High in the Rankings

Overlooked Strategies

Another common misconception holds that enhancing search rankings is simply a matter of optimizing a site for one or two “golden” keywords. But that’s usually only a starting point. When Paul Larson, president of Creative Arc, a Web-design company in Minneapolis, was asked to help optimize the site of Montana Legend, his research determined that the steak retailer’s most productive search keywords were “angus beef,” “steak gifts” “dry aged,” and “prime beef.” Creative Arc then optimized the Web site for each of those keywords, boosting keyword density throughout the site and in anchor text, moving keywords higher on the site, and reworking page titles.

“We couldn’t just optimize for the keyword ‘steak gifts’ and expect the site to start showing up under searches for ‘angus beef’ as well,” says Larson. “For the best results, you need to conduct optimization campaigns for all of your key terms, which often comes as a surprise to companies.”

In helping the Twin Cities Dining Guide, a restaurant and dining publication, improve its search results and Web traffic, Net Dynasty, a Minneapolis Internet-marketing and Web-design firm, optimized each of the site’s 200-plus pages for different keywords, using density, anchor text, title, and other strategies. “There are now thousands of combinations you can type in that will take you to the dining guide from many different avenues,” says Brian Bierbaum, Net Dynasty’s owner.

Bierbaum says another little-used way to enhance search rankings is to make your site compliant with the guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium, an international organization based in Massachusetts created to develop Web standards. Compliance creates extremely clean site coding that makes it easier for search-engine bots to locate relevant keywords and not get bogged down in the “junk code, tables, and the like” on a site, he says. Such a step requires that code be written manually, a time-intensive process that some companies shy away from. But Bierbaum says the extra effort can have a big payoff. “When we did it, it helped improve the search rank for our site from the fourth page to the front page [of search results],” he says.

Some businesses use dubious methods like log spamming and overdoing it on keyword density (called keyword stuffing) in attempts to improve their search rankings. Log spamming is the stuffing of referral logs, which collect information and statistics on who visits a site and how they got there—log spammers put bogus links into the logs. Short-cut tactics usually only work for a short time, and the biggest offenders risk being punished by Google or Yahoo for their actions by being downgraded in the search rankings or banned from the search engine altogether.

William Leskinen, owner of William Lewis Web Development, LLC, in Minneapolis, knows of one company that created 10 different Web sites to sell the same product line, then cross-linked all of the sites to improve its rankings. “The company was ranked well until Google clamped down on the reciprocal link factor, devalued the sites, and it soon vanished from the rankings,” Leskinen says.

Major search engines frequently change the technology they use to keep such “rogue” optimizers off balance. “Google can change one of its algorithms, and your site can disappear tomorrow from its rankings,” Leskinen says.