Growth Despite Persecution:
I recently went on a trip to China. While the Chinese government has loosened its grip on its people somewhat in the past few decades, it is still far from a free country. This is especially true in area of religion. The majority of the Chinese people are Buddhist, but the Christian church is present in China. There are state sanctioned churches throughout China with a total of about 15-20 million members. These churches, however, tend to be somewhat watered down and outright evangelism isn’t seen (You won’t find any traditional church marketing there). Because the official state churches tend to be somewhat watered down, there is a big movement in underground house churches. Since these house churches are underground, the membership figures are hard to pin down, but there are estimates ranging from 60-130 million members. Despite the risk of persecution, imprisonment and even death, the Christian church is growing quickly in China. Less than 60 years ago there were only a few million Christians (somewhere between 700,000 and 3 million). God is great indeed. Throughout the history of the church God has worked mightily in persecuted areas. The persecution is meant to diminish or destroy the Christian Church, but thanks to God, persecution of the church often leads to growth. China is no different.

Americans Who Are Not Free:
So, what about us in the “free” world? Despite the prominence of Christianity in America, there are still millions of people who do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior. In the U.S. we enjoy the freedom of religion, but as Christians we enjoy a freedom far greater. Our Freedom in Christ is the freedom the soul longs for and the hearts of man seek, freedom from sin and condemnation. We live in a free nation with millions of people enslaved to sin. In China, they may not live in a free nation, but millions of people have found true freedom. We have the key to that freedom and need to do everything we can to reach those without Christ.

Will You Take the Risk?
Are we doing everything we can? In most cases the biggest risks we in the U.S. face is spending a little of the vast wealth Western churches possess or the possibility of being ridiculed. While in China I visited a Buddhist temple. At the temple I saw hundreds of people bowing before idols praying to false Gods and it broke my heart. But is that any different from the idols Americans worship? We don’t often see temples with large man-made religious idols, but we see people all around us with their false idols of money, fame, the earth, human achievement, and others. While the risks in the U.S. and other Western countries are less, the stakes are every bit as great. People, all people, need Christ.

As we approach this day where we Americans celebrate our national freedom, are we willing to sacrifice and take risks for Christ or will we let freedom and wealth lull us into being a lazy, impassionate church? Let us thank the Lord for our freedom, both national freedom and spiritual freedom, but let us also be passionate for Christ and committed to reaching everyone with the freeing Gospel of Jesus Christ in any and every means possible, both online and offline.

Promote this article at GospelScoop, GospelShout, PlugRug, and Blogs4God.

How are you speading the Word of Jesus? Share your ideas of sharing the freedom we find in christ with others, stories of how God has worked in your life in the face of difficulty or persecution, or share any comments you have about the article.

Take a look
Tracking and reporting are as natural to search engine optimization as weighing yourself when you’re on a diet. Yet, many people don’t track the results of their SEO work. Some people track the results of the optimization and link building simply by noticing whether their site seems to be busier. Others go as far as running a search ranking report a few weeks after the initial SEO is completed, but don’t continue running reports assuming their rankings will not change. Meanwhile, they may be targeting the wrong keywords, their rankings are probably dropping, and they may be missing great opportunities.

The SEO Diet:
Let’s run with the diet analogy for a minute. Optimization and link building are like diet and exercise. When you are trying to loose weight, you do the work of dieting and exercising, but you also get on the scale every day. You track how far you can run, how much weight you can lift, or how many inches your waste has shrunk. These are all important things to do because it tells you if what you are doing is working and it encourages you to continue. As you see the pounds coming off, it motivates you to continue. Similarly, you can see if the SEO is working or if the optimization for some keywords needs to be re-evaluated do to poor performance. You can determine what keywords need more than just on-page optimization and thus need to be targeted when link building. Also, as you see your rankings improving and your website traffic increasing, it can encourage you and motivate you to push on.

Search Ranking Reports:
The primary way most people track the results of search engine optimization is by running search ranking reports. These reports tell you where your website is currently ranking in the major search engines for your targeted keywords. The reports themselves don’t affect your rankings, but they do give you insight into the effect of the work you have done and what areas you may need to improve on.

Let’s say when you first started the optimization process, you decided to target some less competitive keywords because your website was new and you wanted to start getting more website traffic as soon as possible. As part of your plan, you targeted those keywords with both the on-page optimization as well as the link building. As you were doing this, you ran search ranking reports regularly and tracked the results of the work. After a month or two, the reports indicate that your website is now in the top results for all those keywords. This tells you not only that what you’re doing is working, but also that you can now start targeting new keywords with the link building. You may want to continue to target the old keywords with a small percentage of your link building to maintain the high ranking for those keywords, but you know that you can now start targeting more competitive keywords.

Conversely, as you run reports to track your results, you may find that your website is slipping in the rankings for some keywords. This information will let you know that you either lost some of the optimization of the pages targeting these keywords when editing your website or you need to do some additional link building targeting the keywords. Without running the reports, you wouldn’t know this and would be working blindly.

Details…Details….Details:
When trying to loose weight, most people have several aspects to their strategy. They do cardio workouts, aerobics, and weight lifting as well as eating certain foods at certain times. Now imagine you are dieting and exercising and someone tells you they can tell you exactly which foods are helping you loose weight and which are hurting your weight loss efforts. They can also tell you which exercises are most effective and which you are wasting effort on, not just because they know what tends to work, but because they can monitor exactly how your individual body is being affected by each food choice or exercise. Similarly, when trying to get more traffic and more conversions through your website, you target a variety of different keywords and use various optimization methods. Now imagine someone can tell you exactly which keywords are actually bringing people to your site, and which keywords are producing the most conversions and bringing the most new people in contact with your ministry. Welcome to the world of analytics. Analytics is software that can track traffic to and from your website as well as on your website. With analytics software you can see how many people are coming to your site from inbound links you’ve gotten or from the search engines. The software can tell you which keywords people searched for when they found and visited your website. It can even tell you how long they stayed on your site, what pages they visited, and whether or not they completed certain tasks like completing an information request form. In addition to giving you insights into your website design, this is invaluable information that can serve as the other side of the keyword research coin.

Analytics:

Keyword research tells you the popularity and competitiveness of keywords. Analytics can tell you the effectiveness of those keywords.

• You may find that even when you rank well for certain keywords, people don’t click through to your site for those keywords. The keyword popularity predicts 500 searches a day and, even though you rank number 1, you are only getting 5-10 clicks a day. This may indicate that the people searching for that keyword aren’t actually looking for what you are offering. So, it may be a good idea change the SEO / link building from targeting that keyword to target another keyword. 
• You may also find that a large percentage of visitors searching for a lower popularity keyword not only click through to your site, but end up contacting the church. This could lead you to focus more attention on that keyword to make sure you rank number 1. 
• Analytics reports may indicate that links on certain types of sites (maybe other church sites or local city listing sites) produce more traffic than other links. This would indicate that it would be more valuable to focus your link building efforts on getting links on those kinds of sites.

These are just the tip of the iceberg of the information you can get from analytics. There are several analytics options to choose from include software you can purchase, professional analytics management services, and free analytics options. One of the more popular (and free) analytics options is Google Analytics.

An Ever Changing Landscape:
The search engines are constantly changing. New sites area being created and shut down every day. More sites are realizing the value of search engine optimization. New strategies for SEO and link building are developed. Even the search engines themselves change as they try to refine their algorithms to produce the most relevant search results. All this means that your search engine rankings are going to change, keyword popularity will change, and links will come and go. Thus for a website you want to become and stay successful, the SEO work is never really done. Running reports, tracking keywords, and watching how visitors interact with your website is essential for devising an effective strategy for search engine marketing.

What is Link Building?
Simply put, link building is anything and everything you do to get people to link back to your site. You want someone to put a link on their site that leads to your site. These are known as inbound links. There are many strategies out there for how to link build, but in the end, the goal is the same: get as many links as possible from relevant sites.

What is the Best Link Building Strategy:
There are a lot of different strategies for link building. The reality is that there really isn’t a single, ultimate link building strategy. For some, one strategy will work better than others depending on your personality and the amount of time you put into the link building. Also, as time goes on, different strategies tend to trend as being more or less effective. Some strategies work well for a while and then general attitude of people starts to change and so your strategy has to change.

My advice is to look around for different strategies and brainstorm for your own ideas and give them a shot. See which ones work best for you and which you enjoy (or at least don’t dread). After all, if you hate doing something, you’re not going put the time and effort you would need to in order to succeed. Go with what works and try new ideas as well. Remember, the Internet is always changing, so for the best results it good to keep trying new strategies. Social media (blogs, MySpace, YouTube, GodTube, etc.) are very popular right now, so be sure to consider ideas using the social media.

Link Building Strategies:
Below is a list of link building strategies to get you started. It certainly isn’t an exhaustive list, but it can get you moving in the right direction and help give you ideas.

• Denominations and Associations: If you belong to a denomination or association of churches, make sure the main denomination/association website has a link to your church’s website. Most denominations have an online directory of sorts, so you will probably be able to simply request that your church’s site be listed. Even better than just being listed in the directory would be to see if you can get a special feature or story posted on the site about your church. There may also be regional divisions of the denomination such as districts, states, or dioceses. Get a link on every one of those sites. These are especially good links to get because they are extremely relevant and denomination/association headquarter websites tend to be seen as authoritative sites by the search engines.

• Other Churches: See if other churches will link to your church’s site. This is especially probable from other churches within your denomination or association, but any church may be willing to link. If they ask for you to link back to their site, don’t be afraid to do that.

• Search for church related sites and contact their webmaster requesting a link: These can be sites that offer church supplies, church related services, help setup and promote church events, etc. If you contact them via email, be sure to send a personalized message which shows you are familiar with the recipient’s website/organization and be sure to address specific reasons why it would be beneficial for them to link to your site. Emails aren’t the most personal form of communication. A phone call or even a visit (if they are local) can be very effective. Tip: Links from sites related to your site’s topic are more valuable than links from unrelated sites. So, focus on getting links from Christian or church related sites. Sites related to the city your church is in can be relevant as well and help with local keywords.

• Register your website with directories: This is one of the easier link building strategies as you don’t have to convince someone to list you (that’s what directories do) and there are plenty of sites that don’t require reciprocal linking (reciprocal linking is when you have to link back to the other site). Directories are also helpful in telling the search engines what your site is about because you put your listing in a specific category. If you don’t want to spend hours and hours submitting your site to directories, there are companies that offer directory registration services. Christian directories and church locator sites are especially good.

• Ask your members: Unlike most companies, churches have a built in support base. People who not only like the church but want to actively support the church. Your members may have personal sites, MySpace profiles, or company websites where they can put links to your church. They want to help, so don’t be afraid to ask.

• Offer services: This may be something like starting a food bank, becoming a Salvation Army drop-off location, or hosting midnight basketball. These are services churches and businesses can support regardless of denomination or religious affiliation, broadening the spectrum of websites that are willing to link to you. As a bonus, these can be great ministries helping the community, giving members ways to serve, and bringing people to Christ. Professional services can also be effective. Most churches already offer wedding facilities. If you have a gym or fellowship hall, you could make the facilities available for people to rent. Spread the word around town to event planners and other organizations and ask them to link to your church.

• Schedule an Event: Hold a concert at your church or bring in a special guest speaker. Host a conference or charity event. It’s natural for people, companies, radio stations, etc. to link to the website of the place hosting and event. So, you probably won’t even need to ask people to add a link.

• Create great content: This is both the easiest and most difficult way to get links, depending on how you look at it. It’s easy because you don’t actually do anything specifically trying to get links. The idea is that if your site has enough great content, people will want to link to your site without you having to even ask. On the other hand, it can be difficult to create great content and continue to offer new great content year after year. Most churches don’t ever even think of offering great content on their site. They limit their site to announcements and general info about the church, but you can also have Bible studies, topical resources, online tools, and other content available on the church’s website. The extra benefit of this strategy is that it not only can generate links, but it also keeps visitors coming back giving you lots of return traffic and gets more people to visit the church.

• Request links on local information/service sites: Most cities have at least some sites dedicated to information about the city. Some examples would be the city’s Chamber of Commerce, sites listing local places of worship, tourist information sites, etc. The purpose of these sites is to list websites and locations like your church. So, you have a good chance of getting a link. In addition to just getting an extra link, links from these types of sites also reinforce to the search engines that your church is from that city. That helps you to rank better for local keywords.

• Create content, video, or pictures that are unique and exciting and then promote them around social media outlets (YouTube, MySpace, etc): This can be a lot of fun and have a great message. Videos, especially, can be a great youth group activity. Done right, you can create what’s called a viral marketing campaign where people find your content and tell others about it. Those people tell their friends who tell their friends, etc. If successful a viral campaign can generate thousands of links in a very short amount of time. The Real Men of Genius video we posted on the ChurchMarketingOnline site a few weeks ago is a great example of video a church was able to produce and release to get links.

It’s Too Hard:
One of the biggest reasons that people don’t engage in a link campaign is that they think it will be too hard, or if they hire someone else to do it, it will be too expensive. As you can see in the ideas above, that’s not necessarily true. Yes, there are some strategies that are more difficult and can be very time consuming, but there are other strategies that are relatively simple or only have a short time commitment. Asking your members to link to the church site or offering something for free on your site are examples of strategies that don’t have to have an enormous time commitment. It may take a little time get the free information/tool on your site, but once it’s up, it takes very little maintenance. Registering with directories is a relatively simple strategy that can get you a lot of one-way links in a short period of time. It can take some time, but there are companies that offer good directory submission services that aren’t expensive. So, yes, it can be hard and time consuming to run an effective link building campaign, but it doesn’t have to be. There are a lot of ways to get links relative easily, inexpensively, and without taking a lot of time.

Time to Get in Gear:
The purpose of your church’s website is to have an online presence for your ministry. Link building is a way to increase that online presence, to reach more people, and expand your ministry. In search marketing, inbound links that have been around awhile can be given more weight than new links. So, it’s best to start sooner rather than later. You don’t have to choose just one strategy. In fact it’s usually best to use several, especially creating great content on your site. It’s time to start getting links to your site and turn your website into an online juggernaut for Christ.

If you have any comments or any other link building ideas, please share them below.

What is On-Page Optimization?
On-page optimization refers to all the optimization done on the actual pages of your website. This includes both visible elements, like optimizing text, and behind-the-scenes work, like optimizing META tags. Search Engine Optimization has essentially three main parts, keyword research, on-page optimization, and track/reporting. (You could also technically include link building). These elements of SEO could also be described as research, implementation, and tracking the results. On-page optimization is the implementation stage of search engine optimization. With on-page optimization, you target specific keywords and help the search engines to rank you well for these keywords. (If you’re not sure what keywords to target, read our article on Keyword Research)

On-Page Optimization Elements:
The optimization of a web page involves several different elements of the page. Below I’ll go through these elements and discuss a little about them:

Title Tag: This is one of the most important elements in on-page optimization. The title tag is an element found in the head of the page. Look for the <title> and </title> tags. What comes between these tags is the title tag. The title tag is visible to visitors, but not in the body of the page, rather it is displayed in the top bar of the web browser. The title tag should be a short description of the page and should contain the keywords you want to target for that page.

Description META Tag: The description tag is not as heavily weighted as the Title tag, but it should still be optimized. It is located in the head of the page, usually just below the title tag. The coding for the description tag is <meta name=”description” content=””>. The text used between the quotes after content= is the description META tag. The description tag is not seen on the web page, but some search engines do use the description tag in the search listings. The description tag can be longer than the title tag, but should still be relatively short and should contain each of the keywords you are targeting.

Keyword META Tag: The keyword tag is honestly all but ignored by the search engines at this point, but it should still be optimized. Every little bit helps. It is located in the header of the page, usually just below the title tag. The coding for the description tag is <meta name=” keywords” content=””>. The text used between the quotes after content= is the keyword META tag. The keyword tag is not seen on the web page or anywhere else. Keyword should be separated by a comma and a space, and keywords should not be repeated (i.e. “church, Lutheran church, youth group”). Notice that “church” and “Lutheran church” are considered two different keywords even though they both contain the word “church”.

File Name: It’s never too early to start thinking about SEO. When you are creating the page, consider your keywords when you name the page file (if you have that option). Instead of using a file name like “directions.html”, use a file name like “directions-to-Atlanta-church.html”. If you use more than one word in the file name, it is best to separate the words by hyphens as search engines see hyphens as word breaks. If you have created a site with OurChurch.Com’s NE1™ Web Builder, you can add keywords into the page address by using the “SEO Words” feature of the page.

Alt Tags: Alt tags are attributes that can be added to images. Search engines can’t read pictures, but they do read alt tags. So, alt tags allow you to get some SEO value from those pictures on your site. Generally, the alt tag should describe the picture, but you can usually do that in a way that includes a keyword or two. You can add an alt tag to a images by adding alt=”” in the <img> tag. If you are using a web builder, their may be an alt option or possibly a description or title option. Alt tags are viewable by visitors. If someone mouse over a picture, a text box will show the alt tag.

On-Page Links: Incoming links are great for helping websites in the search engines, but your internal linking structure (the way each page in your website links to other pages in the site) can help as well (though not as much). Use keywords in the link text. So, instead of “Homepage” use “Grace Baptist Church Homepage” or if you want it shorter, just “Church Home”. In addition to using keywords in the link text, you can also add title attributes. Title attributes are to links what alt tags are to pictures. Just add title=”” in the <a> tag. Like the alt tag, title attributes are visible to visitors if they mouse over the link. Tip: If you have graphical link, you can use both an alt and a title tag.

Text: Using keywords in the text on your page is probably the most important element of on-page optimization, though the Title tag is nearly as important. Search engines read the text on a page to determine what the page is about. The key is what’s called keyword density, how many times a word or phrase is used on a page compared to how much text there is. The more times a word or phrase is used, the more important that word or phrase is (except for words like “and” and “the”). The trick with optimizing text is getting the right balance. You want to use keywords multiple times on a page, but not over-do it. It’s difficult to say how many times you should use your keywords, as it will depend on how much text you have on your page, but I’d suggest using the keywords at least three times.

H tags: <H> tags are used for paragraph headings and titles. There are 6 <H> tags, <H1> through <H6> (creative huh?). In HTML these tags include several characteristics, including size, weight (boldness), and a line break. An <H1> tag will be very large and bold, while an <H6> tag is small. Because these tags are used for headings and titles, the search engines place extra weight on words used in <H> tags. The weight they give also depends on which <H> tag is used. <H1> is given more weight than <H3> and <H3> more weight than <H4>. Be sure to use your keywords in <H> tags. If you do not like the appearance of the text when it’s placed in an <H> tag, then you can use CSS or HTML to change the font attributes, though there is some debate as to whether that effects the amount of weight the search engines give the <H> tag.

Baby Steps
Optimization is a comprised of several small elements that work together to get the result of higher rankings for targeted keywords. Each element adds to the affect. You may find, however, that you cannot or do not want to optimize every element of your page. That can affect the results, but just because you can’t do everything, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything. Every element you optimize is another step towards that #1 ranking.

Warning!!!
There are certain practices that the search engines tell us they do not approve of. This is generally known in the SEO world as “Black Hat” SEO. The search engines warn that they will punish website that employ these tactics and possibly ban the site. Here are a few of the more common “Black Hat” practices:

• Keyword Stuffing: This is the practice of putting a bunch of keywords on a page, in a META tag, in an alt tag, etc. for the purpose of influencing the search engines. This is not to be confused with simply using keywords in these elements, but when you use the keywords you shouldn’t just stick a bunch of keywords in some chaotic fashion. The text should make sense and should not just be a list of keywords.
• Tricking the Search Engines with Irrelevant Keywords: This is when you use certain keywords in the behind the scenes elements of a page to make it look like a page is about one topic, when the actual subject matter is something completely different. I’ve actually seen some churches doing this where they use keywords like “gambling” or some other vice in the hopes that someone looking for a gambling site will stumble across their page and read the Gospel or be told that what their doing is a sin. The page isn’t actually about gambling, but they are trying to trick the search engines into thinking it is so the show up in gambling related search results. It would be better for them to just create a page about gambling additions.
• Doorway pages: Doorway pages are pages designed for the search engines that human visitors never actually see. Unlike cloaking, a human visitor may actually go to the page, but they are quickly redirected to another page, sometimes so fast that the visitor doesn’t even realize they were redirected.
• Hiding Content: Along with Keyword Stuffing, this is probably the most common “Black Hat” technique because this is something average, everyday webmasters can come up with and implement very easily. Hidden content can be done in several ways. Sometimes people hide text behind a picture. Other times they make the text so small people can’t read it. Another common way to hide content is by making the text the same color as the background. How ever it’s done, the idea is to put text on the page that humans won’t see, but search engines will.

All of these tactics are designed to trick the search engines. The search engine people don’t like that. I never recommend using black hat techniques. They are just too risky and you should be able to get the same desired results from good SEO practices. Be aware, if you do use some of these techniques, you may get away with it for a while and may even see great rewards, but most sites get caught. In the end, it isn’t worth it if you get punished or banned!!

Make It Natural:
One of the most difficult aspects of on-page optimization is balancing the optimization and the experience of the visitors. You should always design for your visitors. The search engines should always be second. After all, does it matter if you get thousands of visitors if they all leave after 3 seconds because they can’t stand being on your site. So, it’s a balance. Choose keywords wisely so they naturally fit into the topic of the page and then work them into the text in way that is natural to the visitor.

Don’t Leave Your Net in the Boat!
Whether you do it yourself or hire an expert SEO, Optimize Your Website; not just your homepage, all your web pages. Each page is like a fishing net. Not optimizing a page is like leaving that net in your boat instead of using it to catch fish (or visitors). This is something to consider even before you create your website when you are choosing your web host. Many hosts include web builders that either make it very difficult to fully optimize a website or completely impossible. I’ll take this moment to blatantly promote OurChurch.Com here. When designing the NE1™ web builder, OurChurch.Com intentionally considered search engine optimization and made sure any page can be fully optimized and that it can be done easily within the web builder.

Why is Keyword Research Critical?
Keyword research determines which keywords you should be targeting with the SEO. Most people think that they know which keywords they should target. Instinct can be a great resource, but it can also be misleading and is almost always not enough. For example, “search engine optimization” gets an estimated 13,000 searches a day while “search engine marketing” gets an estimated 1,100 searches a day. If your gut tells you to target “search engine marketing”, you may get great rankings, but it would only get you a fraction of the traffic that you could have had if you had targeted and ranked well for “search engine optimization”. There are also keywords that you may not be able to rank well for without a lot of time and significant amount of link building regardless of how well you optimize your site. In addition, there are keywords that other people will use to search for what your site offers that you would never even think of. So, in addition to letting you know which keywords are more popular, the research can also provide new keywords to target.

Drawing on the analogy in our search marketing parable, optimizing your website without first doing keyword research is like trying to pick apples from a tree without first checking to see if there are any apples on it or if the apples are within your reach. You could end up putting in a lot of effort but going home with little fruit from your labor.

What Do I Research?
There are two main aspects to keyword research. The first is popularity, how often are keywords actually searched for. Unfortunately, Google, Yahoo, and MSN don’t share the actual number of searches for specific keywords; however, there are a few tools online which are generally thought to be pretty accurate. They use the search data from a number of other smaller search engines along with a few algorithms to predict how many searches are being made for specific keywords. It’s not perfect, but it gives you an idea of which keywords are most popular.

The second aspect to keyword research is competition research. Competition research starts with analyzing your web pages to determine how competitive your site is both in general and for specific keywords. This is sometimes referred to as page strength. I should note that there are really two aspects to page strength, the general strength of a site and the specific strength of a page within the site. For the sake of simplicity, in this article I will use “web page” for both. The next step is to examine the keywords themselves to see how competitive they are. This is sometimes called keyword difficulty. Determining keyword difficulty is done partially by examining how competitive the pages are that rank well for this keyword, though other methods can be helpful as well. This can be tricky for two reasons.

1. No one other than that search engine designers knows how each search engine determines how competitive a site or page is and the search engine folks aren’t talking.
2. Each search engine has a different way of determining how competitive a site or page is. So, even if you could figure out one, it wouldn’t necessarily be so with the other search engines.

Despite these difficulties the search engines do give us some general information about what makes web pages competitive (what determines page strength).

Understanding Competition:
The competitive strength of a web page is determined by several factors including:

• Age – Generally speaking, the older a site is, the more value the search engines give it. New sites have a much harder time competing for keywords. Similarly, new pages start off less competitive, but, if the rest of your site is strong, new pages will quickly gain page strength.
• Traffic – The more popular a site is, the more value the search engines give it. Getting more visitors (web traffic) to a website increases page strength.
• Internal Linking Structure – The internal linking structure of a site is both a reference to the navigation menus and other forms of linking from one page of your site to another. This is an often-overlooked aspect of both site design and SEO. Don’t underestimate the value of a good internal link structure.
• Inbound Links – The most prominent piece of the competition puzzle, inbound links (also called back links and incoming links) are a key component in determining a web page’s competitive strength. Generally, the more inbound links you have the better, but quantity isn’t as important as quality. Links from authoritative sites (Sites that are very competitive) are worth far more than links from lesser sites, and links from sites relevant to your keywords are worth more than links from unrelated sites. Also, you do not only need to consider the inbound links to the specific page you are optimizing. The links directed to other pages of your website will increase the overall competitive strength of the website and thus the individual pages of that site as well. (We’ll talk more about this in a future article on link building.)

These are some of the key elements to determining a page’s competitive strength. As you can see this is starting to get complicated. There are some online tools available to help, but there is a wide range of ideas about what is important and how important each element is. Instead of using just one tool, you may want to use several. It will take longer, but may give you a more accurate assessment. In the end, if you keep track of your keyword research and your results, you may find one tool is more accurate than the others and be able to trust that tool over the others. This can help you determine how competitive your page or site is and whether you have a chance at ranking well for a particular keyword at this time. By looking at how competitive the other web pages are that currently rank well for a keyword, you can compare that to how competitive your page is. If your page is about as competitive as the other sites, you should be able to rank well for that keyword after optimizing your page. If the other sites are stronger than your site, then you should choose less competitive keywords until you’ve improved the strength of your web page. If the other sites are weaker, then the keyword is a sitting duck.

Other Ways to Determine Keyword Difficulty:
Adwords: In addition to evaluating the other web pages competing for the keywords you want, it can be helpful when attempting to determine how competitive a keyword is to look at other sources such as pay-per-click search marketing stats. Google Adwords has a tool that will show you the estimated cost per click to rank well in the paid search results for a keyword. If that cost per click is high, that’s an indication the keyword difficulty is high as well (it’s also an indication that the keyword is valuable).
Keyword Effectiveness Index: Another way some people determine keyword difficulty is the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). KEI values are usually available with keyword popularity tools. The KEI compares the number of searches a keyword gets to the number of results that keyword brings up in a search engine. If a keyword gets 100 searches a day and a search on Google returns 1000 results, then the Google KEI will be high, indicating the keyword is probably worth targeting. On the other hand if a keyword gets 100 searches a day and a search on Google returns 1,000,000 results, the Google KEI will be much lower, indicating the keyword may not be worth targeting. A lower search popularity will also effect the KEI Keywords with the same number of results in Google will have a higher or lower Google KEI depending on whether the keyword gets searched for more or less, respectively.

Tip: KEI can be used as part of the keyword difficulty research; however, I don’t recommend using solely this information as it isn’t necessarily an accurate indication of how difficult ranking for a keyword will be. After all, just because 100,000 pages are returned as results for a keyword, it doesn’t mean they are strong pages and it doesn’t mean any of the pages are well optimized for that keyword. A keyword could have 100,000 weak sites in the results. So, it could be easy to rank well for that keyword. Similarly, a keyword could have only 1000 sites in the results, but if 100 of them are very strong sites, then ranking well for that keyword could be very difficult

How do I do Keyword Research?
Manually gathering all the information needed for keyword research would be prohibitively time consuming and in some cases, such as keyword popularity, impossible. Thankfully, there are people out there willing to help in a variety of ways. Some tools are free and others are not.

Keyword Popularity:
There are two commonly used keyword popularity tools:

• WordTracker (fee)
• Keyword Discovery (fee)

These are both online tools that access a database of search data from smaller search engines. Each has a monthly fee, but keyword popularity info is pretty much impossible to come by for free.

Page Strength:
There are several tools available for helping determining a page’s competitive strength. Here are a few options:

• SEOmoz’s Page Strength Tool (fee)
• LifeTips Page Strength Tool (free)

LifeTips Page Strength Tool is currently free, but, as is often the case, you get what you pay for. SEOmoz’s tool is much better.

Keyword Difficulty:

• SEOmoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool (fee)
• SEOChat’s Keyword Difficulty Tool (free)
• Google Adwords Cost Per Click Research Tool (free)
• WordTracker’s KEI Tool (fee)
• Keyword Discovery’s KEI Tool (fee)

WordTracker and Keyword Discovery both offer the KEI information with their popularity research tool.

Professional SEO Experts:
By now you may be thinking, “This is a bit over my head.” or “I don’t have time for all this.” Thankfully there are people who do this for a living. Hiring a professional SEO will save you a lot of time that would be spent learning how to do keyword research and then actually doing it. And assuming you hire a good one, they should be able to do it better than you can on your own. One potential downside of hiring a professional SEO could be the cost, but if you consider the cost to purchase all tools you’ll need just to research one site, hiring someone who already has the tools may actually end up being less expensive.

If you decide to hire someone to do keyword research or the entire SEO process, make sure you find someone who has been doing it for while. This industry has its share of “fly by night” companies. There are “professional” search engine optimizers who are really nothing more than a guy who just bought a book and set up a website and then there are companies with years of experience and practice at getting results. It may cost a little more, but if you go with the people with the experience, it will pay off in the end.

At a small college a group of incoming freshmen marketing majors gathered for their first class. As the wise, old Professor of Search Engine Marketing made his way to the front of the room, one of the students asked him, “Professor, what is SEO?”

The professor looked over the classroom full of young students and replied, “Let me tell you a story…”

There once were 5 families that lived in a rural valley where the soil was rich, the weather was harsh, and the best apples in the whole world grew wild.

Read more…

We encourage you to look over this dictionary of search marketing terms before you begin reading through the rest of the articles. We also encourage you to bookmark this page so you can visit the page if you ever run into a word or acronym you are not familiar with. If it’s search marketing related, you should find it here. If not, post a comment to request a definition.

Alt Tag: Alt tags are attributes that can be added to pictures. They are primarily used to provide accessibility to blind visitors using a screen reader and visitors who have pictures turned off in their web browser settings. In terms of SEO, search engines can’t read pictures, but they do read alt tags. So, alt tags allow you to get some SEO value from those pictures on your site. Generally, the alt tag should describe the picture, but you can usually do that in a way that includes a keyword or two. You can add an alt tag to a picture by adding alt=”” in the img tag. If you are using a web builder, their may be an alt option or possibly a description or title option. Alt tags are viewable by visitors. If someone mousse over a picture, a text box will show the alt tag.

Analytics: Software designed to monitor and report on website statistics. This includes where visitors come from, where visitors go when they exit the site, when visitors visitor the site, how many people visit the site, where people go when they are on the site, etc.

Authoritative Website: A website which is given high value by the search engines within a specific field. These websites are typically very popular and have many relevant inbound links. Authoritative websites also typically have been active for many years.

Backlink: (see Inbound Link)

Behind-The-Scenes Optimization: Optimization done to parts of the web page which are not visible to visitors or seldom seen. This includes the Title tag, META tags, alt tags, and other elements.

Black Hat SEO: Search Engine Optimization practices which are not approved by the search engines and can result in punishment or banning in the search engines. Some examples of Black Hat SEO are keyword stuffing, cloaking, doorway pages, and hiding content, among others.

Cloaking: When cloaking you have two web pages. One page is designed for the search engines and the other is for human visitors. The server is set to deliver the page designed for search engines to the search spider so they do not see the page designed for the humans and vice versa. Cloaking is sometimes done for the simple reason of the designer not finding a way to implement SEO practices in a way that still presents an attractive and compelling design to human visitors. Other times cloaking is much more insidious where search engines are shown a page about one subject and then humans are shown a about a completely different (and often unwanted) subject.

Competitive Strength: (See Page Strength)

Conversion: The process of a website visitor compmleting an action on a website which the webmaster wants visitors to complete. This may be when a website visitor contacts the organization, when a visitor becomes a member of the site, when a visitor purchases a product/service, etc. When the visitor completes the desired action it is conversion as they are “converted” into a member/client/customer.

Cost Per Click: The fee charged each time a person clicks through a pay-per-click ad.

Description Tag: The description tag is not as heavily weighted by search engines as the Title tag, but it should still be optimized. It is located in the head of the page, usually just below the title tag. The coding for the description tag is, meta name=”description” content=””. The text used between the quotes after content= is your description META tag. The description tag is not seen on the web page, but some search engines do use the description tag in the search listings. The description tag can be longer than the title tag, but should still be relatively short and should contain each of the keywords you are targeting.

Directory: An online catalog of websites. While most directories do have a search feature, they are not search engines. Directories contain a list of categories and sub-categories in which listings for websites are placed.

Domain Name: A name which appears as part of a website’s URL. For example, CMO’s domain name is churchmarketingonline.com. This name appears in the URL of each of our website’s pages and files. It can also be used in email addresses, such as bob@DomainName.com.

Doorway Page: Doorway pages are pages designed for the search engines that human visitors never actually see. Unlike cloaking, a human visitor may actually go to the page, but they are quickly redirected to another page, sometimes so fast that the visitor doesn’t even realize they were redirected.

H Tag (Paragraph Headers): H tags are used for paragraph headings and titles. There are 6 H tags, H1 through H6. In HTML these tags include several characteristics, including size, weight (boldness), and a line break. An H1 tag will be very large and bold, while an H6 tag is small. In terms of SEO, because these tags are used for headings and titles, the search engines place extra weight on words used in H tags. The weight they give also depends on which H tag is used. H1 is given more weight than H3 and H3 more weight than H4. Keywords can be used in H tags as an SEO practice. If you do not like the appearance of the text when it’s placed in an H tag, then you can use CSS or HTML to change the font attributes, though there is some debate as to whether that effects the amount of weight the search engines give the H tag.

Hidden Content: The practice of putting text on a page for search engines to read, but is not easily visible to visitors. Some examples of hidden content are hiding text behind a picture, making text too small to read, or making text the same color as the background.

Inbound Link (aka backlink, incoming link): A link located on a site which directs visitors to your website.

Incoming Link: (See Inbound Link)

Internal Linking Structure: A term referring to the way web pages link to each other within a website including the location, method, and frequency of the links. This can include the navigation menu, the site map, and content links. Internal Linking Structure does not include links to other websites or incoming links.

KEI: (See Keyword Effectiveness Index)

Keyword: Words or phrases used to do a search in the search engines. Keywords can include either a single word or a multi-word phrase. Keywords are sometimes referred to as search terms or search phrases.

Keyword Competition Research: Research done to determine the keyword difficulty of specific keywords in relation to other keywords and the page strength of the page being optimized.

Keyword Density: The measurement in terms of percentage of the number of times a keyword is used on a page compared to the amount of total text. If there are 100 words on a page and a keyword is used twice, it would have a keyword density of 2%.

Keyword Difficulty: A measurement of how competitive a keyword is, thus indicating how difficult it will be to rank well for that keyword.

Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI): A form of keyword competition research that evaluates the value of targeting a keyword by looking at the number of results returned by a specific search engine for a specific keyword in relation to that keyword’s keyword popularity. The KEI increases with higher keyword popularity, The KEI decreases with a higher number of results listed in the search engine.

Keyword Popularity: The measurement of how often searches are performed for a specific keyword.

Keyword Research: Research done to determine how popular and competitive a keyword is. This allows people to best determine for which keywords to optimize a page. (For more information about keyword research, see the ChurchMarketingOnline article, “Keyword Research“)

Keyword Stuffing: The practice of putting a bunch of keywords on a page, in a META tag, in an alt tag, etc. for the purpose of influencing the search engines. This is not to be confused with simply using keywords in these elements, but when you use the keywords you shouldn’t just stick a bunch of keywords in some chaotic fashion. The text should make sense and should not just be a list of keywords.

Keyword Tag: The keyword tag is honestly all but ignored by the search engines at this point, but it should still be optimized. Every little bit helps. It is located in the header of the page, usually just below the title tag. The coding for the description tag is Link: Also known as a hyperlink, a link is a clickable word, phrase or picture which directs a visitor to a different web page or file. Links are most commonly used as navigation menus allowing people to move from page to page within a site. Links are also commonly used to link from one website to another.

Link Building: The process in which people work to get other websites to link back to their site. This can be done in several ways including emailing website owners requesting a link, exchanging links, distributing articles, posting messages on forums and blogs which contain links, registering in directories, and more.

Local Search Results: Results returned when searching using the local search option in the major search engines such as Google Maps, Yahoo Local Business, and MSN Local.

Local SEO: Search engine optimization which targets a specific geographical region, such as a city or state. All of the major search engines currently have local search options which limit search queries to a specific geographical region. Local SEO focuses on improving search results in these local search options as well as in the universal search results for keywords which include locations.

META Tag: HTML or XHTML elements given in the head of a web page used to give information and instructions for search engines and web browsers. In terms of search engine optimization, the most common meta tags are the keyword and description tags. There are also META tags which determine the behavior of search bots, language, content type and other information/settings.

Natural Listing: (see Organic Listing)

Navigation Menu: A menu or list of links on a website which provide the means of moving from one page to another within a website.

Off-page Optimization: Search optimization strategies employed in other places than the page being optimized. This most often refers to link building and the optimization of inbound links.

Online Tools: Software and websites found online which perform a specific automated function. Some online tools provide information such as keyword popularity or page strength. Other online tools provide an service such as article distribution or search registration.

On-page Optimization: Optimization modifications made to the web page being optimized. This includes both visible content and content not visible to visitors (behind-the-scenes optimization).

One-Way Link: When one site links to another without the other site linking back.

Optimize: The process of making a website optimally readable for the search engines as well as arranging various elements of a page in order to indicate to the search engines what keywords to list the site for. Online files, such as media files, e-books and pictures can also be optimized.

Organic Listing: A listing in search engines which is not paid for. There are two types of listings in the displayed in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), sponsored listings (such as Google Adwords listings) that are paid for and organic listings which are free.

Page Body: Web pages are broken into two parts, the head and the body. The body contains the content of the page and the html and scripts used for formatting or including the content. This includes text, pictures, links, JavaScript, and other elements.

Page Head: Web pages are broken into two parts, the head and the body. The head contains instructions for the web browser and search engines such as META tags, CSS info, JavaScript settings, etc. The content of the head is generally not seen by visitors.

Pay-Per-Click Search Marketing (PPC): A form of search marketing where the marketer pays to be placed in the results of certain searches. The marketer’s “ad” (or listing) is displayed when someone searches for certain keywords. The listing of the ad does not cost anything; however, every time someone clicks on the ad there is a small fee. This can be a way of getting listed for keywords which a site could not rank for in the organic search results. Some of the most popular pay-per-click search marketing programs are Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Search Marketing services.

Page Strength: The value given to a web page by a search engine. This determined by several factors, the most important of which is inbound links. Page strength plays a role in what keywords a page can rank for. Among other strategies, page strength can be increased by link building, increasing traffic to the site, and simply by the length of time a website has been active.

PPC: (See Pay-Per-Click Search Marketing)

Reciprocal Linking: Commonly referred to as a link exchange, reciprocal linking is when two websites link to each other.

Relevant Website: A website related to the same topic as another website. For example, a website about church supplies is relevant to another website about church supplies. Website relevancy is determined on a scale. So, it is not necessarily a question of whether a website is relevant to another, but rather, how relevant one site is to the other. For example, a Presbyterian church website is relevant to a Baptist church website, but not as relevant as another Presbyterian church website.

SE (SEs): (See Search Engine)

Search Bot: (see Search Spider)

Search Crawler: (see Search Spider)

Search Engine: A tool used to search the internet for websites, web pages and other files. These search engines use complex algorithms to locate, analyze, and catalog web pages and other online files. They also provide a user interface where online users can enter search words or phrases and the search engines return the websites and other online files which they have determined to be most relevant to the search word or phrase. The most popular search engines currently are Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. Learn more about how search engines work in the CMO article, “How Search Engines Work”.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): This refers to any form of marketing done involving search engines including search engine optimization, pay-per-click search marketing (IE Adwords or Yahoo Business Marketing), and link building.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The process of making a site optimally readable for the search engines as well as arranging various elements of a page in order to indicate to the search engines what keywords to list the site for. (For more information about search engine optimization, see ChurchMarketingOnline’s article, “What is SEO?“)

Search Engine Results Page: The page listing the results when searching for a specific keyword. These results can be web pages, media files, graphic files, news articles and more, but are primarily web pages. For example, if you search for the keyword “Christian Website Hosting”, OurChurch.Com has the first listing in the SERPs for “Christian Website Hosting”.

Search Listing: An entry in the results of a query in a search engine for a specific web page or website.

Search Ranking Report: A display or listing of a website’s positions in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for specific keywords in specific search engines.

Search Rankings: The placement of a website’s listing within the search engine results page (SERPs) for a specific keyword. If a website is the first site listed in the search engine results page, then it is said to have a #1 ranking.

Search Spider: (aka search crawler or search bot) A reference to the software search engines use to find, catalog, and analyze web pages and online files.

SEM: (See Search Engine Marketing) SEM also refers to Search Engine Marketer, a person who employs the practices of search engine marketing.

SEO: (See Search Engine Optimization) SEO also refers to Search Engine Optimizer, a person who employs the practices of search engine optimization.

SERP: (See Search Engine Results Page)

Title Attribute: The title attribute is an attribute added to a link intended to give additional information about links. Link text may be short or a graphic. The title attribute allows a designer to give more information that is given in the link text or graphic. Title attributes are to links what alt tags are to pictures. Just add title=”” in the A tag. Like the alt tag, title attributes are visible to visitors if they mouse over the link. Tip: If you have graphical link, you can use both an alt and a title tag.

Title Tag: The Title tag is an element found in the head of the page. It is the text located between the title and /title tags. The Title tag is visible to visitors, but not in the body of the page, rather it is displayed in the top bar of the web browser. The Title tag should be a short description of the page and should contain the keywords you want to target for a page. This is one of the most important elements in on-page optimization.

Universal Search Results: Results returned when searching using the regular search option such as searching from Google.com or Yahoo.com. This is what people typically refer to as search results. The term “universal” is now used because search engines include not only websites, but media files, local results, e-books, pictures, and news when using their regular search feature.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) – This is the technical term for a web address. Church Marketing Online’s URL is http://churchmarketingonline.com. The URL for this page is …

URL: (See Uniform Resource Locator)

Viral Marketing Campaign: A marketing strategy which relies on word of mouth to spread the information or media. The idea is to release something that is so interesting that the people who come across it share it with the people they know, who in turn share it with people they know, etc. The information spread like a virus from one person to the next, thus the name Viral Marketing Campaign.

Visible Optimization: Optimization done to parts of a web page which are visible to visitors. This includes text, paragraph headings, page titles, link text, and more

Web Page: A file containing information that accessible over the Internet and is viewable using a web browser.

Web Traffic: The measurement of visitors to a website or web page.

Website: A linked group of related web pages which are on the same server under the same domain and are usually controlled by the same individual or organization.

White Hat SEO: Search Engine Optimization practices which are approved by the search engines.

We will be adding more terms to the dictionary over time, so bookmark this page and keep checking back.

The goal of SEO is to increase your website’s rankings in the search engines and bring more visitors to your website. An optimized website can bring 2 times, 3 times, or even 10 times the visitors than an un-optimized website. So, understanding SEO and its importance can make or break a website.

Keywords:
Search engine optimization is primarily done by targeting keywords or keyword phrases (a keyword/keyword phrase is a word or phrase people search for in the search engines). By performing search engine optimization targeting a specific keyword, you are telling the search engines that you want them to list your website when someone searches for a particular word or phrase. For example, if you have a church in Hoboken, NJ, you would want your church’s website to be listed when someone searches for churches in Hoboken, NJ. So, you would perform SEO on your website targeting “Churches in Hoboken, NJ”.

More About Keywords:
Because SEO is about targeting keywords, choosing the right keywords is the most important part of Search Engine Optimization. There are two key properties of a keyword to take into account, popularity (how much are people actually searching for the keyword) and competition (how difficult will it be to rank well for the keyword. The goal is to optimize your website for the most popular keywords which you can compete for and it’s not always easy to pick keywords. Just because you think a keyword should be popular, doesn’t mean it is. In fact, I’ve found that most people’s gut feeling about keywords is wrong. So, it’s essential to do keyword research before you start optimizing your website.

Some SEO Techniques:
Basically, most SEO techniques are using the targeted keyword(s) in various places on your website, both visible and invisible to your visitors or what I refer to as “visible” and “behind-the-scenes”

Some Visible SEO Techniques:

• Use the keyword(s) in the text on the page multiple times
• Use the keyword(s) in paragraph headers
• Use the keyword(s) in link text

Some Behind-the-Scenes SEO Techniques:

• Use the keyword(s) in the Title tag
• Use the keyword(s) in the META tags
• Use the keyword(s) in alt tags for pictures
• Use the keyword(s) in the page’s file name
• Use clean, valid HTML code
• Make sure there isn’t too much code in the page before the actual visible content of the page (search engines will only read so much. If there is a bunch of code before the content, the search engines may not read far enough to see the content.

There are a few other things to note about SEO.

• Search engines can’t read Flash. So, if you have a Flash site, there’s only so much optimization you will be able to do.
• Search engines don’t read pictures. So, if you have text on your site, but it’s in a picture instead of regular text, the search engines won’t be able to read it.

Every little bit helps:
SEO isn’t just a single technique, but rather a combination of several techniques, each contributing their part towards the final goal It’s kind of like running a race, every step you take gets you a little closer to the finish line; leave out a few steps and you’re closer to the finish line, but you won’t cross it. So it is with SEO, each thing you do when optimizing your website will get you closer to that #1 ranking. If you leave some elements out, you may move from not being listed to #20, but you want #1, so it’s best to do as much optimization as you can.

SEO Takes Time:
Many people create their website and imagine that just creating their site will cause thousands of people to visit. This, unfortunately, isn’t so, which is why we do search engine optimization, to show up in the search engines and bring more visitors to a site. However, SEO itself isn’t fast either. It takes time to do the research and implement the changes. It takes even more time for the search engines to read the optimized pages and adjust their search results. Even with all of that done, it takes even more time and work for your site to be able to compete for the more popular keywords.

SEO is a bit like the tortoise in “The Tortoise and the Hare”. The tortoise keep moving a slowly down the path until he reaches the finish line. There are other methods of bringing visitors to a website, like pay-per-click search listings, online adverting, etc.. Search engine optimization, while slow, does have one huge advantage. After you have optimized your site, made your site more competitive, and have your website ranking well for the most popular keywords, the traffic keeps coming and you don’t have to pay for any of it. It can be a lot of work up front, but the rewards can be enormous.

Black Hat vs White Hat:
Kind of like the old Westerns, search engine optimization has “black hat” (bad) techniques and “white hat” (good) techniques. The black hat techniques refer to techniques that are frowned upon by the search engines because the techniques try to trick or manipulate the search engines. The white hat techniques are techniques that are approved of by the search engines. Done properly, all of the techniques I listed above are “white hat”, but some generally white hat techniques can be made black hat by doing them improperly.

For example, using your keyword(s) on your web page is a white hat technique as long as the keywords are used in a natural way. Simply putting a list of keywords at the top and bottom of the page is a black hat technique. So, why does it matter? Search engines have been known to punish or completely ban websites that use black hat techniques. That’s a pretty good reason. I always recommend using white hat techniques. Just like in the Westerns, sometimes the guys in black hats seemed to get what they wanted for a while, but in the end, the guys in white hats always won. You may get away with black hat techniques for a while and may see great benefits, but in the end you’ll probably end up getting punished or even banned from the search engines, so stay on the right side of “the law”.

Final Thoughts:
Search engine optimization is both a simple and complex job. Most of the techniques for optimization are pretty simple in concept and SEO is something that most people can do. At the same time, professional SEOs have been doing these techniques for years and know the best ways to implement the techniques. It can also be very easy to miss some steps. Professionals also have access to tools and software that is used for keyword research, which, as mentioned above, is very important for the search engine optimization. The other benefit of hiring a professional SEO is that they should know the various techniques which the search engine consider “black hat” and be able to avoid them. A simple trap many amateurs make with SEO is having what seems to be a great idea about how they can optimize their site, but not realize that it’s a technique that is actually putting their site in jeopardy of being punished or banned.

Whether you do the SEO yourself or hire a professional, it’s good to optimize your website. Not optimizing your website is a bit like writing a book and not publishing it. For churches especially, this is important as utilizing your website to the fullest can have eternal consequences as more people hear about what Christ has done. So, don’t let your website waste away in obscurity. Optimize your site.

This article has just scratched the surface of what SEO is. We’ll be adding more articles about the specific aspects of search engine optimization, like keyword research, black hat techniques to avoid, and more info about SEO techniques. So, keep checking back or, better yet, get the RSS feed for the Church Marketing Online blog.

Most web hosting packages provide some sort of statistics, but a great way to get very detailed analytics for free is with Google Analytics.

The bottom line is… when it comes to websites and snack machines – it’s important to give people what’s important to them rather than offering what’s important to you. 

What is a search engine?
The first to step to understanding how search engines work is to understand what a search engine is.  The simplest explanation is that search engine is a tool for finding things online.  There are many different types  of search engines but they can be put into to major categories…

Human-Powered Directories
The first “search engines” were not actually search engines as we think of them today, but searchable directories of websites organized by hierarchical categories.   A site is added to a directory when the website owner fills out a submission form on the directory’s website requesting their site be included in the directory and include their website’s title, description, URL (web address), and category.  A moderator later reviews the site and if it meets the directory’s criteria a listing for that site is added or activated.  The original Yahoo was originally a human-powered directory, and directories like Open Directory Project continue on today. 

The downside of the human-powered search engine is that it only includes websites that have been submitted to it, which means you many not find what you’re looking for especially if it’s a new web page.  The other downside from the directories’ point of view is that reviewing every site submitted is very labor-intensive and costly.  I know because OurChurch.Com’s Directory of Christian Websites (like almost all church/Christian “search engines”) is a human-powered directory.

Crawler/Spider-Powered Search Engines
The next generation of search engines have programs which actively seek out new sites and read them into their indexes.  These programs are called crawlers, spiders, robots, or bots.  All of largest and most popular search engines today are of this type, including Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.

The rest of this article is focused on how these crawler/spider-powered search engines work because more than 99% of searches are done on this type of search engine.

The Crawler
As mentioned above, the first part of a search engine is the crawler (aka spider, robot, bot).  The crawler reads pages into the search engine raw database of every page the search engine crawler has read.  Some important things to know about crawlers…

1) Search bots periodically reread every web page in their database.  Why does this matter?

• You don’t have to do anything when you change your site. If your site is already listed in a search engine and you make changes to your website, search engines will eventually update their information.
• You do have to be patient. The frequency of re-crawling varies depending on the search engine, the importance of your site (as determined by the search engines), and how often you update it.  It could take a day or it could take more than a week.

2) Search bots follow links on the pages that have already been crawled in order to find new pages.  Why does this matter?

• If you add a new page to your website or create a new website, it’s important to add a link to it on a web page that is already in the search engines.
• If a web page that is already in the search engines has a link to your new page or new website, there is no need to submit a request to the search engines to crawl the new page or website

3) Some search engines have forms you can submit to request a website be crawled.  Why does this matter?

• If you have a new website and no sites link to it, search bots will not be able to find it.  In this case, submitting a form to the search engine requesting your site be listed or indexed can get it into search engines.
• Because human-powered directories do not have search bots/crawlers, to be listed in them you must submit a request form.

The Ranking Algorithm
Some time after a web page has been crawled by the search bot or crawler, the search engine then processes or indexes the page to determine what search words and phrases the page is relevant to as well as how relevant that page is compared with other web pages for those phrases.  During this processing the search engine looks at many different factors including how many times each word and phrase occurs on the page, which words are in headings or bold, the domain name of the site, filename of the page, the pages that link to the page, and many more.

Exactly which factors a search engine looks at and how they’re weighted is called the search engine’s search ranking algorithm.  It’s like the search engine’s “secret sauce.”  Each search engine’s algorithm is different and each is a heavily guarded secret.

Why does this matter?

• There is time between when your site is crawled (or recrawled) and when it is processed or indexed.  So, it can take as little as a few hours to many days before changes to your website may produce changes in its search rankings.
• Because each search engine’s ranking algorithm is different, a web page can be #1 in Google but #20 in Yahoo for a particular phrase.
• Because each search algorithm is a heavily guarded secret nobody outside of a few select engineers at each search engine knows exactly how much each particular factor weighs into the rankings of each search engine.  But, people who spend their professional lives helping sites rank better in search engines have gained very good idea as to what factors matter most.
• Because the search ranking algorithms look at text, headings, and other elements on a web page, changing things on the web page can change where that web page appears in the search results.
• Search ranking algorithms look at factors outside of a web page, such as the age of a website and links to the web page.  So, there are other factors which you may have less influence over.

The goal of every search engine is to display to the user the information or websites the user is looking for.  In other words every search engine wants to provide to provide the best, most relevant results.   As a result, search engines are constantly improving their algorithms and including new factors which they think will produce better search results.  Why does this matter?  As search algorithms change, so will your website’s search engine rankings.

The Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS)
The crawling of websites and indexing of web pages are constantly going on even when no one is searching.  The last part in the search process is part that you’re probably most familiar with – the actual search.  You type in a word, short phrase, or question, and the search engine displays a list of websites.

That list of websites is called the search engine results page and sometimes referred to as the SERPs.

If you look at the screenshot of a sample SERP, you’ll notice two columns.  Above the right column it says “Sponsored Links.”  These are paid advertisements.  The companies and organizations listed here pay a fee to Google for each person who clicks their ad, so they’re often referred to as Pay-Per-Click or PPC ads.

In the left column are the unpaid search results also sometimes called the organic results or natural results.  These are the websites the search engine believes are most relevant to the search phrase that was queried.  Sometimes search engines also display sponsored links in the left column above the natural results or will even place a block of pay-per-click ads in the middle of the natural results.  Sponsored links are always labeled, but not always very clearly.

Why does this matter?

From the searcher’s perspective, there is nothing wrong with clicking on a paid link. You may find what you’re looking for there.  But it’s important to be aware of which websites paid to be in the results and which are there naturally.

From the web administrator’s perspective, it’s important to understand there are two opportunities to get to the top of the search engine rankings, through natural results and by purchasing pay-per-click advertising.

Help the Search Engines
With a better understanding how search engines work, you can make better decisions about the marketing of your website though search engines.  Seach engines need your help to find your your website and to know what words and phrases it’s relevant for.  Give them the help they need.