Search Engine Positioning: Trends for 2005

Anticipating what the future may bring can always beobtained better rankings due to the popularity of our
a risky business. In spite of these difficulties, businesseswebsite.oUsability — Two aspects are important
must work within predictable and potential boundariesfor a website to produce a satisfying performance.
that can generate good intuition for the future. WeNot only it needs to be well optimized for the search
humbly accept the possibility of making erroneousengines, or be search engine friendly, but it also needs
assumptions and predictions while delineating whatto be optimized for the visitors, or be user friendly.
Human Level Communications anticipates for the fastThat is why usability factors are so important when it
growing and highly competitive world of search enginecomes to designing the navigation, framework, and
marketing during 2005.contents of a website.oFeedback — One
All against one, and one against allThe consolidation ofcannot afford to ignore the type of keywords and
search enginesother search criteria that will generate the largest rate
2005 culminates an on-going search engineof conversion from visitors to clients. By analyzing this
consolidation process that has left three indisputabledata periodically we can continually optimize our
star players: Google as the number one, Yahoo! andwebsite, not necessarily to obtain a greater number of
MSN Search. These three search engines representtop search engine rankings, but to improve our
between 85% and 95% of all traffic that arrives at aefficiency and profitability (our real goal).
website directed by a search engine or directoryFrom information to knowledge
service, and their databases feed results to manyConversion
other search engines and meta-engines. Meanwhile,This will be one of the buzzwords for 2005. The true
the giant Microsoft continues to fine-tune its owngoal for this year will be to achieve that a larger
technology in the form of a beta version of MSNnumber of web visitors actually become clients.
Search.Obtaining top rankings in the search engines, even
These three leaders are expected to fiercelythough is one of the most worthwhile investments, still
compete in the areas listed below, significantlycosts money. It is even more expensive to sign up for
impacting search engine marketing strategies.oQualityan AdWords campaign or any other pay-per-click
of Natural Results: only time and the market will tellscheme. Besides, the higher the traffic level, the more
what search engine will be able to generate the bestbandwidth will be required and, in some instances, the
natural results (i.e. non-sponsored). Google seems tocost to analyze the traffic statistics will increase. That
have the most experience in this area, while Yahoo!is why the quality of the traffic is always going to be
has developed its own website indexing algorithm.valued over the quantity. This paradigm shift will involve
MSN Search, on the other hand, has been crawling theefforts in two different areas: positioning and results
Web for well over a year to generate its ownanalysis and measurement.
database for Microsoft.oLocal Search: being able toPositioning:
use a search engine to find the closest pizzaIt will be time well spent to identify and select those
restaurant to our current location introduces ankey concepts for our niche market and the most
important geographic segmentation challenge. Googleefficient search engines and value-added portals to
and Yahoo! have already taken the first stepsdirect quality traffic to our website. The majority of the
towards solving this problem and MSN Search willeffort will be concentrated in the areas listed
follow suit very soon (as we were finishing this article,below.oWeb optimization will no longer belong to just a
Microsoft launched a beta version).oFree e-mail:few. It is foreseeable that by generalizing the web
Yahoo! Mail and MSN Hotmail used to share theoptimization procedures, competition among websites
spotlight as being the leaders in offering free e-mailin the same line of business will shift from the
accounts. Google then pulled from its sleeve GMail, aapplication of certain “tricks” (e.g., meta-tags,
free e-mail account service with 1GB of storage thatkeyword saturations, etc.) to improvements in areas
uses a contextual publicity mechanism based on thesuch as content enrichment, usability, a genuine interest
automatic analysis of e-mail content. Yahoo! Mail hastowards the end-users and the addition of external
reacted rapidly raising their free e-mail storage quotareferences by placing access links in related
to 250 MB and offering a new e-mail variety, Mail Plus,websites.oQuality code. XHTML 1.0 code and CSS 2.0
that for less than $20 a year doubles the storagestyle sheets are becoming increasingly popular
space offered by Google. Once again, Microsoft hassyntaxes for the development of web pages. They
fallen behind in this contest even though it has elevatedprovide flexibility and the possibility to easily customize
its storage quota to 250MB. It will be interesting toa web design, while significantly increasing page loading
follow MSN’s reaction to Google’s boldspeeds, thus improving the accessibility and indexing of
move.oDesktop Search: Apple, once again, pioneereda website.oCultural and geographical content
this concept and offered a solution in their Sherlockadaptation. Global websites go beyond the translation
tool, which has been for some time a standardof their text to multiple languages. They also adapt
component of MacOS. However, Google Desktop hastheir entire content to match the local peculiarities and
been the first offering of such an application forcultural and linguistic differences of each country or
Windows desktops and once again, Google has beatregion. In the United States, for example, websites
the giant from Redmond in its own turf, perhapsadapted to capture the attention of the Hispanic
anticipating that Microsoft could integrate MSN Searchcommunity, the number one minority in that country,
in their next release of the Windows operating system,have already started to surface. In the multi-cultural
just like they did a while back with Explorer, criticallyenvironment of the European Union, an even larger
wounding Netscape Navigator.need exists to adapt website contents to the different
Optimize and re-optimize, it pays offlanguages and cultural interests of each country. And
Google’s success has proven that users willfinally, one cannot ignore the emergent interest by
utilize those search engines that are capable ofwestern businesses of capturing Chinese, Indian, and
generating results that present in their first page ofMiddle-eastern audiences.oUsability and accessibility.
results those websites that are most relevant to theThese are two principles that besides improving and
searching criteria provided. With this mission in mind,facilitating the conversion process from users to clients,
both webmasters and web positioning experts havethey demand a greater social responsibility towards
tried to position their websites within the highest rankingminorities, and generally speaking, an increase in the
results for the maximum number of categories, all todegree in which a website has to be indexed for a
attract the largest amount of traffic. The traditional bagsearch engine.
of “tricks”, such as keyword saturation, hidden orWeb traffic analysis:
invisible text, meta-tags saturation, link farms, mirrorWeb positioning and web traffic reports, in isolation, no
sites, continuous search engine registrations, etc., is alonger have valuable meaning if they are being used
thing of the past. The algorithms employed by modernas the only set of metrics to determine the success of
search engines have been learning every newa website. Instead, one should focus not only in the
“trick” just as quickly as the “experts” haveselection of the most significant set of performance
been discovering and taking advantage of all themetrics for a website (the so-called key Performance
weaknesses of web crawlers. This constantIndicators), but also in the continuous monitoring of
confrontation has spawned a mutual perfectionism. Onthese indicators in order to establish trends and
one hand, the searching algorithms are now harder toanticipate changes. To ensure success, this type of
“trick” and they are able to progressivelyanalysis must follow the following guidelines:oEach
generate more pertinent results ordered in a hierarchydepartment should establish their own set of metrics
that users find more useful and efficient. On the otherand associated performance indicators. Examples of
hand, webmasters and Internet professionals havesuch indicators could be the rate of satisfactory results
discovered that it is more important to correctlygenerated by an internal product search engine, the
identify the market niche being targeted, generate richrate of cases that were resolved at a help desk, the
and high quality contents, provide frequent updates,participation rate among the various website sections
use well structured and purified code, make the siteas depicted in the web traffic reports, the rate of
highly usable and accessible, rather than utilizing anproducts that get added to a shopping cart, the rate of
absurd language simply to “satisfy” Googlebot, forvisits that concluded in a successful sale, the
example.recommendations sent to other users, how visitors
In the area of web optimization, immediate attentionvalued the different products, the number of contacts
should be given to the following points:oCommonestablished, etc.oOnce the performance indicators
sense - How useful is it to appear first on a search ifhave been identified for each case, a monitoring
when the users arrive at a page they find a repetitivecalendar should be put in place to periodically track the
and absurd language and an ill-formed and difficult tovarious metrics. Instead of receiving hundreds of web
follow structure? Or, to put it in a different way, do wetraffic statistics, each department head can then focus
have a website designed to attract a lot of visitors orin tracking their own performance indicators.oThis form
to attract a lot of clients? Appearing first on a searchof tracking does allow each responsible party to
engine is similar to having your prospective clients linedcontemplate improvement plans and determine if
outside your door. There is still a long way beforeprevious strategies are having the anticipated success.
those clients walk in, actually choose something andSince they are only monitoring their own area,
pay for it.oProfessional involvement - The time forcorrective measures can be quickly identified and
optimization “tricks” has passed. Today, the taskapplied.oBased on the information obtained from these
of optimizing a website belongs to the experts. Theseindicators, the entire cycle can be started again.
are professionals capable of generating coherentConclusion
navigational structures, suggesting meaningful languageThe search engine consolidation in three primary
for the search engines and natural for the visitors,players —Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search- has
adding access links from important and reputablesimplified, in a way, the task of positioning websites for
external websites, and providing advise beyond thethose engines. Notwithstanding, the generalization of
technical aspects to identify the market niches forthis type of strategies has started to erode the
each website and those keywords that will generatecompetitive edge that the early websites obtained
the maximum rate of conversion from visitors tofrom using “tricks” to attract the attention of
clients.oContents — The creation of original andcertain search engines. From here on, however, the
high quality contents provides the highest return on thebattle for a successful website placement strays from
investment. Writing articles, participating as athe application of “tricks” by expert wannabes
moderator in forums or chat rooms, or developingtowards more sound, while more complex, strategies
e-books or newsletters will translate into a rapid surgeincluding not only the optimization of meta-tags, but
of qualified traffic not only from potential customers,also the enrichment of page contents, code
but also from providers, collaborators and possiblecorrectness, generation of contents for other websites,
partners.oAccess links — A very effective wayparticipation in forums and chat rooms, active search
to direct traffic to our website is by including links to itfor partners and access links, on-line training, usability,
inside other important and related websites. This is dueaccessibility, etc. And it is in this new environment,
to several reasons.oAppearing as a recommended linkarmed with a good set of increasingly sophisticated
inside important portals positions us as experts orweb traffic analysis tools, that we can make well
leaders in our domain, not only in front of an audienceeducated marketing decisions, not only to improve our
of potential customers, but also in front of ouron-line presence, but to benefit our off-line world as
competition.oThose external links pointing to ourwell. As a final comment, I would like to raise the
website increase our Page Rank, a popularity indexpossibility that some or all these tactics may prove
that Google uses to express the importance of aineffective by year end. However, since we have not
website and one of the parameters that it considersfound that perfect crystal ball yet, it seems wise and
when is placing the final search results.oLinks fromprudent to start from the basis suggested in this paper
other websites generate more qualified traffic in aand keep a watchful eye on any new developments
direct way, by users clicking on the link itself, andthat may impact the course that we decide to set.
indirectly, by users who click on Google because they