What does "SEO" really mean to my site?.
SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization" and can be a rather confusing phrase. Optimizing a site for the search engines starts with the actual structure of the site itself, think of this site structure as the foundation of a house. The structure is what you build the rest of your SEO efforts on. If this site structure isn't sound, then your SEO efforts will have a diminished effect, making you work harder for less return. After the structure is built, the next task is to ensure that the content (using the same house analogy, think of this as the framing of the house) is relevant to what the structure is all about (making sure everything fits!) After that comes blogging and backlinking efforts to drive traffic to your site which allows you to achieve ranking on the search engines. In terms of SEO, really the last thing on the list is how your site looks (painting your house) but since it's what you see every day, this is equally important from a human perspective. After all, all the traffic in the world does you no good unless someone sticks around long enough to see what you have to offer and to respond to your marketing efforts.
What does "Web Design Engineering" mean?
Just as when you build your house it's important to know and understand what the goal is before you start to actually build the house. This way you know how deep to make the foundation, how much lumber and material you need to purchase, etc. So it goes with building a website. Your site needs to be structured in such a way as to achieve it's highest potential from the ground up. This way you don't get to the end of the project only to find out that you left out the plumbing! Engineering a site is all about ensuring that each step in the process is handled appropriately and nothing is missed. This way your site has the chance to achieve it's full potential as your internet marketing presence.
I've heard of on-page and off-page factors. What do those terms mean?
While this can be confusing to actually implement, the concept is relatively straightforward. On-Page factors are those things that actually exist in the coding of your site. These factors include your metadata, keyword density, cross-linking and site structure. Off-Page factors are things like backlinks, articles and directory listings.
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Speaking of on-page and off-page factors, what is most important to the search engines?
The simple answer here is that off-page factors tend to have more "weight" overall when it comes to the search engines, but it's more important to look at this as a balanced approach. The most successful SEO driven sites will have a solid foundation (on-page factors) coupled with a well designed SEO campaign (off-page factors). There does seem to be a trend in the SEO industry to pay more attention to the on-page factors than was done previously due to quite a bit of success by a few companies that have specialized in on-page SEO. Front Page Rankings, Inc. was on the leading edge of this revolution in SEO and has many successes to point to.
What is metadata and how can it help my site get indexed?
Metadata is information mostly just seen by the search engines at the very top of the html of your site. If you're relatively savvy you know that you should have a title and description for each page of your site that is unique. What you may not know is that there are some metadata that are useful, and some that aren't really so much. Of course title and description are very important and you should be using your keyword phrases in each one for each page, but also make sure to include both 'subject' and 'classification'. These two metadata, while not used by all search engines, are used by Google© and can be indexed by the other search engines for the keywords. Don't use the robots metatag, as the default for all search engines is to index your site, unless there is a page on your site that you don't want the search engines to index. Even then, some search engines (like Yahoo for instance) don't pay attention to it at all. Most of the other metadata you see used will only be indexed for keyword usage.
Does W3C compliance really effect search engine rankings?
While W3C compliance has no effect on search engine rankings it does dramatically effect the way your site can be accessed. So while not a factor in SEO itself, it is definitely a factor in SEO Web Design. In order for a site to be effective it must be able to be seen appropriately by any modern browser. After all, who is going to stay on your site if they can't even read what you have to say? There are many SEO experts out there that will tell you that W3C compliance doesn't matter to your site at all, but they are focused on too narrow a picture. While it won't help you on the search engines, it could very well help you make more sales... which is more important to your bottom line?
How important is Page Rank to how my site is indexed on the search engines?
Google Page Rank is a measure of the "trustworthiness" of your site in the eyes of Google. This is primarily affected by the age of your site and the number and quality of backlinks coming in. This used to be a yard stick of how the site was doing in terms of having properly implemented SEO, but no longer. There are many Page Rank 0 sites that can out rank Page Rank 4 or 5 sites on the internet for their primary search terms. The real measure of internet traffic is by Alexa ranking, not by Google Page Rank. Your Alexa ranking will show everyone where your site is at in terms of traffic vs. all the rest of the sites out there on the internet. This is a much more accurate picture of where your site is at in terms of well implemented SEO as Page Rank does not measure traffic, and more web traffic is what SEO is all about.
What are some simple things that can be done to help my site get better rankings and more traffic?
There are many things that you can do here. Probably the easiest is to talk about your site on social media outlets like FaceBook and Twitter. This helps get the message of your site out to a larger audience. Be careful however! You don't want to appear to pushy on these social media outlets or people will stop following you. Be sure a majority of your posts are focused on providing value, posting positive messages and pictures (people love pictures!). This makes the times you do market more open to be followed.
My SEO team seems focused on backlinks and articles, why don't they ever mention "on-page" factors?
Most SEO teams out there today focus on traditional SEO methods that are almost exclusively off-page factors because in the past that's what really mattered to the search engines. With the big algorithm change that Google made in 2005 it changed the way the search engines index and determine relevancy. No longer was it enough to just have a ton of words in your keyword field, you actually needed to have relevancy on your site! Unfortunately there are just as many people running a bit behind in the SEO industry as there are in any other industry. The newest trends move toward cleaner code, better more relevant content, a complete set of metadata, and better site structure to lay the proper foundation for all off-page work.
