Schewanick Computer Services

Obscured by a dense and clinging aura of marketing "hype", the essentially simple process of search engine optimization is one of the least understood and most exploited facets of the internet. Any webmaster's inbox is flooded daily with spam mailings offering "The secrets of being number ONE!" – All of which are pretty much the same except for the billing addresses, and most of which should be filtered unread straight to the Recycle Bin.
Over time it has been painted as an increasingly complex discipline to the point where we speak of SEO "Gurus" and every mailing uses the words like "secrets" and "mysteries" to describe a basically simple process.

The Plan
The first two features to mention are so obvious that far too few people consider them in the light of Search Engine Optimization. The name (URL) and then the website itself.

1. Sorry, who?
Whilst "Richard Olmshaw Computer Systems" may be a good name for your shop, it is not a good URL.
We want simple & memorable.
If people remember you and your site then you do not have to expose them to the competition my making them perform searches for you. (I'm a viral marketing fan when it comes to URLs)

richardolmshawcomputersystems.com is doubtless available – but unless you know the company are you likely to remember it?
rocs.com – Initials are easier but Resource One Computer Systems, Inc. in Dublin has beaten us to it.
olmshaw.com is available - but the name alone does not suggest computing nor is it unduly memorable except to Mrs. Olmshaw.
A compromise then (as most names are) olmcom.com is available – so let's go for that. With all the endings now available, you may wonder why we keep hammering the venerable ".com".
Chiefly it is because it is still number one in the minds of the public – they expect web addresses to end in "com" so why disappoint them?

2. Great site – What's it for?
The next biggest issue of the site is.the site itself.
This is not as obvious a statement as you might think. Webmasters enjoy the intricacies of design - and so fancy rollovers, complex Flash animations, 3D animations, java menus and effects all appeal to them greatly. This can get to be a problem.
For me, you can draw the line between a good webmaster and a bad webmaster is when selling his/her abilities with these technologies has become the goal of the site - rather than the apparently simpler selling of the product for the company that is paying the bills.

For me, the key test is the "3 L's" – Loadable, Legible, and Logical. If any one of the three is not answered, it's a lost case whatever way you look at it.
Slow loading Flash extravaganzas with no "skip intro" button will drive away anyone not equipped with a cable modem or with infinite patience.
Plus they may well not run at all on corporate systems behind a comprehensive firewall or on the still popular NT4.

Remember the search engines cannot follow Flash menu systems in order to explore your site in the search for content. (L1 failure)
Other navigation systems with shopping lists of buttons or links – fancy or otherwise – bewilder and perplex. No one will hang around for you to make their head or their eyes hurt. (L2 failure)
At the same time going where you want to be on a site must not require a clairvoyant or a printed map. (L3 failure)
This is where I would suggest you begin to find the difference between "design" and just "building a site".
I always consider the "multiple visits" factor too.
Perhaps a putative fourth "L" should be "Liveable" as in can you live with the site on a day to day working basis. This is because what is amazingly clever and really cool the first time is "a major nuisance whilst you wait for that dumb-assed animation with the headache music to finish" by the tenth.
Just keep the Flash & Java non mission-critical and skippable. If they serve no specific function within your site other than "looking good" consider ripping them out all together even if your webmaster does get sulky when you tell them.

3. Keywords and Metatags.
Search engines decide on their own how they rank one site above another.
Different features are awarded varying degrees of attention based on the search engines automated "opinion" of what constitutes a "good "site.
This is the search engine's "algorithm".
So, on one engine your keywords will be read together with your text and a combination of the two used to find the search phrases that will pinpoint your site among the masses.
Further – what works for Inktomi may well count against you for Yahoo so a compromise is required in how you prepare the page. And at the moment no-one really knows what Google wants anyway plus they seem to be changing their algorithm on a weekly basis.
The specifics of these systems are kept very strictly secret to prevent people (like us) from manipulating the search engines for their own ends – but these features are known to be important everywhere.

4. Spider limitations.
The device that gathers data from your site for search engine inclusion is called a "Robot" or "'bot" for short.
The process of gathering the data is called "crawling" or "spidering" as the 'bot will follow all the links on your pages to explore the whole site and include all its data for assessment.
If your webmaster favored you with a Flash menu system, then – to the spider - your site is one page long. Robots do not spider links locked-up in Flash. If java was your medium of choice, or you use java scripts extensively, then consider this.
More weight is placed on data at the top of the page than at the bottom. In a java-based or java-rich site the header (top end) of your page will look something like this: -

-html- -head- -link rel='stylesheet' href='include/styles.css' type='text/css'- -script language="JavaScript1.2"- //Highlight image script- By Dynamic Drive //For full source code and more DHTML scripts, visit http://www.dynamicdrive.com //This credit MUST stay intact for use function makevisible(cur,which){ strength=(which==0)? 1 : 0.2 if (cur.style.MozOpacity) cur.style.MozOpacity=strength else if (cur.filters) cur.filters.alpha.opacity=strength*100 ........

Excuse the abbreviating of this horror story - but you see what I mean. In this site I was called to review - 3,034 characters of pure gobbledygook before you even find the page title (removed here by me.). Meta-tags are not to be found.
Spider wise, this page is virtually invisible, Sure enough you can find this page by "direct hit", that is by its name (URL), or by other sites that refer to it, but searching for the site itself returns nothing.

5. Publishing.
You should publish your site to all the free search engines you can, usually in the area of some hundreds of engines.
This will take from a few weeks to months to yield any significant results and there is no way to speed this up without paying.
If you chose to look at paid submissions then paid submissions appear within days – but when you stop paying the yearly fees they disappear just as quickly.
If you are published regularly to the free engines then sooner or later you will probably find your way into the paid engines by the "back door".
The "back door" relies on the fact that search engines interrelate and some of these relationships are known.

6. Push and Pull.
To supplement your on-line publicity ("pushing" people to your website) consider "pulling" them by other means as well.
All of your company paperwork should have your website and e-mail clearly marked on them. In fact every scrap of paper should be similarly equipped, plus coffee mugs, t-shirts and anything else available to you.

7. The Truth behind the Myth.
From the moment you become visible on-line, people will offer to "boost your placings" and the bills for this will rage from the modest to the thousands.
Here is the ultimate secret of search engine optimization...it's a secret! No one really knows the systems used by the engines except those who designed them - and anyone who says otherwise is misleading you.
There are no guarantees whatsoever because at the same time as Richard Olmshaw's webmaster is trying to make him number one; everyone else's webmaster is trying to do the same thing at the same time – often with the same tools. It's going to be a close run race by any standards.

8. In Conclusion
Prepare the site, publicize, and then wait.
Consider promoting the site by non-internet techniques – mouse mats, t-shirts etc.
Paid inclusion programs if required.
Watch your statistics
Talk to your webmaster.
Respect their abilities – but at the end of the day remember who is paying the piper and therefore calling the tune. If your chosen "web professional" will not listen to you, or cannot explain why he cannot or should not realize your ideas – consider changing webmasters.

About the Author
Englesos is a Web and Graphic Designer working out of the Famagusta area of Cyprus. See more of his work on http://www.englesos.net or else at http://www.lookerscy.com