Search Engine Relatonships

I always learn better when I can "see" something in action. In addition to understanding what drives your motivation to optimize your website for a certain search engine(s), here is a pictorial view of how the search engines "talk" to each and share information.



This chart is from Bruce Clay who is one of the top SEO experts in the country. He has been tracking this stuff for years, so I figured rather than just recreating this graph, I'd show you his.

Search Engine Share

I love stats. I love graphs even more, so I thought I would share with you a pictorial view of the share that the major search engines have. These results are from SearchEngineWatch.com which is a great resource for the latest in search engine news.

The comScore Media Metrix qSearch service measures search-specific traffic on the internet. qSearch data is gathered by monitoring the web activities of 1.5 million English-speakers worldwide (1 million in the United States) via proxy metering. Proxy metering allows comScore to see exactly how those within its panel have surfed the web. From this data, the company then extracts activity that's considered to be specifically search-related.

The Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search reporting service measures the search behavior of approximately 500,000 people worldwide. These web surfers have real-time meters on their computers which monitor the sites they visit. This metered information is compiled to produce NetRatings results.

With nearly 50% of the share, you can see why much of the focus on search engine optimization is tailored to Google. I should also note that there are different demographics that use certain engines. I have worked with several clients where leads from Yahoo! convert better than leads from Google. It's always best to work with your SEO professional to find which engines to optimize for.

What is a SERP?

As one starts to research the terminology surrounding search engine optimization (SEO), you start finding even more abbreviated words. One of them you may have heard of - SERP?

Well, it's not short for serpentine, but for Search Engine Results Page. In laymens terms, this is the resulting page you get from a search engine after you type in your search query.

Why is this page important? Ultimately, you'd like to be on that first SERP and preferrably at the very top. Additionally, it shows you "organic" or natural search queries and paid listings.

In talking to numerous industry experts, it is pretty common that 30% of people will click on the paid listings (top and right side) and 70% will click on the organic listings.

That's a pretty good incentive to have your site listed in the organic section. On another note, with 30% clicking on the paid ads, that's a tremendous amount of opportunity, so if you aren't already placing ads, it might be something to look into. You can start your budget small and see how it works.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seems to be a buzz word that is finally (thank goodness) hitting the small business world. My clients have started coming to me for my thoughts and recommendations on SEO. While I do offer a full search engine optimization service, I am usually more than happy to gush on about the seemingly simple, yet definitively complex process.

I have been doing search engine optimization since I started building web pages back in 1997. Of course that was when you did all of your optimization in the code (Title & META Tags). Today, the search engines have complex algorithms that evaluate hundreds of factors. This is great for web searchers as this ensures we get the best possible results. However, it is a nightmare for those of us trying to get our clients ranked on their desired keywords.

I now attend several search conferences a year (and have spoken at a few) and subscribe to numerous publications just to stay abreast with the latest changes. Google, for instance, changes its algorithms slightly several times a month (some say even daily).

So, over the next few weeks, I'm going to explain the entire process from soup to nuts. Additionally, I will also discuss the differences for brand new sites and sites that have been around for some time. I will try to keep it mostly high level, but I'm bound to get into the "weeds".