, Alt Tags of images or graphics on the page and if possible as anchor text links from other pages within the site.
• Something called semantically related words and or synonyms to the keywords can be extremely effective to SERP. For instance, if your main key phrase is “wooden chairs”, words like stool or bench or seat will give additional value to the main keyword/phrase and will aid in boosting your SERP. A very good tool to assist you with the selection of semantically related words can be found at http://labs.google.com/sets. Once you find additional related words use those in the content often but again without excess. Strive to keep the written content on the page natural sounding.

SEO is an extremely powerful technique used for the sole purpose of getting available traffic for a given keyword/phrase to a web page. By careful selection of keywords/phrase and using those words appropriately on a web page, additional free traffic can be obtained.  SEO does not guarantee sales success, once a visitor makes it to the website it becomes the responsibility of the site content (text, graphics, layout, etc) to make a sale or conversion.

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Having the correct keywords in the content of your website or blog is important for high Search Engine Results Placement (SERP). While using the proper set of keywords or phrases is good for website traffic flow, it is not the only element for gaining high search engine results placement. There is another keyword related element search engines look for before reporting results to any given search term. This additional element is equally important to proper keywords in boosting your page to the top of the search engine placement? Are you thinking page 1? 

Preponderance of Relevant Content

In the court of law sometimes a single fact is not enough to convict someone of a crime. However when there is a fact and it is backed up by other bits of related evidence then a preponderance of evidence is established.  You can think of your keywords in this same fashion. That is: a single keyword or phrase is not likely to push your page to the top of the search engine rankings but when combined with related words, your keyword or phrase becomes much more powerful.

To explain this, you should understand that search engines use more than just the search terms when making search engine results placement. Google and other search engines have a record of words that are semantically related to search terms. They also have a record of the words used on your page. Search engines will first identify all pages in their database that match the search terms. They will then compare the word record of the pages to the semantically related words. Pages that use related words in the content are establishing a Preponderance of Relevant Content. Web pages that do this the best are placed highest in the search results. There are a few other factors but this explains how a web page with a low Page Rank can beat a web page with a higher Page Rank in the search results.

Tip
Google provides a free tool at http://labs.google.com/sets. This tool will show you a set of words related to your keywords or phrases. These words can be used in your content to provide a Preponderance of Relevant Content for your site or blog.

When you are creating content for your blog or website use semantically related words to boost the power of your keywords or phrases. Over a period of time, Google will learn that your content just doesn’t contain exact keywords but also is an authority site providing quality, relevant information to your visitors. This after all is what search engines want to do, provide relevant quality information for their users.

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