I was reading Online Marketing Inside Out last night.  Chapter 4 is about search engine optimization (SEO). The author brings up a very good point about ads vs SEO, which I have also experienced.  In many cases, a client will come to me and ask if I can help them with SEO.  I say yes and provide a site analysis.  In a site analysis, I provide information on the code structure, design stucture, keywords, content, links, meta tags and other items that affect SEO.  When I present the site analysis, sometimes I hear “Well what about Google Ads.  Can I not just use Google Ads to raise my ranking?”  The answer is yes and no.

Search Engine Advertising is much different than SEO.  Advertising is a form of optimization but not the whole kitten kaboodle.  Ads will help you draw in visitors.  However, your site needs to be accessible to search engines and the content needs to be relative to your topic.  Many times websites will be built with fancy Flash and JavaScript animations with no regard to accessibility.  If a search engine can not read your website, chances are your ranking will not rise.  A few of the key factors for search engine ranking are as follows:

• Content Out Design
• Accessible code and content
• Reciprocal links

There are many more factors.  In my opinion, the three above are the most important.

Content Out Design

Content out design means the web page is built in reference to the content and not the visual design.  By building a website with this in mind, you become accessible to screen readers and search engines.  Many sites ignore this.  They present the unimportant information first because of it is at the top of their design layout.  Think of your website like reading a book.  First you want to read the book in the following order:

1. Title
2. Table of Contents
3. Chapter Title
4. Chapter Content
5. Chapter Title, Chapter Content ….
6. Index

Many websites may show some of their ‘chapter content’ before the title or index information in a left column.  This is fine from a design aspect. But search engines and non-visual devices (screen readers, etc) want to read your website like a book.  So the site needs to be coded with a logical reading structure.  CSS styling can then be applied to achieve the proper visual results.

Accessible Code and Content

Your code and content needs to be accessible.  This means that a search engine has the ability to read it.  Many search engines are unable to read content embedded within Flash or created with JavaScript.  Recently, I ran into a case where much of the site navigation and other content was created with JavaScript.  Search engines have a hard time rendering this information.  Therefore, much of the primary content was being ignored.  Code also needs to be accessible for handicap users.  In most areas, it is against the law to discriminate against handicapped persons.  There have been cases where a handicapped person or organization has sued a corporation because their website was inaccessible.  Target was sued in 2006 for poor accessibility. They eventually settled but still had to pay out large sums of money.  By developing properly in the beginning, you avoid the possibility of a lawsuit and have a better chance of raising your site ranking.

Reciprocal Links

A reciprocal link is where you link to a website and they link to you.  By generating these types of links you show the importance of your website to other websites.  Of course, you could just try having your site linked on other sites.  But it is generally good behavior to link back to them.  This helps you build site content and allows search engines to jump back and forth between the websites.  The more websites linking to you, the more important your website becomes.  Therefore, your ranking will increase.   I have heard several companies say that all you need to do is build links on the web to raise your ranking.  This is extremely false.  Beware of anyone who makes that claim.  They most likely have no knowledge of SEO, other than doing a quick 5 minute Google search.  Links are extremely important, however if your site is inaccessible or your content is not relative and naturally flowing, links are probably going to be the least of your problems.

Summary

Search Engine Advertising is an important method of bringing in online visitors.  However, by ignoring code, content, links and other SEO aspects, you risk losing the benefits of items that could drastically increase your page ranking.  When building a website, always ask the professionals and, if necessary, do some research of your own to validate their claims.