How To Achieve A #1 Ranking On MSN In Three Months Or Less - Case Study

Challenge: An established machine shop in Tyngsboro, MA, called Eastmar Inc. needed a website to showcase their services and bring in new business. The challenge was to design a website quickly, optimize it for the search engines using the keyword phrase “cnc machining” on a fixed budget, and rank #1 “organically” in the search results. It turned out after conducting extensive keyword research that “cnc machining” was a VERY competitive keyword search phrase, but I was confident and assured the client it could be done. (Note: I never guarantee #1 or top ten ranking because you never know…. what works one day, may not work the next)

Result: A nine page fully optimized, search engine/user friendly website went live on 4/23/06 with the only cost (excluding my fees) going to web hosting - $120 and registering a domain name – less than $10. This was a LOW budget tactical operation in every sense of the word. All on-page SEO tactics were implemented including adding the main keyword phrase “cnc machining” in the title tag, meta description and keyword tags, H1 and H2 tags, ALT tag, bolding the keyword phrase within the content, and making sure the last thing the search engine spider see’s is the keyword phrase on the page. Very little off-page optimization was ever completed. The end result on 6/20/06 (less than 2 months into the project): - #1 organic ranking on MSN for the search phrase “cnc machining” out of 1,131,085 results.

Free SEO Tools

Here's a list of some free online SEO tools that I find very useful. The site that provides the first seven tools listed here, also provides the source code for each of them so you can add these great SEO tools to your own website:

Google PageRank Prediction - This tool provides an estimation of your future PageRank. PageRank is a Google developed formula to determine a web page's "inbound link ranking". It's often referred to as "PR" value.

Backlink Checker - Find other websites linking to your site and their PageRank, Description, Language and Size.

Rank Checker- Find out what your ranking is and how popular your website is to users and search engines. You'll also find out which search engines have indexed your site.

Link Popularity - Find how many links your domain has indexed on the search engines.

Website Speed Test - Find out how fast/slow you website loads.

Meta Tag Generator - When your site is spidered/crawled the meta tags help identify what your website is about. This tool will help you configure them very easily.

Spider View Of Your Website - This tool will show you how most search engine spiders/bots will index your website for the keywords you specify.

Free HTML Validator - Validating your HTML will help insure that it displays properly on all users browsers.

Keyword Density Analyzer - This free tool will crawl your site and report back the percentage and number of times a particular keyword or keyword phrase shows up on your web page.

Effective Search Engine Optimization

Any successful SEO implementation should include the following:

1. Extensive Keyword Research - Research specific keywords or keyword phrases that will most likely bring the most relevant/targeted traffic to your website. Compile a list of relevant keywords/keyword phrases to optimize for on your home page, landing page, and any other pages of your website. Never try to shoot for very general keywords such as "jewelry" or "furniture". Rather, shoot for more targeted keyword phrases such as "M2 design bracelets" or "swivel recliner".

2. Site Design Geared Towards Targeted Audience - Design your site content and navigation according to your keyword research and for your target market/audience. Never design your site just for the search engines, rather design your site for your "live" audience (visitors). When it makes sense to do so, plug your keywords into your navigation or web content. Your keyword research will reveal what people are searching for in various ways. Make sure your sites navigation and content showcase the various ways in which people are searching for what you have to offer. Make sure you also include your keywords/keyword phrases in the title/meta/keyword/ALT/Heading tags.

3. Website That Is "Spider/Crawling" Search Engine Friendly. - Use a Free HTML Validator to ensure your site is browser friendly and has no broken links. Having links that don't work will greater reduce your credibility with any potential prospects that tour your site. Make sure your site is more rich in content and less in fancy flash animations/javascript and images. Its not that these don't serve a purpose or should never be used its just that search engines cannot interpret Flash and graphics. Having a large number of images can also slow down how fast your site loads. Use the Website Speed Test to see how fast your site pages load. Its also a good idea to use HTML links in the top-level main navigation on each of the pages of your site.

4. Descriptive Anchor Text (visible text within a clickable text link) For All The Internal Links Of Your Site - Good descriptive navigational links will help your visitors find their way around your site and find what their looking for. Make it as easy as possible for your visitors to find their way around and use "call to action" links/buttons to get your visitors do what you want them to do once they find what their looking for. Do this and you will see a vast increase in conversions/sales and a greater ROI (return on investment) for your business.

5. Site That Is "Link-Worthy" - Having other sites link to yours is a vital element of any successful search engine optimization, as all of the major search engines place a good deal of emphasis on your sites overall link popularity.

Finally, is your site full of great content and information about your products/services? Does it clearly state the benefits and how it solves your target market/audience problem or problems? Is it a great resource for others? As a visitor can I easily find my way around your site? Does it capture my attention enough to keep me on the site or will I get bored and leave right away? Will other website owners be inclined to link to your site? These are the type of questions that you must answer in order to have a site that others will want to link to.

Any good web analytics tool will measure these results and give you a good indication of how your site measures up to desired results. If you hire an SEO consultant or SEO firm make sure they set you up with one. Eliminate the guesswork as much as possible and make decisions based on monitored website behavior.

The Importance of The Title Tag and SEO

Did you know the title tag is one of the most important elements of SEO?

Search engines will rank each page of your site based on how well it is optimized for certain keywords. Therefore, if you wanted a site to rank well for the keyword phrase "network attached storage" then you would create a page that was all about this phrase.

Makes sense, but without a properly written title tag the search engines may never rank your site well for the keyword phrase your targeting.

A title tag should be included on every page of your site. It tells the search engines what the page is specifically about. In the example above, if you were targeting the keyword phrase "network attached storage" then you might want to have your title tag written with the following words: Network Attached Storage

Although, I found out that having too many words in the title tag may not be a good thing.

Recently I was perplexed as to why my client was not ranking well for the phrase "network attached storage" on Google. In fact, they were no where to be found on Google for this phrase even though the phrase was in the title tag and there were a good number of sites linking to this page. I took a whole day comparing their page to competitor pages that ranked well on Google for the same phrase. I found a number of similarities including the number of inbound links to the page, page rank of the sites linking to the page, anchor text, keyword density, etc.

The percentage of the keywords in the anchor text wasn't as high as the other sites and I noticed the competition had a few more sites linking to their pages, so I decided to focus my "off-page" optimization efforts on getting more sites to link to my client's "network attached storage" page.

Next, I focused my attention on "on-page" optimization. I noticed although the title tag had the words "network attached storage" in it, the tag read "network attached storage filers from..." As I mentioned previously, my client did not rank for "network attached storage" on Google, so I decided to type in "network attached storage filers" to see where the client would rank. The client ranked on the second page. To my suprise, just by adding that one keyword "filers" to the end of my keyword phrase made all the difference in where the page ranked in Google. So, I thought to myself what if I was to remove it from the title tag.

I concluded the main reason the site was not ranking for "network attached storage" was the title tag was too long. I immediately changed the title tag, Google spidered the page again a few days later and sure enough the site was now ranked 149 of out 48 million plus other pages. While 149 is not great, it is a good starting point from being nowhere.

History of SEO

1995) The early days of Yahoo.
Optimization was born out of the roots of AAA, A#1, and Acme style yellow pages/white pages alphabetical optimizations.

1996) Blind luck and keyword seasoning to taste.
The early days were stabs in the dark using simple keyword seasoning. Poke it here, and look for a reaction there. The first concepts of density and location started to be used.
You could still get a site listed in Yahoo by merely submitting it. As long as it wasn't too gaudy, you were in within 72 hours.

Late 96) The first papers begin to appear on the web about text matching, data mining, and interviews with se programmers.
Light bulbs of understanding begin going off around the early seo community. People began to realize just how databases work to match text and how they would be applied to the greater database of the web.

1997) The first algo crackers appear.
If it's a machine, we don't need to test it by blind experimentation, we can decode the algo mechanically. The first algo crackers were quite rudimentary by simply studying the make up of pages in the results many of the major clues to the algo's could be understood.
More specifically, several seo's decoded all 35 parameters to Excite and were able to build pages precisely to the algo; thus, generating #1 pages at will.
The first major "page jacking" and "bait and switch" incidents begin to happen. seo's get code stolen and copied.

Mid 97) Several se's begin using Yahoo as a QA check. Thus, getting into Yahoo became paramount. Yahoo is flooded with submissions. Best guess is they processed less than 5% of submissions in 97 and 98. Impromptu Yahoo flame clubs formed anywhere there was a discussion about promotion.
Se's begin waking up to the fact that their sites are "portals" (in one door and out the other). Se's begin their first attempts at keeping people on the site in various ways. Some were intentional algo manipulations designed to keep people around the se and searching longer than they should have. (There are some big time stories here if any se techs would like to talk)

Late 97) Along came Infoseek's daily refresh. Submit it by 8am and you were in the db and pulling referrals by late afternoon. It was the first time "joe optimizer" could play the game without being a programmer. seo explodes as people began to see simple and easy results in 24hours on Infoseek.
Spam becomes a very serious problem for the SE's as unscrupulous spam sites began to understand algos and how to manipulate them. Hotbot and Altavista were next to useless in late 97 due to spam (last half of 97 and most of 98 were the dark ages for se's).
The first "clustering" of results appears and has a major affect on algo decoding.
More page jacking incidents happen regularly. Hardly any top seo doesn't have top ranked pages stolen and copied. often copied into foreign domains out of jurisdiction.
Algo crackers begin to talk about the first cloaked pages appearing in the insurance and auto sectors. I am captivated by it.
Referrals begin to skyrocket for seo's. 1k, 2k, and even 5k per site per day is not uncommon.

98) Let's get serious.
After several papers were delivered at the WWW conferences, it became clear se's were going to move to off-The-Page criteria. Prerequisites such as link pop, directory listings, and listings age were going to be main parts of the new algo's.
Decoding algo's became very sophisticated in mid 98 and 99. Several optimization firms hired programmers to write efficient algo crackers.
It is also the first time I know of where a search engine used multiple algos for different top ten positions. Just because you could figure out what make a page #2 doesn't mean you have a clue about #3 which was positioned using different criteria.
The big push of "shop the competition" is born as several se's use the old "tell on your neighbor" ploy to clean up their results because their algos couldn't.
Page jacking and site theft is rampant. You can't put a top page on Altavista without it being stolen. Entire sites are mirrored as a means of "bumping off" the competition due to alta's horrible dupe page detector. Much the same occurred with Inktomi.
The big rounds of submission spamming wars begin as people spam the submit urls with your pages. Some say it worked for several years to get competition banned in the se's. Finally in late 98 se's begin to understand what is happening and put a stop to it by limiting submissions.
Se's begin to modernize with multi-languages, word lists (term vectors), and other language expertise - the era of the word guru is born.
Google hits the scene in earnest. Their first build of 25million urls makes it clear they have a future. I review it and am the first (beep beep) to propose link programs. People begin thinking in earnest about link pop and how to effect it.
Spam page/doorway page auto generators show up on the web every where and some are very good.
Referrals hold steady for those that know the game and stay off the radar. Using quality seo - that doesn't look like seo - rules the day.
Hello ODP! The first independent, free, "open source" directory is born. They represent a huge threat to the traditional directories. Out of "no where" comes the first ODP flames at a time when everyone was in love with the ODP (was it an anti-odp plant by a competitor, or was it real? You make the call).

Late 98-early 99) Altavista fights back with "too many urls" and bans huge segments of sites and sites with auto doorway page generators. Other engines begin out-and-out wars against seo. If a site said "we optimize" or "we promote" anywhere on it, they were banned in massive quantities. Much of that same mentality still exists today in many search engine offices.
Many seo firms begin falling out of the search engines in record numbers. Hardly any seo firm isn't affected. Loss of rankings on entire client lists is common. This is why you find old pro's who never talk about clients or link their websites with clients and why those that now know algo's cold - rarely talk in those terms.
Although the algo crackers are at their peak of performance, their utility falls as off-the-page factors such as link popularity become main stream in the se's. Decoding what makes a page top ten has never been more difficult. Those that know, now spend 10 times (literally) as much time to acheive half the rankings they did in 98. Algo crackers are not much more than statistic generators now.
Google's PageRank begins to bear fruit while the other se's self destruct under management chaos and mountains of red ink.
The Hubs and Authorities model is clearly a winner at Google. It universally clears out junk from the bloated db's and identifies the core mega sites in each keyword sector.
Although there has never been more competition, referrals hold steady through 98 and into early 99 across most of the engines.
Cloaking becomes almost mandatory on many se's to protect rankings and code. It is unfortunately used by those not so interested in those factors and more interested in spamming for the sake of instant successes.

Late 99) The effects of the end of seo begin to sink in.
Goto begins to make it's major push. seo's begin ppc'izing their billing with store-front redirect sites showing up every where.
Link pop schemes explode.
Other se's cut huge swaths out of their db's for unknown reasons. Part of it was size, some of it was spam, and some what just because they could.
seo and traditional algo decoding techniques as we knew it, are all but relegated to the ash heap of history.
Referrals begin to plummet as competition sky rockets and the web matures. I secretly think 99 was when people "settled in" to a daily routine and began using search engines less and less. It was no longer this huge mystery that needed to be explored - they now used it to do productive things. eg: sites such as news take off in record numbers.

2000) A fairly deep shudder goes through the remaining industry as the end of what was left of Infoseek is gone.
The paid for play schemes and ppc schemes crank up in rapid succession in 2000. From Ink, to Alta, to even buying banners based on keywords - ppc and pfp is every where.
Meanwhile back in the real search industry, surfers look for an engine that actually works at finding them info - Google solidifies its position as the new defacto se.
The link pop craze of 99 begins to fade as it becomes very clear they are risky items - too easily tracked.
The last gasp for link pop programs is the building of fake awords programs, fake guestbooks, fake directories, and fake forum systems just to build fake link pop.

2001-) Bought and Paid For listings are everywhere. Goto is on all the major hubs from Yahoo, AOL, to even MSN. People abandon other se's such as Hotbot, Altavista, and Excite in record numbers. It's an exodus.
seo is we knew it, is all but over. We are down to talking about the few remaining free specific engines and their systems. There is now a major difference in how se's work and how to "work them".
Welcome to the era of "All Google All The Time".
Many seo's have sleepless nights as we realize it is "Google or Bust".