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Get Your Website in the Top 10 Search Results!

Everyone uses search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing every day. But not everyone understands how search engines return results to you. The most popular search engine today is Google, so much so that Google has transitioned from being a proper noun to being a verb!

It is safe to assume that everyone knows how to use Google. But what happens after you type in your search terms and hit the search button? Google doesn't actually search the Web for what you want - rather, Google makes a copy of the Web and stores those copies on their servers. Google searches its static version of the web and returns results based on what is stored on their servers. The copies are created by "spider bots" which continuously crawl the Internet (Web, get it?), adding to and updating Google's servers.

Google takes into account a number of factors before it shows you the results page, such as your location (and other demographic data, especially if you have a Google account), as well as other factors having to do with matching web pages (it's all very complicated and algorithmic). These factors are what marketers refer to as SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. By optimizing their websites, marketers are able to get their page at the top of the search results page. Here, we discuss a few easy steps you can take to help optimize your library or organization's website.

Working Definition of SEO

"A set of methodologies that make it easier for search engines to find, index, categorize and rank web content."

Something you need to understand about bots is that they only are capable of dealing with text. You might have some really great images or videos or other multimedia content, but they don't do anything to get your website in the top 10 search results. The best way to get around this disadvantage is to utilize "alt text" and tags. "Alt text" is the text that displays when your web browser cannot display the image that is supposed to be there. It is also something that bots really like to crawl!

Anchor Links

Another thing that is fairly easy to implement is the use of links on your webpage, both internal and external. Bots love to follow links, and they also like to read the anchor text for the link. Anchor text is the text that appears in blue and underlined, so that you know it is a link. But the actual word(s) are called anchor text. Instead of using "Click here" or the actual URL, use something that makes sense, like using the words in the sentence, or a keyword. Not only will this help the bot determine what that other page is about, it also reflects on what your page is about.

Keywords

Piggybacking on the anchor text idea is the use of keywords. What words will people type into the search box when they are looking for your website? Whatever words or phrases you come up with, you want to incorporate these as much as possible into your website. Of course, you want to keep your website intelligent for readers, but there are still ways to put keywords in places where bots will find them. I already mentioned alt text and anchor text, both of which should utilize keywords. Other significant places to use keywords are in the page title, the headings, and in the URL. Bots look in all of these places, even if people don't always. It is also important to have keywords in the body text of the webpage, but you want to make sure that it doesn't sound like you're catering to the spider bots - real people are reading your webpage, and it should sound the way you want it to, not the way you think spider bots like it to sound!

Google places a lot of value on the authority of your website, which is determined mostly by "inbound links", or the links to your website from other websites. The more inbound links you have, the more authority Google thinks your site has, and the more likely your website is to appear in the top 10 search results! Inbound links are considered to be a more advanced method of SEO, so don't worry too much about how you get inbound links - leave that to the marketing department!

URLs

Going back to URLs - the URL for your website is extremely important. If you want people remember or accurately search for your website, you need a simple URL that includes at least one of the keywords you have chosen. Try not to make your URLs full of gibberish - for example: "slis.wayne.edu/admissions/application" is much better than "slis.wayne.edu/admit251369/ahd586d8", especially if someone searches for "Wayne State application". Your IT department can help you make your URLs make sense - most of the time it's a matter of changing file names.

Summary

These SEO (search engine optimization) techniques are relatively simple to implement on your website, and will contribute to getting your website in the top 10 search results. However, it must be noted that what is considered to be "On-Page SEO" (most of the ideas presented here) generally contribute to about 25% of SEO. "Off-Page SEO" is all of the linking business that goes on, and is rather more difficult to implement, but it is the other 75% of SEO.

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