Search Engine Submissions

Search Engine Submission is to SEO what this performance is to great moments in musicianship – a slap in the face. Search engines follow links. If your website has any prominent links pointing to it, it will get crawled. Whether or not Google deems it worthy to be indexed is another matter entirely.

Here’s a little trick: type “site:yourdomain.com” into Google. Does your homepage show up? Then Google already knows about your website and re-submitting is not going to make any difference. Google itself says “We do not add all submitted URLs to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear.” And “Only the top-level page from a host is necessary; you do not need to submit each individual page. Our crawler, Googlebot, will be able to find the rest. Google updates its index on a regular basis, so updated or outdated link submissions are not necessary.”

Simple right? Not if you listen to some of our well-known competition:  “Submitting your website to search engines may sound like a simple task. But the process is complicated, and if done incorrectly, could cause serious repercussions” and “Submitting to search engines is not a one–time task. What was considered an important factor for ranking highly yesterday, may mean nothing tomorrow.”

There are thousands of search engines that you can submit to, but you already know which ones have the market share – and they all work the same way. Once your website is crawled, submitting it once or submitting it 10 times over isn’t going to do anything.

Think about it logically for a moment, how useful would any search engine be if it was dependent on manual submission by people to keep track of new or outdated webpages? Any such search engine would be a relic overnight. Search Engine Submission is just another way for SEO firms to extract your cash with a phantom service.

XML Sitemaps

From Google: “Sitemaps provide additional information about your site to Google, complementing our normal methods of crawling the web. We expect they will help us crawl more of your site and in a more timely fashion, but we can’t guarantee that URLs from your Sitemap will be added to the Google index. Sites are never penalized for submitting Sitemaps.” The key word there is complementing.

While an XML Sitemap is useful, there are definitely other things you can focus on that will make a much greater impact on your organic search performance. What’s the view from some of the prominent SEO firms out there? “Product X works by crawling and documenting all the pages, in a website, which is especially important for large, dynamic and catalog sites…Product X then sends this collected information directly to Google…Every webpage has organic sales potential, and it’s vital for overall online performance to get all relevant pages in front of potential customers. Product X makes sure this happens.”

This is concerning to me on a number of levels. First of all,  there are a number of free tools out there that will do the very same thing. Additionally, Google themselves say that Sitemap submission does not guarantee inclusion in the index. Finally, we’re simply talking about inclusion in the index, meaning the webpage is available to show up for a user search -  if the page itself is not optimized properly then it’s never going to be deemed relevant for a user search.

Do we create /submit XML Sitemaps for our clients? Yes. Do we position it as something that is going to explode their natural search traffic? No. Nor do we position it as a stand-alone service.

When so-called “reputable” firms push this bill of goods, it only adds to the confusion in the SEO marketplace. Even worse, it opens the door to the even more outrageous claims that the real fly-by-night outfits thrive on.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them here or check out Reprise Media folks on Twitter.

I regretfully informed them that this would not be the case. When you’re competing against millions of other websites with sometimes very similar information you need every edge you can get in satisfying user needs. If the visitor can’t find what they’re looking for on your website the easiest thing to find next is the exit. They can click back to the search results page (SERP) and move on to the next website. Additionally, it’s a bad branding experience for both the website and for the search engine that delivered the frustrating result. Search engines know that if their results aren’t usable, users will move on to another search platform. That’s why usability is crucial for both end users and search engines.

Keyword Prominence Leads To Search Dominance

When you click through from a SERP to a webpage how do you know what it’s about? You will instinctively look for a heading. If the heading (if there is one) is descriptive of the webpage you are able to “get” what the webpage is about in seconds. You have just determined page relevance. Wouldn’t you know it, search engines use page headers to determine relevance as well! The heading, sub-headings, page title, and page text all play a role in helping search engines determine page relevance, just as they do for a website’s vistor. That’s why it is critical to be descriptive of the page contents in all of these different areas of the webpage. Placing keywords in these prominent locations will enhance the user experience, while increasing your relevance and eventually your organic search traffic.

Can you tell what the above page is about? I’ll give you one hint: It’s not about Commerce Bank Benefits although that’s what the heading would lead you to believe. Can’t tell? Well, neither can search engines or potential customers.

What about this webpage? If you guessed mortgages you’re very astute. Incidentally that’s what the Commerce Bank webpage was about, too. The CitiBank webpage is one that both search engines and users will understand without having to poke around or lose patience.

The Story Must Be Told Above the Fold

If you can’t see it you can’t click on it. Seems simple enough right? You’d be surprised how many organizations forget this simple concept. They place important content “below the fold” which simply means the user can’t see the content unless they scroll down in their browser. When I’ve explained why no one has read the crucial bit of information or clicked on the desired link, I sometimes hear this response: “But the content and functionality are already there! All the user has to do is read the page!”

There lies the fly in the ointment: Internet users don’t read a webpage like they do a book. They scan a page looking for interesting and relevant items first before deciding to move on or explore the page in depth. Most will never take the time to scroll if they don’t find what they’re looking for in the visible portion of your webpage.

What can do you if moving important content above the fold is not an option? Several things, actually. Consider adding links to these areas on your top navigation bar or tabs so that users can get a feel of what lies below. Also, consider breaking up content among several pages. This can help develop more focused relevant page themes. In all these instances, clear cues at the top of the page help users and search engines determine content.

In the above picture content both below the fold and on another page are referenced at the top. In an instant a user can tell what information is likely to be in this article. Search Engines are also helped by having it broken out into clearly defined sections.

Usability Is Increasing in Importance

The ways in which we search for information on the internet are evolvinge every day. With blended or universal search results we are seeing more than just ten blue links being returned in SERPs. Personalized search means different users are seeing different results. Users can even block sites they don’t like from results. Additionally, search engines keep thinking of new ways to scrape information from your website and display it on their SERPs in a more useable format. They want to capture as many page views as possible by delivering what the user wants.

With all of these innovations and more sure to come, there is one constant that holds true no matter what – usability. No matter how search evolves, if users easily find what they want on your website you will continue to get search traffic simply because any search engine that doesn’t return your site in their results will be missing the usefulness their users crave.

Some companies have spent thousands of dollars on SEO only to see no results. Why? The SEO recommendations were not or could not be acted upon because they didn’t follow the lessons of the Five Rings. The Five SEO Rings will help make sure your next SEO initiative is a winning one.

1) The Expectation Ring

SEO is different than most other forms of online marketing – and paid search in particular. With paid search you can expect near instantaneous search result listings with relatively minimal effort. Paid search is great to generate search engine presence quickly.

SEO on the other hand is more of a holistic process. It can take weeks for search engines to pick up on the changes that you have made to your website. Additionally for many large organizations, getting SEO changes implemented can be a lengthy internal process in itself. While with paid search you can bid at certain levels to secure a specific ad position – no such guarantee exists in organic search. Finally, with paid search you can bid on as many keywords are you want. With SEO, the amount of keywords you will realistically rank for is limited by your website content.

Despite these caveats the reward for doing SEO right is substantial – high quality, long lasting and free web traffic. A realistic expectation of SEO results, timing and work required is the foundation of any successful campaign, and the key to The Expectation Ring.

2) The Interest Ring

That which is not understood will not hold anyone’s attention for long. The promise of this high quality, long lasting free web traffic is very exciting for a large organization – at first. Then comes the eye-glazing yawn inducing SEO vendor jargon of 301 redirects, robot.txt files, page rank sculpting, asynchronous JavaScript and XML . A clear road map and plan is needed to keep the organization interested and engaged. Everyone needs to know to what has been accomplished, what is to be accomplished ahead and what their role in the process is. One of the things we do at Reprise Media is to meet with our clients on a weekly basis to ensure continuity — everyone is on the same page. For a sometimes nebulous concept like SEO ongoing attention, engagement and clarity are the key elements to mastering the Interest Ring.

3. The Buy-In Ring

People don’t like extra work. People really don’t like extra work when it appears to be in conflict with what they’ve been doing already. Usability professionals can bristle at being asked to change a user interface for a search engine. After all, their primary concern is the user experience. Developers can get testy about having to modify their code for a search engine. Their focus is performance, scalability and security. Online editors feel constrained by having to write differently for search engines. They want to write for people. In all of these situations good SEO actually helps achieve the goals of each of these constituents.

Elements that enhance visitor usability like breadcrumb trails are also good for SEO (more on this in my next post). Similarly, eliminating excess CSS and Javascript from page code improves website performance and SEO results. And as I pointed out in a previous post, writing for the web can make your content more attractive to search engines as well as to readers. SEO is not diametrically opposed to the goals of other departments in your organization. The key is to educate these departments on how SEO is mutually beneficial to them. Only then will you have mastered The Buy-In Ring.

4. The Customization Ring

The secret to losing weight is pretty simple – eat less, exercise more. Now, we all know that to be the case but hardly anyone would call the previous statement an actual weight loss plan. A plan would have to consist of a personalized approach that takes into account variables like lifestyle, physical limitations, dietary restrictions, etc. Unfortunately, some SEO agency deliverables fall into the “eat less exercise more” category with sage advice like “use keywords in your title tag”. Generalized “best practices” are not going to help you move the needle significantly on organic search traffic.

Further, just about every general SEO “best practice” can be learned about on the web for free. The key questions to ask is how do “best practices” apply to your organization, how do you incorporate them, and how do you build on them? What are the technical limitations of the website / content management system? What does the publishing workflow look like in your organization? What are the design elements that are not under your control? What upcoming offline marketing initiatives can be capitalized on from an SEO perspective? Just a few of the questions that need to be asked in order to truly understand what can realistically and effectively be implemented for your organization. When you’ve answered this you will be ready to customize your SEO program to your organization’s specific needs, and you will have mastered The Customization Ring.

5. The Measurement Ring

The only question I’m asked more often than whether I accept health insurance is how do you measure SEO ROI? Well, there are a number of ways. At a basic level, you should at least be tracking overall organic search traffic, the number of keywords (keyword diversity) referring traffic and rankings for important keywords (although the importance of ranking continues to diminish as search results become more personalized).

The next level involves defining what you want your organic search traffic to do. What are the KPIs (key performance indicators) within your organization? Is it a certain number of pageviews? Signups for a newsletter? Online Purchases? Whatever the case may be, it is important to be able to track and measure the performance of the engagement. You can use your data to then make further SEO enhancements with greater knowledge. Once you have mastered The Measurement Ring, then truly, you will have evolved from an SEO grasshopper to an SEO Master.

Divided Your Microsites Are Weak

Different organizations have different definitions of what constitutes a microsite, but for our purposes let’s use the always dependable Wikipedia definition : “…an individual web page or cluster of pages which are meant to function as an auxiliary supplement to a primary website.” Organizations usually create a separate URL or subdomain of the main URL to house these microsites.

This is bad from an SEO perspective for a number of reasons. There are millions of domains out there on the web. So how do search engines know who they can trust? In part, some of the things they look at are domain age and link development. It stands to reason that the older a domain is the more legitimate it probably is. Also, the more links that a website has pointing back to it the more trusted and relevant it is considered by others. When you build a microsite on its own domain or even a subdomain, you’re essentially starting from scratch. There is no history for the search engines to rely upon. So, all of your separate microsite domains are fighting on their own when they could be piggybacking on the trust your main website domain has already established simply by creating a section for them.

A perfect example of this is Converse’s recent microsite initiative. They created 20 separate microsites on different domains and linked them together with an interface sort of similar to StumbleUpon.com. None of these domains have any history or trust built so the chances of them ranking for relevant searches are slim. Additionally, not all of the domains are easy to remember or spell as evidenced by…

www.atleastyourenotlostatseafor13days.com and,

www.dentalsurgerydoesntstoppatriotism.com

…among others. So, unless you search on these domain names directly or are willing to type in 30+ characters into your browser address bar good luck finding these sites (both situations assume you already know the 20 microsite names). You can always just Google “converse microsites” or “converse minisites.” However you won’t find Converse ranked anywhere — you will find some advertising industry websites that talk about the marketing campaign. I suppose Converse didn’t care about users being able to find their new microsites through search.

When Do Separate URLs Make Sense?

There are only two situations I can think of where separate URLs for a microsite would make sense. First, if you don’t care if users find the website through search. Now, why you wouldn’t want more people visiting your website is beyond me, but if you put every page on its own domain or subdomain you’ll be able to eliminate a significant chunk of organic search traffic. The second is if you plan on eventually building out the microsite to have full featured content. In that situation it may make sense to have a separate domain since the microsite will eventually have its own stand alone identity. Such is the case with Proctor and Gamble who have a main site and a website dedicated to usage and coupons for P&G products. In the vast majority of cases however, uniting your microsites will help in your battle for search engine rankings.

Building is Half the Battle

It’s been said that when climbing a mountain, celebrating at the summit is the last thing you want to do. Why? Because you still have to descend and that can be more dangerous than the climb. I’m willing to bet that right now in the boardroom of a major organization there is group of executives, designers, technology and marketing professionals all very excited on their mountaintops over the launch of a shiny new website. And they should be, it’s an exciting time, but it’s not the end of the journey. Today there are a number of people who find your website through organic search. At this very moment there is probably someone typing a search term into Google and hitting return. Your website is showing up first so the user clicks through. This could even represent the biggest source of traffic for your website. If you think that number is going to remain constant or improve with a redesign that hasn’t taken search engines into account you’re in for a rude awakening. It’s possible to lose virtually all your organic search traffic with a redesign. The earlier in the redesign process you start thinking about search, the better. Your organization can save time and money by incorporating SEO while your website is being built instead of modifying the website after it’s been launched. Building a great website that no one can find doesn’t benefit anyone. Don’t climb a mountain without a plan to get back down.

Search Engines Don’t Like Websites That Are Invisible

Revisiting our brick and mortar store for a moment: Bad enough that your business was moved to nowhere, now just imagine if it was invisible, too! That’s what happens when attempts to “modernize” your website rely too heavily on rich media like flash or dynamic elements like AJAX. Sure, search engines have gotten better at reading and indexing flash and dealing with certain coding elements but it’s still not uncommon for users to see a rich media experience when visiting your website and for a search engine to see absolutely nothing. You may have recently seen the commercials for the LG Scarlet line of flat-screen TVs. LG has slick TV ads and a pretty website, but does that mean it’s getting read by search engines? Let’s disable Javascript in a web browser and find out.

Visitors see a rich, dynamic user interface that is consistent with the TV advertising campaign.

Search Engines see an improperly formatted image statement, a link to download the latest version of flash and another link that points back to the same page. None of these things are going to help search engine rankings. Essentially, this page has no chance of ranking for anything else but the LG Scarlet brand name and therefore missing out on huge amounts of generic search term volume.

Don’t Send Users To Nowhere

Over the years your website has developed hundreds if not thousands of links on other sites that point back to it. These could be links from news articles, blogs, directories – any webpage really. Links are very valuable to your website and are hard to attain. They can be a major source of click-through traffic for your website. Search engines also use these links to determine what your page is about and how relevant it is. Now picture your organization flushing all that link equity down the toilet in one fell swoop. That’s what happens when your new website structure doesn’t take into account the structure of the old one. All those valuable links from other websites are now potentially broken. When a user clicks on one of these links they don’t find what they’re looking for or worse get the dreaded 404 error page – “Page Not Found”. That’s what search engines see, too. A URL redirection plan is critical for delivering a solid user experience and preserving your existing link equity with search engines.

Failure to Plan is Planning for Failure

Nothing quite sums it up like an awesome business cliché! Remember, your organization can save time, money and fire drills by including SEO in the redesign process from the outset.

Why should I read your article?

Let’s say I’m on my way to work and I’m browsing through the latest Wall Street Journal. I’m not necessarily looking for anything in particular – just trying to keep up with the latest business news. I might have a favorite section that I read on a regular basis. Mostly, however, I’m skimming the paper for articles that catch my attention. In the Opinion section I come across an article titled: “$600 Million Baby”. Below that is the capsule: “A new tax on Fannie Mae to fund Congress’s political buddies.” Blasted politicians! The headline grabbed my attention and the capsule gave me more info for context. I have the full article in front of me and I see it’s a quick read so I check it out.

Now let’s say I’m visiting the Wall Street Journal website. Essentially, I’m doing the same thing – scanning the homepage for articles that grab my attention. What does our article look like on the Wall Street Journal homepage?

There is simply a link that says “$600 Million Baby”. Is the article about someone’s pet project, an expensive genetically modified baby, the Million Dollar Man’s offspring or what? Who knows, and more importantly who cares? In the split second available to grab the reader’s attention online an ambiguous headline with scant context will most likely be ignored. Seeing this headline link in search results or RSS feeds would be even more confusing. If no one knows what the article is about, why would they click on it?

Can I even find your article?

Now imagine that I’m at a search engine instead of the Wall Street Journal website. Let’s say I’m interested in reading about Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, affordable housing, the mortgage bailout or something similar (all topics covered in the article). It stands to reason I will type in those kinds of search terms in Google, Yahoo, Live or whichever search engine I’m using. This Wall Street Journal article might have exactly the content I’m looking for, but the chances of it showing up in search results for those queries are slim. Search engines will naturally rank articles that mention the relevant terms in the headline first. What does the above article tell search engines?

Anchor text pointing to article: “$600 Million Baby”

Title tag: “$600 Million Baby”

Headline: “$600 Million Baby”

The Wall Street Journal has essentially communicated to search engines that this article is about a high priced baby. Without even doing the research, I’m going to go out on a limb and say there is virtually no search volume on that.

Consider Being Literal

Although being literal with web headlines might cramp your writing style a bit there is one undeniable benefit: more readers – both from your site and from search engine results.

From a click-through and usability perspective if the reader understands what the article is about there is a greater chance of that article being read. A rule of thumb that Reprise tells all of its publishing clients is: Can you understand what the article is about based on the headline alone? On the web, that is often all the user sees before deciding to click through.

From a search engine optimization perspective if you’re using literal, descriptive language in the headline then most likely you are using the right keywords in the right places. This is going to help the article rank for relevant searches and capitalize on the wealth of readers that find content through search engines.

Take, for example, the Wachovia Vehicle Loan webpage. From an internal perspective, this webpage probably makes perfect sense to Wachovia. They offer loans for any type of vehicle: cars, boats, motorcycles, etc. Therefore, they think the webpage should focus on “vehicle loans” because it encompasses loans for many types of transportation. This is clearly communicated to both search engines and customers with prominent placement of “vehicle loans” language throughout the webpage.

But are “vehicle loans” what consumers are searching for? A Google Trends analysis illustrates that this isn’t necessarily the case.

It’s a safe bet that most people are not going to leave a car dealership thinking, “Wow, that vehicle I test-drove today was great! I better start searching for a vehicle loan.” Instead, they’re probably searching for their needs using their own language: “auto loan,” “car loan,” “boat loan,” and so on.

So where does Wachovia rank for auto loan, car loan, boat loan and motorcycle loan searches? Wachovia is not in the top 100 search results of any major search engine for these terms. Clearly, they are missing an opportunity for search engine traffic by focusing on what they offer instead of what their prospective customer is searching for.

In sum, keep keyword myopia at bay by focusing on the bigger picture –by optimizing your website with the consumer in mind, you create a broader opportunity to capture your target audience.