To Get Your SEO Efforts Off On The Right Foot,
Start With The Basics!
By Derek Gehl

Last week, I gave you my top three strategies for success with the search engines (click here if you haven't had a chance to read them).

Afterwards, I started getting emails like this:

"Derek, what the heck is a 'natural' search result? I know I SHOULD know the answer to this, but I don't..."

Seems there's a group of people out there who don't understand some of the preliminary concepts behind search optimization, and feel a bit embarrassed by that.

So let me start by saying this: there's NO shame in NOT knowing the answers to the more "basic" questions about your website!

I mean, there's a HUGE learning curve in starting your own online business, and you're bound to have gaps in your knowledge. The WORST thing you can do for your business is NOT ask a question because you think any "smart" person should already know the answer.

But before you go thinking I'm giving you a free pass...

... I should also add that, if you DON'T understand the search engine basics, NOW is definitely the time to learn!

After all, if you don't understand how the search engines work, how will you ever figure out a solid search strategy for your site? It's critical to your overall success that you start off on the right foot.

So today, I'd like to continue our search engine conversation by going back to basics, and covering five of the terms that you likely hear on a daily basis, but may not fully understand.

• Algorithm -- Algorithm is really just a fancy word for "formula."
  
  Whenever one of the search engines ranks your site, it uses this formula to figure out how relevant your site is for people doing the searching.
  
  So the search engine will look at your site's content, your keywords, your inbound links, and so on, and then calculate your position on the search results page.
  
  The more relevant the search engines determine your site to be using the formula, the higher they'll place you on the results page.
  
  Algorithms are top secret, and they're frequently being "tweaked," so it's possible to earn a high ranking, only to suddenly lose it for no apparent reason!

• Page Rank -- Page Rank is calculated by Google, and is a measure of how they value your site.
  
  Page Rank is measured on a scale of 0 to 10, with the average being 3 or 4. To calculate it, Google looks at factors like your content, and the number of one-way links pointing to your site.
  
  The links are an important factor in the calculation. The more other sites consider you to be a good and relevant resource (and therefore link to you), the more Google will think so, too.
  
  To see your (and other sites') page rank, you need to download the Google Toolbar, which you can get here.
  
  
• Link popularity -- Most people know what links are, but did you know that some kinds of links can help your search engine placement, while others might actually hurt it?
  
  Take "reciprocal" links, for instance...
  
  If you link to someone's site, and they link back to you, that's considered a reciprocal link... and the search engines do NOT like them.
  
  That's because, at one time, the search engines just looked at the number of sites that linked to you, assuming the more links you had, the better your site was.
  
  Of course, it didn't take people long to start getting as many sites as possible to link to them, no matter whether the sites were relevant or not, just to improve their ranking...
  
  ... and the search engines figured out just as quickly that this was going on.
  
  Nowadays, the best link is a one-way link from a relevant website to you.
  
  
• Keyword Phrase -- Where we used to talk about keywords, more and more, we're talking about keyword phrases.
  
  This is because, at this stage in the Internet's evolution, so MANY people have already targeted most single words, that there's not much value in going after them anymore.
  
  So when people look for keywords to target now, they look for keyword phrases, which contain 2, 3, 4 (or more) words.
  
  The value of using keyphrases is that you can be much more specific about what your site (or individual pages within the site) are about.
  
  
• Site structure -- This refers to the way your website is organized, how the pages are linked together, and how your menu works (some people refer to site structure as the "information architecture").
  
  The structure of your site not only helps your visitors move more freely through the pages, and find the information they're looking for more quickly, it can also help improve your rankings in the search engines.
  
  That's because a well structured site has all of the relevant pages carefully linked together, and the search engines love relevant and related content.

By understanding these five basic concepts, and how they effect your search results, you'll be in a much better position to get start off on the right foot with your optimization efforts.

Of course, there are plenty more basic concepts that you'll want to understand, so we've put together a new "Basics" video for our "SEO Whiteboard Series" with Kevin Carr and imc{search} Marketing Lab.

You can watch the video here.

And finally, here's your chance to ask me that question about SEO basics that you've ALWAYS wanted to know (but were afraid to ask)! Please drop by my blog, and leave a comment, including your question, and I'll try to answer it in a future issue of the newsletter.

To your success,

Derek Gehl

We're on the move!

Spring has long turned into a sunny summer around here, but the season for growing and changing is still underway here at IMC!

The biggest change we're making is totally "behind the scenes"...

We're in the final stages of packing up our offices to move to a bigger space in a brand-new tech park across town. We're definitely excited about our new environment -- it's bright, open, and better suited to our fun, interactive way of getting things done.

Not only that, but we'll have lots of space to expand our hard-working group of experts.

You'll be hearing a lot more about the big move in months to come, but right now, we're just trying to get through all the stuff we've managed to collect in the more than ten years we've been here!

If you've ever had to move, you know that you often end up giving away or selling as many things as you actually pack up... and we're no different!

That's why we're offering a limited-time-only "Moving Sale" on our number-one selling Insider Secrets course...

Click here to learn why our move is good news for you, too!