Massachusetts is Known for it’s Revolutionary Style, So it only Makes Sense we Spark the SEO Revolution

Corporations both large and small are spending an exorbitant amount of money to buy keyword combinations that will “hopefully” drive traffic to their websites. The goal is that the high traffic website will obtain better search engine ranking, resulting in increased visitors and online sales. As a frequent flyer on the world wide web, I am finding more and more corporations that areranking well in search but are severely lacking in content.  Some well ranked sites have purchased their number one  position, yet do not necessarily possess thebest product or service for my particular need.

Therefore, I am flipping the script and educating online users about online search so they may optimize the results of their own search. This article is intended to instruct the web user how to refine their own keyword entry when searching the internet – so they may locate what  they are seeking more efficiently and effectively. I am doing this so that consumers seeking legitimate|relevant| great quality products and services are able to find them – and not just the highest keyword bidder. Basically, I am going to help online users ‘surf smarter not harder’.

Understanding Keywords: Keywords are a series or combination of particular words that an internet user types into the search bar in order to find information about nearly anything. Keywords literally means ‘word that serves as a key’.  In the world wide web, keywords hold the key to websites getting discovered.  If a family is wanting to take a vacation to Cape Cod, Massachusetts – they are likely to type in “things to do while visiting Cape Cod, MA”.  They may also type“places to visit on Cape Cod, Massachusetts” or “tourism hot spots on Cape Cod and the Islands” or even “places to see in Cape Cod, Massachusetts”.  Small and large businesses that are located in Cape Cod, Massachusetts are likely to generate keyword lists including several variations of these combinations of words as well as words that are synonymous to those in the examples provided.

Understanding Organic versus Paid Search:  Organic results are the web pages that search engines find using their spider bots. Web pages that rank well organically implement the white hat rules of search. White Hat SEO is SEO which operates entirely above board, and relies on quality content, great navigation, honest inbound and outbound links, along with a few simple tricks in order to help search engines more effectively find the information that they’re looking for.

Paid search (better labeled sponsored search) results are listings that website owners have paid for through their keyword search campaigns.  Paid search is found along the right sidebar|window, or in a series of links above the organic search results.  It is important to understand the difference as most people looking to find genuine|relevant|quality information realize those listed high organically is a testimonial to their great content. Website owners can buy their way to the top of paid search results. (Helpful tip: Think back to the days before online marketing when television ads that dominated the prime time spots were those who paid the highest bid, but did not necessarily offer the best product.)

Understanding the Major Search Engines: Yahoo|Google|Bing are all general search engines. Their purpose is to scour the world wide web and return results to you according to your keyword entry.

• Yahoo is the personal phonebook of the internet. Much like an unlisted phone number, if a web site is not included on the Yahoo Directory, it is not found.  Yahoo is human reviewed, meaning that actual human beings go through the sites and rank them according to popularity and relevance.
• Google began as a research project by two Stanford University students in January 1996. The students hypothesized that a search engine that could analyze relationships between web sites would produce better search results than the existing technique of ranking according to the number of times a keyword appeared on a page. Google also offers a human-maintained directory PageRank. PageRank sequences the results in its directory according to its own patented algorithm that assigns weight to a page based on the number, quality, and authority of links to and from the page (and other factors too long to mention).
• Bing (previously MSN Search) is an engine designed by MicroSoft. Bing differentiates itself through additional features, like the ability to view additional search results on the same page, instead of having to click through result pages as one does on Yahoo and Google.

Understanding Vertical Engines: Vertical search engines restrict their search by industry, geographic area, or file type. Google has several vertical search engines listed in the upper-left corner of it’s homepage that distinguishes images|maps|YouTube|News|Gmail|more. So, if you type in the word “honey” and select ‘images’ Google will provide the results of hundreds of images of honey. If you type “honey” and select ‘search’, you will receive a listing of website pages that define the word honey, list bakery’s with the name honey in it, get recent articles about honey and honey bees, so on and so forth.

Understanding Local Search:  When submitting pages to search engines, website owners can list their sites as a “local business” are able to include address, phone number, city and so forth.  If it is the Fall Season and you live in New England and you wish to locate a nearby apple orchard for a family outing, you should type “Apple Orchards in Portland, Maine”. If you just type “Apple Orchards”, you will end up with the website listings of Apple Orchards that may not even be in your geographic area.

Understanding Behavioral Search Engines:  These search engines look for searches you have already performed and try to guess what you are seeking based on your prior search activities. If you are a New England Patriots fan and have a history of performing search queries about the New England Patriots, these engines will drop sites related to “Patriot as a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests”, or “Places to see in New England” and so on. (Helpful tip: anyone who frequents the internet should clear their cache and cookies weekly to keep behavioral search engines from steering you away from what you are seeking. Clearing your cache will refresh places you have visited online so they appear as they currently are and not as they were when you visited that site. )

Understanding Metasearch Engines: Dogpile|MetaCrawler are metasearch engines that combine results from multiple search engines. These engines do not separate organic from paid results and instead display all results according to the order the engine determines is most relevant, based on your search terms.

Search engines try to make their search results the most relevant.  Search engine providers want to make the consumer happy and get them exactly what they are looking for online. If you find a search engine that is better at obtaining the information you seek, quite evidently you will choose to use that particular search engine over others. The more you use search engines, the more money the search engine makes. Businesses are willing to pay a lot of money to be listed on search engine directories that contain a lot of potential consumers. It is a win/win situation for the online user and the search engine provider.  The ones losing in this ‘battle’ are the companies that are forced to pay out large sums of money in order to have their websites found. Therefore, I have decided it is time to start an online revolution.

It is my desire that the novice web surfer (or even the advanced user) will stumble upon this bit of information and ultimately adjust the manner in which they search for products or information online. Hopefully by understanding (1)how a search engine works, (2) what motivates a search engine provider, (3) the importance of keyword combinations, and (4) why some sites appear on search where they do – organic vs paid . . . just maybe the online user will choose their keywords more wisely. Should the online consumers start driving the SEO revolution through knowledgeable keyword search – many websites are forced to become more accountable in their representation of goods and services. This in turn will result in a world wide web of quality content combined with better representation of goods and services currently available online.

Nicole Tongue
EverythingButTheSink