Since its introduction to the public in the 1990’s, the internet has completely revolutionized our world. With literally billions of web pages online, it can be hard to find the exact site that we are looking for. Search engines offer an invaluable service to us by sorting through the masses and helping us find specific websites. They use complicated algorithms to search the net and find sites that are relevant to our needs. But what factors play in the algorithms? And how can we make sure that our sites will be found?
The Google search engine is the most widely used website in the world, with 67% market share, and because of this growth in search engine use the Search Engine Optimization industry Canada has sprouted. They’re companies that offer the service of adapting your web page attributes so that it is more search engine friendly. By learning and understanding the algorithms used by such search engines such as Google or Bing, they can make the necessary changes to ensure that when keywords pertaining to your website are searched, your site will rank higher than your competitors.
Statistically speaking, around 80% of your company’s business should come from internet search. This is why it is so important to have professional optimization on websites. When a site is professionally optimized it will perform better with the search engines and ultimately lead to more traffic to your website. “Organic” placement refers to a sites natural placement in the search engine results, regardless of sponsored advertisements. High organic placement should be a principle goal with any website. Organic site optimization works around the algorithm that search engines use. When keywords are placed into a search engine, they are spidered, indexed and run through the algorithm that compares the keywords across millions of pages, and then displays the results based on what has been determined as the most relevant pages. The algorithm is constantly changing, and SEO companies have to keep up to date with all of the changes.
There are many factors within the algorithm that affect how your site will place. The content on a website is one of the larger factors in the algorithm. There must be enough content to absorb a large amount of keyword phrases, without spamming the keyword density. This means that the keywords must be spread out enough throughout the text that the search engines don’t read it as being contrived. If a search engine algorithm concludes that you site is spamming keywords to get a higher placement, it will punish your site and send it down in placement. Search engines seem very begrudging, but are just mathematical formulas. If you don’t follow their rules, no one can find your site online. This is why it is important to leave SEO work to the professionals, people who know the industry and know the rules inside and out.
Google’s algorithm factors different variables by a percent weight, so different variables, such as backlinks or domain strength, will have a greater effect on your sites organic placement than such factors as content or traffic. The largest factors, which each account for 25% of the algorithm, are backlinks and domain strength. So having a god backlinks strategy and history with your domain are very important. Keyword density, click through volume, and the relevance of the page & content quality are each worth 10%. The remaining 20% of the algorithm is split between manual boosts for websites, and also for any penalties, such as mirrored domains or scrapped content. Knowing the algorithm is very important for SEO work. The algorithm undergoes many changes, and SEO companies need to constantly research the changes so that they may know how to best serve you and your website.
Backlinks are one way votes for your website from other online sources that ideally share your theme. These can be links from directory listings, ads, or hot linked anchor text. The backlinks are rated by search engines by page rank based on how well they match the theme of your site, the source of the backlink, and also by the quantity of backlinks. Backlinks must also be added properly to a site, as search engines will punish placement for spammy irrelevant links just as they do with keywords. If a search engine discovers your site has been link farming or buying links, it can tank the site.
There is a lot of work that goes into placing sites and keeping them at the top of their respective searches. SEO companies spend countless hours learning the industry and researching algorithm changes so that they can help you bring more traffic to your site.
