Google started the year dominating search, and no surprise, Google still dominates search now; although Bing was able to capture modest market share gains.  According to comScore, there were 17.8 billion searches in November 2011, of which 11.7 billion were run on Google, and Yahoo! + Bing accounted for 5.4 billion collectively.

Wake Up with Caffeine

In January, Google kicked-off 2011 with a revamped version of Caffeine, their super-fast ability to crawl and index content, allowing real-time content to be displayed in the results within minutes, and therefore, firmly establishing that content freshness will be an increasingly important ranking factor.

Social Influence Officially becomes a Part of the Ranking Calculation

In February, Google makes the “official” announcement that social signals are part of the SERPs weighted algorithm. Bing stays on the sidelines until the following month and then joins-in… a tacit admission by the major search engines that social media is here to stay.

Year of the Panda

Also in Q1, we saw the launch of Google’s Panda – a qualitative filter aimed at “thin” content sites.  Overnight many content networks see rankings plummet across the board.  The fear of Pandalization becomes every webmasters fear, as several reiterations are run throughout the year.

Google Launches the +1 Button & Google +

In Q2, the world experiences the launch of the +1 button – the Google equivalent of the Facebook “Like” icon. Google proceeds with a full-scale launch of Google +, an online social network in June.

Google Sitelinks

In Q3, Google continues to dominate the headlines – August sees the introduction of  ‘jumbo sitelinks’ – providing all brands with multiple links to help engage consumers identify deeper pages within their sites quickly to further improve relevancy and site engagement.

Yahoo! Site Explorer

Also in Q3, Yahoo! declares that Site Explorer will be sunset in 2011, and while there are alternatives on the market – Yahoo! Site Explorer was the only link graph tool produced exclusively by a major search engine.

Secure Search

In Q4, the SEO Industry sees the introduction of “Secure Search” by Google. If a user is signed into Google, their search terms are automatically stripped from the keyword data which shows up in Analytics.

November/December Holiday Retailers Cheer

The US consumer showcases online spending confidence with record sales across the board for the Holiday Sales Season – online sales surpass $30 billion.  Amazon is the clear winner.

What else?

Bing gets accused of copying Google search results, Google and Microsoft bicker. Author authority introduced and Google provides guidance on content duplication issues with canonical tags. Google embroiled in anti-trust investigation and Eric Schmidt goes to Washington to testify.

Google launches “trusted stores” and makes massive moves into the ecommerce space. Facebook ties up with Skype (and Microsoft) in a video chat deal, and Twitter severed ties with Google.

Goodbye 2011…  Hello 2012

Innovation across the Search Landscape continues to evolve at an increasingly rapid pace.  From RankPay’s perspective, we are working hard to remain current (and hopefully ahead) of continued innovation around the page design implications of local and mobile, and of course the never-ending algorithm enhancements with respect to content freshness and social influence.  We hope each of you had a fantastic 2011, and wish you continued success in 2012.

Website optimization is the art of maximizing the experience to achieve a desired outcome, such as: new customer sign-ups, registrations, sales, avg time on site, etc. Website optimization is the natural, logical complement to well-optimized search rankings.

Following are a handful of Website Optimization practices that we’ve found are working consistently:

Multiple Payment Options

Provide site visitors with multiple payment methods and promote this fact throughout the site so there are no surprises at checkout.  Make it simple – take as many forms of plastic as you can.

Provide a Simple Buying Proposition

Website visitors assess and consume information in small pieces – they are grazers over the web and look for information to be presented fast.  Get to the core value offering… and do it quickly:

• What is the problem… (which “it” your product or service solves);
• Why they need “it”… (for the problem they have);
• How much “it” costs… (upfront pricing);
• What does the prospect need to do next…  (clear next steps)

Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials are extremely powerful – they instill confidence.   Always use testimonials and do not discount their value.  Also, the process creates a great way to further connect with your customers as well.

Toll Free Contact Number & Live Chat Functionality

A toll free number should be prominently displayed throughout the site. Make it easy for visitors to speak to a human being on your side. Placing the number within the header and footer are good options, but if you have a long landing page, make sure the number either “floats” so it is always in view, or simply repeat it through the page body or sidebar.

Live Chat functionality is very powerful in providing visitors access to information for immediate settling of buying questions.

Site Security

Buying is based upon trust. Every new customer must trust in the brand, the product or service, and the security of the transaction. Users will question how secure their credit information is, and you have to answer that question with definitive integrity.  Invest in excellent security with an established leader in the industry, and make this a selling point.

Takeaway

Site promotion through SEO remains critically important, however make sure that your Website Optimization is also getting the same level of attention.  Over time, you’ll find that increasing in-market, pre-qualified visitors from SEO, and investing in proven Website Optimization practices will compound your ROI, and your long-term success.

Recent research has proven that ranking a video is often more likely to gain ranking increases as consumers have come to trust, engage and expect that quick videos can be very helpful.  That said, you will quickly see that video optimization relies heavily on judicious use of the right keywords – this cannot be emphasized heavily enough, so make sure you have done your keyword research properly.

Following are a few of RankPay’s quick tips to video optimization:

Create Compelling Content

This means creating a video which your target market is going to want to watch. This does not mean you over-invest in a Hollywood style production – think simple. Customer testimonials and/or instructional intros are excellent for this purpose – a two minute testimonial is a powerful marketing tool, and best of all it doesn’t cost you anything except some time.

Be brief, get to the point fast and make sure you’re supporting the core message.

Keyword Rich Title

Give your video a keyword rich title – this is extremely important for SEO purposes, additionally, the title will play an important part in determining whether the user will play the video or not.

Use Tags

If your video platform allows it (and most will) make use of the tags which will describe the video content.

Keyword Rich File Name

Use a keyword –rich filename for the underlying video file.

Optimize Content around the Video on the Website

Google and Bing-Yahoo! pay close attention to the information about the content the supports the video.  A frequent mistake is to upload videos to a web page and then provide no text content around the video itself.

Submit a Sitemap

Submit a video sitemap to Google for faster indexing and clearer context to your video.

Link to Your Video

Build prominent links to your video from your website especially if the video is hosted on third party sites like YouTube.

Redistribution

If you have uploaded the video onto your website, consider uploading the video to platforms such as YouTube, MetaCafe and DailyMotion. Again, make full use of the description and tag entries on these platforms.  This will maximize the potential audience for your video and help improve its ability to rank.  In addition, make sure users can like the video – enable Google +1, Facebook Likes and social media sharing, e.g. Twitter.

Summary

Create compelling content – this is the most important point for video optimization. Boring, over length content will not attract and retain the attention of users and indeed, it can be counter-productive.

Keywords play an important role in video optimization – make sure you have done your research properly to begin with.

Enable sharing – video is social media friendly, but you must make it easy for users to access and share with their circle of online social contacts.

Every small business and website can invest in a creative video to help engage their customers.  Once the video content is completed, optimizing the video for SEO purposes and distribution will continue to help broaden your acquisition efforts for new customers.

The Google Algorithm Change

Algorithm changes happen all the time, so by itself this is no big deal. What is a big deal is that the change means if your site contains duplicate content you are going to be penalized and ranked lower in the search engine results. The change means a negative direct impact on your site rankings if you have copied content; equally the change will have a positive ranking impact if you have a site with 100% original content.

The algorithm change is motivated by increasing negative press for Google’s results. Criticism includes a lack of freshness with the results Google returns, together with the incidence of spam results.  Also, site content may be original but the quality is poor – after all anyone can create reams of content which is 100% original but provides no real value to readers.

Sites which carry duplicate content are known as “scraper” sites: if you cut and paste content you are content scraping, though some websites conduct scraping in a fully-automated fashion. While carrying some duplicate content is inevitable, for instance if I quoted Matt Cutts’ comment on the algorithm change:

“…we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.”

This is effectively duplicate content!  The difference between the odd quote and full-scale replication is a question of judgment, but there is a basic principle for webmasters to follow here – make sure your content is as close to 100% original as it is possible to make it and never plagiarize other sites’ content.

Content Originality versus Quality

I’ve written on website content issues recently, dealing with how you are providing content for two sets of readers – the search engine algorithms and for human beings. Both are important but writing and creating content which best serves the human reader is most important of the two. If you have original content but it’s rubbish, you may be able to fool a search engine but not for long, because how many visitors and how long they are staying on a website are also factors in the algorithm. If your content is poor quality, as a real person I’m just not going to waste my time with you and I’ll hit the back button on the browser.

Being original is important, but you also need to deliver real value to your readership – your human readers.

SEO impacts on the content because it is a primary ranking factor which we can control, and I suspect that dominance in SEO thinking is where webmasters start to go wrong. The content needs to interest and rouse human users, but the focus is typically on gaining high rank fast or once at the top of the heap, throwing more content out to attack other keywords and consolidate existing position. This has some serious ramifications for websites which house a lot of original content with low quality. Google is going to deal with this issue so expect more algorithm changes to follow.

Takeaway

Do not copy content from other websites – ensure your content is original – use a site such as Copyscape or Copygator to check your content is original and that no-one else is copying you.

Create content for real people – the search engines come last – SEO should be a natural flowing activity which helps your site rather than taking it over.  The search engines will not buy your product or service, but real people will if you give them real value.

Being original is good, but you also need to be useful and relevant to people too.

This is why you cannot embark on an online strategy without implementing effective SEO first.

Here are 5 genuine reasons why SEO is vital to your business:

1. ROI – Return on Investment

SEO generates positive ROI.  Almost every SEO program will generate a positive ROI, but the issue becomes which SEO investments should be made, along with analyzing the relative merits of following different strategies.  SEO strategies only deliver negative results when they are promulgated and implemented by inexperienced or inept practitioners.

On the client side, the greatest risk to SEO strategies delivering positive returns is client expectation.  SEO takes time, results are rarely, if ever immediate, and 3 month time horizons for projects are unrealistically short.

2. Defensive SEO – Protect Your Brand Reputation

Many view SEO as a way to get your name to the top of the search engine rankings.  It is that, but it is also much more – consider what happens when your company is receiving bad PR and is coming top of search engine rankings for the wrong reasons, a product recall for instance.  SEO under these circumstances will also encompass handling the negative aspects of your online search engine rankings.

When someone is bad mouthing you on the internet, you need to know what is happening and be able to take appropriate measures.  You may see that the adverse criticism is justified and seek to take remedial action, or you may wish to counteract negative press with positive news.  In either case, you need to know what is happening before temporary damage becomes permanent.

3. Harness and Direct the Creation of Quality Content

The single, greatest feature of your website will be the content.  “Content is King”, is a frequent mantra you will hear from web designers, SEO practitioners, marketing staff and most of all, from users and potential online customers.  The search engines are no different either, and your content must be relevant and user-friendly.

Implementing an SEO strategy will impose discipline on your online creative team.  Content will not only become more focused, but will force you to answer serious questions on your business.  What are your unique selling points (USPs)? What features of your customer offering are really benefits?  What are customers really thinking and responding to with your products and services?

4. Implied Search Engine Endorsement’

How much would you pay for the Budweiser blimp to carry your name and logo at next year’s Super Bowl?  How much would you pay for Angelina Jolie to be photographed using your product?  Endorsements are extremely powerful which is why many celebrities and sports stars receive such mega-paychecks; sponsors pay millions for the privilege to have their brand identified or associated with them.

Now think about the impact on a user who makes an internet search and your brand comes up top of the list.  The impact on a user who sees this is much greater than just, “it’s convenient for me to click on the first result I see.”  There is an implied effect that somehow, Google or Bing, are endorsing your brand by ranking you highly – the truth is very different of course, but the effect is what matters.

5. SEO Delivers Accessibility

Think about the time when you opened the doors on your business.  Until you spread the word, either through advertizing, offering promotional discounts or throwing a grand opening ceremony, who actually knew where to find you?

If you were on Main Street, people may see you as they went by, but if you were tucked away from the eyes of the public or potential customers, you had to tell people who you were and where to find you.

SEO is the means you achieve the same exposure with your online marketing presence.  The difference with SEO is that it has more than a local reach; it has a global reach and will also bring your company to the notice of those you may never have imagined would find use for your products and services.  SEO is essential to gain online visibility and increase your accessibility to potential customers.

Initial indicators coming out of the business data and bean counting analysts is that the deal is delivering positive results, for both paid and unpaid search results.  In particular, the results demonstrate that Bing is a more effective platform for delivering advertisements on the Yahoo! search engine; if you’re a marketer, this is the news you want to hear.   This is crucial if the combined search engine is to start gaining any traction and win market share from Google, which dominates the search market, but there is going to be an uphill struggle before the partnership is anywhere near out of the woods.

Individually, Microsoft and Yahoo! expended billions on their individual efforts to carve out market share, but all this did was allow Google to consolidate its dominant position in the absence of an effective competitor.  Both companies headed back to the corporate and technical drawing board just over a year ago, and the result was a merging of technical capability and the commercial offering, mostly the latter.

The result is a streamlined search engine operation which is packaged as Yahoo! (for Yahoo! users) but which is all Bing in the background.  The major technical hurdle has been to integrate the two company’s technology to deliver the paid ads from Microsoft’s AdCenter to Yahoo! users, and this appears to have been a huge success.  Full integration appears to be on track for completion this month, and the Bing/Yahoo! combination will then continue to be rolled out worldwide over the next two years (except in Japan, where, in a perverse irony, Yahoo! did a deal with Google to deliver search results).

Bing was launched in June 2009, and it has seen excellent growth numbers in the four major advertising categories since.  Automotive is up 53%; health up 61%; travel up 41%; and finally, shopping up 55%.  Click-Through-Rates (CTR) for the combined Bing-Yahoo! search engine offering are increasing too; primarily because Microsoft AdCenter is able to deliver far more relevant ads to Yahoo! users.   Bing also appears to be following a pricing strategy to keep Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ad inflation below that of Google’s, while the market generally is anticipating steep PPC price rises as the economy recovers.  This will certainly result in Bing capturing increasing market share, unless Google engages in a price war.  Google will not like to see this given it is increasingly seen by Wall Street as a “cash cow” and less of a “Rising Star”.

There is one caveat; this is all set against a small backdrop as Bing/Yahoo! accounts for less than a third of the search engine market.  Running in Bing/Yahoo!’s favor is the fact that the US paid search market is growing, some estimate at more than 6% this year and possibly more, as the business economy starts to pick up and once shy marketers return to online marketing to increase sales growth.

Takeaway

The Bing/Yahoo! merger is delivering good results.

All metrics are positive for marketers.

Costs to be held down as market grows.

Continue to watch this space.

Microsoft’s Bing is now providing the engine power for Yahoo! search users in Canada and the United States.

We shouldn’t underestimate the significance of what is going on. When this century is out, the Microsoft/Google business showdown is going to be analyzed and used as a business case study in how to gut a competitor.

Google commands a 65.8% share of the US search market, Yahoo! takes 17.1% and Microsoft’s Bing has a lowly 11% (according to Comscore’s July 2010 data).

Just over a year ago, Microsoft made a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo! which was rejected by the shareholders but who now wish they had taken the deal – Yahoo!’s capitalization trades at far less than that of today and market share has continued to decline – the numbers have all been pointing down. On the other hand, why is Microsoft so keen – Microsoft has so far lost $4 billion with its online division and efforts to gain traction by organic growth have failed. The only way Google can be challenged in the search engine space is if a rival has a large enough chunk of market share.

Either Microsoft was going to take Yahoo! over or vice versa; but Microsoft is the one with the cash.

Microsoft developed Bing to deliver powerful new search engine results, and Microsoft adCenter to serve up the revenue generating advertisements which forms the profitable prize of the search engine market. Soon after the 2008 takeover deal faltered amidst unseemly price squabbles, it became very clear that if anyone is going to take on Google they need to start capturing market share and all of the Big G’s competitors were back-pedaling.

Six months ago, the regulators approved a “partnership” deal whereby Yahoo! uses Bing to power search results and Microsoft adCenter will serve up the search advertising. The US and Canada is now enjoying the new arrangement though Yahoo! is still using its own ad service as Microsoft tries to get adCenter ready for the Fall/Christmas selling season. Only English searches are covered, though multi-lingual and overseas markets can expect to be receiving search services under the new arrangement as it rolls out through 2011-2012.

Strangely enough, Google beat out Microsoft to provide search services for Yahoo! Japan…someone in Tokyo was not reading the same corporate hymn sheet as the folks in Sunnyvale, California!

So, what do we have?

Google has 65.8% of the US market and Yahoo!/Bing has 28.1%.

So how will Bing reverse that market split?

Reading the corporate press releases it quickly becomes clear that there is the usual corporate grunge – scale of economies, cost reduction, synergies, market innovations, unique service offering and blah, blah, blah.

Who cares unless you are an investor!

Here we are concerned with search engine driven business and SEO implications. What do you, as a website owner need to be aware of and more importantly, what do you need to do?

Google is the main player in town, so it makes sense to continue to prioritize SEO efforts to maximize the returns from Google users but, Bing is a significant chunk of the market too. To a large extent, SEO life has become simpler because search optimization needs to focus on two search engines instead of three.

At the moment, you need to do nothing except monitor the situation between Google and Bing and refocus SEO efforts directed at Yahoo! to one or both of the remaining market leaders in the search engine space.

Takeaway

The Bing/Yahoo! partnership is a clear challenge to Google’s search engine domination.

Whilst the deal is highly significant for investors and analysts, it has restricted impact for website SEO at the moment.

Bing traffic is likely to improve in terms of quality and volume because of the improved position of one search engine with a third of the market instead of two, relatively small players. This is good news for many SEO clients because Bing traffic converts well, even better than Google traffic for certain verticals and niches.

So who is daft enough to take on Google and Microsoft at their own game?

Meet Mark Markson and Rich Skrenta, who have been putting their Blekko search engine together for the last 2½ years and have gone through 3 rounds of venture capital funding raising $20 million.

Let’s do the numbers – Google owns the search engine space with who cares how many billions of dollars; Microsoft’s online division has lost $4 billion in the last 2 years and was prepared to spend $46.5 billion on buying Yahoo! in 2008 just to attack that Google market.

So how far does $20 million bucks get you?

Not far, and especially not in an area where you cannot offer a reduced price for the service (searches are free) and how convenient is it going to be for users to navigate off their default search engine page to go to another search engine…it isn’t.

So What Gives?

The search engine and online advertising market is maturing and market shares are stabilizing; unless someone comes up with the so-called “Google Killer” and changes the search engine paradigm.

But Blekko denies they are a Google Killer, so what’s happening?

With market maturity comes a need to start differentiating your service offering and catering to the niche markets which emerge.  You can be everything to everyone (Google and Bing), or you can aim to carve out a niche and take market share that way, which is exactly what Blekko is aiming at.

But that is only part of the story – remember those Venture Capitalists and their $20 million – they are looking for a payday and that means selling out, or more diplomatically, having an “exit strategy”.

So who will buy Blekko if it works – Google and Bing are obvious potential suitors with the cash mountain to buy whoever or whatever they want.

It all depends on whether Blekko really has “something” they want.

What is Different About Blekko

There are two distinct differences with Blekko:

1. Slashtags – slashtags are a way of directing the search query to look at only a certain type of website; and
2. Ranking – perform any search on Google or Bing and you get a search results page, but how do you know what was going on to get that search result?  No-one knows for sure, but Blekko is transparent – ask it why you got a particular rank and it tells you!

Slashtags

This is the USP from the user perspective; if you are voting for McCain in the Arizona Senate elections then you may only be interested in what the conservative sites have to say on the election, but you can’t readily do that with Google.

With Blekko you can:

John McCain election/conservative

John McCain election/Arizona

John McCain election/liberal

The three search queries above are examples of slashtag use – the first search term with the slashtag /conservative will search only those websites deemed to be “conservative”; /Arizona will only search on websites deemed to be connected to Arizona e.g. Arizona bloggers or newspapers; and /liberal will search sites which are going to give you the opposition view to how McCain is getting on with his re-election efforts.

You can create your own slashtags or use preset ones already created for you by Blekko and other users.  There are drawbacks, such as who is maintaining the website lists supporting slashtags, but the search engine is not on general release yet and is still in testing beta, though you can gain access by following Blekko on Twitter – just follow Blekko and send a message to @Blekko.  There are also some presets, known as “built-in” slashtags which include

• /noporn;
• /date; and
• /rank.

/noporn search is obvious enough, while /date ranks results in date order (which is useful – Google & Co still have not resolved dating and historical searches yet).

It is the /rank slashtag which is a very welcome change, but more of that in a moment.

Blekko is letting you specify what part of the web you want to look at for information, and you can create your own customized lists of sites to make it even more specific.  I can see a lot of application in this and not least, a greatly improved level of relevancy to users and that is the Holy Grail for search engines of any color.

Ranking Transparency

Using the /rank slashtag uncovers a lot of information which is very granular and tells you exactly why Blekko is ranking you where you are at.

Getting ranked on page 1 of Google is fantastic, but it’s like winning a prize without being told which competition you entered.

Getting ranked anywhere on Blekko comes with an explanation of why – total transparency.

Using the /rank slashtag provides the information on how Blekko has applied its search algorithm, so now if you are deficient in one SEO area you know where you need to improve.  At the same time it is telling you what you are good at, which lets you gain some idea of how important certain SEO activities are compared to others and what value for your SEO dollars is being gained.

While Blekko does not tell you what is happening with the Bing or Google algorithm, it is a refreshing change from all the secrecy and smoke which is blown around how search engines do what they do.  More than this, using Blekko’s transparency should, to an extent, help to gauge how effective specific components of your SEO strategy are in gaining high rankings with Bing and Google.

Takeaway

The search engine market is maturing and differentiation in service provision is going to become the norm.  Google and Bing will slug it out for market dominance, but there is an opportunity for niche market’s to be carved out of the turf.

Blekko is doing just that with a search engine service which allows you to “spin” the web – effectively you tell it what areas of the web to search or not, and this will make for a greater degree of relevancy for individual users.

Blekko is also transparent in that it tells you why a site gets the ranking awarded to it.  Now why don’t Google and Bing follow that example?

Getting to the top of the search engine rankings is mission critical for almost every business out there – business 101 is simple, get yourself seen, get yourself heard and get yourself customers.
Any business which has eschewed the web is either (a) subsidized by taxpayers, (b) enjoying a state-sanctioned monopoly, (c) failing or (d) bust.
Real-world business has embraced the web in a way many could not envision 20 years ago, and still suspected would never happen 10 years ago, and only started opening their eyes to the very real potential of the web five years ago.

The web has been embraced by real-world business but this has brought real-world business sense into the mix, particularly after the dot com bubble burst after geeks with bad skin could pry $10 million out of a venture capitalist for lunch.
The old names have come to dominate the web – Amazon, Google, AOL (in whatever guise), Yahoo!, and eBay, but they are not alone. Big blue chips and household names with marketing budgets born from deep pockets have also moved in, such as Wal-Mart, Costco, CVS, Barnes & Noble and almost every Fortune 500 you can name, and with them come management philosophies emanating from gilt-edged MBA’s across the country and beyond, espousing the latest from Tom Peters or Michael Porter.

“Competitive Advantage” was what it is all about, and today it still is, though “CA” hides behind other labels such as “BI” (Business Intelligence), strategic planning and whatever other buzzword management thinkers have come up (acronyms are particularly loved by management “specialists”).

What is a competitive advantage?

Simply put it is a talent or feature or process which you are leveraging to create business success. Typically, it means doing or offering something your competitors are not; perhaps a unique product or service, or simply dropping the cost of a generic offering to undercut the competition.
Big retailers like to throw buying power around to get a lower cost per unit which they pass on in reduced prices for customers – this undercuts the local stores and puts them out of business. That buying power is a competitive advantage.
Is that unfair?

In business there are only two sets of rules: those you have to comply with (paying taxes, the law) and ones which are generally encouraged (being socially responsible, environmentally friendly, being nice).
As long as you comply with the first set of rules you are OK, but transgressing the second set can backfire in your face – Wal-Mart has a lengthy history of customer and employee issues because of its corporate behavior for instance, and this has certainly lost sales and value for the company.
But squeezing out your competition and giving a better deal to consumers is not unfair – it is the American way!

Can SEO Give You a Competitive Advantage?

Of course it can!
The proof is two-fold.
First, ask yourself how much Amazon and Barnes & Noble are paying to ensure top page rankings – put “book” into a search engine and see who comes up. Do you believe Amazon ranks third in Google for “Angels & Demons Book” as a search because they have a good website, a good offering and they have “naturally” risen to the top page of the Google rankings?
Of course they are spending money faster than most small to medium companies can make it in order to ensure they get top billing. They are doing this only because they perceive a competitive advantage in ranking so highly. Businesses are rational creatures (so management theorists tell us) and they don’t spend money unless they are going to make more back.
Second, sticking with the “book” example, type in this search “book Richmond Virginia” and sure enough you see Amazon ranking highly (results may vary depending on where you are because of local search issues if you are using Google). You also see a lot of local book stores ranking highly too – Fountain Bookstore, Inc. outranks Amazon in our localized search, despite the millions spent by the big fish on SEO and marketing. In any event, there are a dozen or so, local book stores ranking with Amazon on Google and getting that front page ranking is worth sales. Gain a front page ranking and you will experience an increase in sales by factors of ten and more compared to a ranking on page 2; the factor increases to 100’s if you compare to a page 3 ranking and 10,000’s thereafter.
The only question you need to answer for yourself in this regard is whether gaining high search engine ranking delivers more sales revenue from which profit can be derived. If the answer is “yes”, then you need SEO to provide you with the virtual competitive advantage which high search engine rankings provides because there is no other effective way of doing it.

Takeaway

A competitive advantage is anything your business can use to generate more sales and increase profitability. Whether it is unfair or not is irrelevant – a competitive advantage almost always means a benefit for the customer to in terms of increased consumer choice, reduced pricing, better services and products.
A high search engine ranking is essential for generating e-business success and gaining a first page or even better, a top ranking for your search terms represents a significant competitive advantage. Gaining high rankings is firmly within the province of SEO and a high rank is a competitive advantage.
Having gained a competitive advantage does not mean you will enjoy business success; once you have achieved a competitive advantage it is up to you to press home that advantage to the fullest extent possible and maximize the sales and profitability.

Web coding is not really computer programming: what is happening is web code is it being used to arrange the representation of a web page. Think of a shop window full of products, the window dresser does not make the actual products on display but they do arrange the display itself and the elements which are used to enhance the product placement. In a nutshell, this is what web coders and programmers are doing – arranging your web display for use in an internet browser, such as Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox.

How Does Web Code Impact SEO Rankings?

There are different types of web code available to develop a website, and different versions and types of web code may be used on the same site, so the potential for diversity is high.
Search engines need to navigate your website when they send a webcrawler to index the content for use in returning results to users.

Now what happens when a search engine’s webcrawler is unable to “read” the web code used on a website?

The answer is simple – nothing happens. The webcrawler does not fully “crawl” your website and this means portions of your website are missed by the search engines. This is disaster for the website because when you have portions of the website being missed out by the search engines this reduces your relevance rating for any search by a user and depending on how badly crawled the website is, this can result in no ranking at all!

So What Does Optimizing Code Mean?

The issue is not simply “optimizing code”; it is really about optimizing all of the display elements used to present the website through an internet browser. JavaScript and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are two major ways of creating a representation of the html/xhtml code (which is the “real” web code) within an internet browser.

For example, you may have a website coded in xhtml, which uses JavaScript to form the internet browser representation of the website which may also include animated Flash elements.

The problem is that some forms of code are better at being searched and indexed by search engines and some are almost indecipherable. This means that how well your website is indexed and how high it will rank is directly dependent on whether search engines can crawl your web code or not.

What Do the Search Engines Like?

The ideal from an SEO perspective is to use CSS to represent your html/xhtml code and utilize plain text links, because webcrawlers find these easy to follow and understand. The problem is that while this SEO “dream team” combo is great for getting your site crawled, they are not optimal for your users viewing pleasure.

Search engines like a simple layout with a simple to navigate website and code they can read easily which usually means code for static elements.
Human users like changing and dynamic elements, audio and video content but how does a search engine index the song lyrics as they are sung?
It cannot.

Designers love using fancy presentation elements such as animations and vide using Flash, but the problem here is that Google is barely able to index these files (most are ignored and at best indexing will be very patchy). The issue is that there is a very clear conflict between using web design elements to enhance user experience but also use web coding which will allow the site to be effectively indexed by the search engines.
Realistically, the question is wrong – it is not how do you optimize code for search engines but what is more important between pleasing users and pleasing search engines.
The answer is not simple and there is a delicate trade-off between the two conflicting, but vitally important requirements, but that is a tale for another post.

Takeaway

“Web code” means a variety of things depending on what you are referring to – the actual code to construct a website or the means by which website elements are displayed in an internet browser.
CSS, JavaScript, html, XHTML and Flash are all examples of what is being referred to when we speak of “optimizing web code”, but only html/xhtml are really web code in fact.

Search engines cannot crawl or understand all the different types of web code used on most websites today. Some code cannot be read at all, some only a little and some very well – which is used in your website will determine how much of the website is indexed and used in search results.

This means your web code directly impacts on how well you will rank in search engine results but using search engine friendly code does not mean it will deliver a positive user experience for human visitors.