SearchMax and Internal Pages
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Usually the top reason for clients choosing WebHealer is our SearchMax system which allows them to achieve top placement on search engines. But what page appears in these top places? Usually it is your home page, but it needn't be.
If you have ever seen websites like Wikipedia or Amazon show up on your Google searches, it will be very familiar and obvious to you that the page that is listed is never the home page of Wikipedia or Amazon, but the page containing the relevant search item. For example, searching today for "harry potter and the sorcerers stone" you will probably see at No.1 the following website address: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241527/ This is a page within IMDB (The Internet Movie Database, owned by Amazon) which gives all the details about the film of the book.
So why does WebHealer focus on your home page when discussing search engine optimisation, and why does the home page always show up in search results instead of other pages? The answer is that it is not always the home page that lists first, as Google may well prefer another page, but for the kind of clients that WebHealer supports with a much more narrow focus than websites like Amazon, it very often is.
In order to explain this further, and (if you wish) to help you apply some finer tuning to your website's performance on Google, it is necessary to provide more detail about our searchMAX system and also the wider science (and art) of search engine optimisation (SEO). The full scope of SEO is unfortunately riddled with complexity, and any attempt to understand it is also hampered by the lack of real proven information. Search engine companies are very careful to avoid giving away all the rules, to avoid being "gamed" by the websites who want to be No.1 Instead all "experts" rely on observation, guesses, testing, and researching opinions from other people's observation, guesses and testing. This lack of absolute knowledge, is why SEO is as much art as science, and requires judgement about competing priorities.
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..all experts rely on observation, guesses and testing - and researching opinions from other people's observation, guesses and testing. |
Due to this complexity, one of the problems that search engine consultants have when working with their clients, is that the clients need a reasonably good grasp of the art & science of SEO as well, in order to discuss and work with them on their business objectives.
One of the success stories of WebHealer, we feel, is the process we have developed around our searchMAX system that enables us to discuss the search engine needs of our clients in relatively simple language. Our ABC system focusses step by step on:
A. Carefully choosing the words and phrases to focus on
B. Getting those words and phrases inserted into your home page
C. Obtaining important listings on high value websites
The other key area of simplication is our advice to focus on around a dozen words and phrases, and our requirement that the client identifies 3 key phrases for us to give maximum "boost" to. These particular requirements are in fact specific to our searchMAX system, rather than being general rules of SEO. Over the years they have proven very effective for the kinds of clients WebHealer focusses on, but in some cases, depending on your areas of focus, there are ways to stretch them. The first step is to understand a little more about how these phrases are used.
In the ABC process listed above, parts B and C are more conventionally referred to as On-Page optimisation, and Off-Page optimisation respectively. They are quite distinct from one another. A good way of viewing the difference is that On-Page optimisation is all about telling Google (or other search engines) very clearly, what your areas of focus are, and therefore getting in the list for those searches. Off-Page optimisation is about getting to the top of the list.
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..on-page optimisation is all about ... getting in the list. Off-page is about getting to the top of the list. |
The key elements of On-Page optimisation are briefly as follows:
Off-Page optimisation is about obtaining links from other websites which have closely related content to yours. These can be actively sought , but often the best quality links are obtained by "putting yourself out there", showing useful and relevant content on your website, which others find and consider worth linking to.
On-Page optimisation is relatively easy, and off-page optimisation is relatively hard. A consequence of this is that website owners are often tempted to focus immense effort on on-page optimisation, and less effort on making their websites attractive for off-page optimisation, when the reverse should be their priority. In our experience, on-page optimisation is something to do "well enough" - and once you have done it well enough, switch your focus to doing what you can about off page optimisation. Putting this in other words, just because it is in your control to stuff your home page full of keywords, don't.
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.. just because it is in your control to stuff your home page full of keywords, don't ! |
Not convinced? Try looking at it from Google's perspective. As a website owner, it is your responsibility and it is under your control (with our help and advice) to get on-page optimisation right. Google has no objection to you being clear about what you offer a website viewer, and getting yourself in their list. There is no competitive tension there. The competitive tension is about who gets to the top of the list, and so Google will not give you direct control over that. So they are not likely to give you bonus points just for having twice as many keyword mentions as someone else.
Note that the one area of on-page optimisation that should be kept up regularly is updates. Keeping your website content fresh with new material is important, and as a double benefit it indirectly increases your off-page optimisation as explained in the next paragraph.
searchMAX has modules encompassing both on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation, but the latter is where the real value lies. It is the hardest part and also the part that is key to the success of our clients. You can do this work yourself of course, and it would benefit you to try, but as we've already said, on-page is easy, off-page is hard. If you are a counsellor, say, then it would be absolutely fantastic if you could persuade the BBC to link to you from one of their website pages focussed on health with a feature on counselling. Your website would without doubt go up on Google as a result. You could write to the BBC and ask, but the chances are slim to zero. Don't be completely put off by this though. Focus on preparing and maintaining an interesting website that may one day attract the BBC's attention, or slightly more likely, the attention of a local paper who might link to you in their website's health section. We do hear from clients to whom this has happened.
Off-page optimisation should be part of your own marketing activities, but searchMAX gives you a big helping hand. We have arrangements with other websites who maintain relevant sections to our client's areas of specialism and with whom we have agreed will provide links to our clients. These links are managed and maintained by our searchMAX system, and are removed when clients leave. This is why clients who leave WebHealer tend to go down on Google, unless they have done a thorough job of off-page optimisation themselves.
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..clients who leave WebHealer tend to go down on Google, unless they have done a thorough job of off-page optimisation themselves. |
Our focus is on quality not quantity. If you want quantity without quality, just google a phrase like "free links" but we'd strongly advise you not to. A sudden influx of hundreds of links from low quality, undiscerning websites, which may well have a bad history with Google, will do your website no good, and is more likely to hurt your website's performance. Instead our website partners run genuine websites with relevant sections and a legitimate basis for linking.
For example the BrmmBrmm directory on BrmmBrmm.com has been in place since 1999, and has proven a very effective and valuable part of searchMAX. BrmmBrmm.com is regularly approached by companies seeking links, some prepared to pay hundreds of pounds a year just for a single link. This is just part of a growing number of relationships WebHealer has with partners of this type, and in fact represents one of the most intensive development areas for WebHealer.
On-page optimisation is also managed by searchMAX, and has 3 main aspects:
Finally we come to internal pages. searchMAX provides on-page optimisation for internal pages through the following mechanisms.
In addition, as on page optimisation is very much based on the visible words within your content, you are largely in control of on-page optimisation by staying focussed on the specific area of specialism of that page.
Note that the purpose of optimising internal pages is primarily to achieve independent listing of those pages on search engines, and as we have already explained this is very difficult for small websites, as opposed to 'authority' websites such as Amazon, Wikipedia, IMDB etc. If your website has thousands of pages of good content, with a good structure and well designed linkage between topics then you can achieve that authority status and in turn obtain internal page listings that rank higher than the home pages of other websites. If you are not considered an authority website it is much harder. Typically all off page optimisation points at the home page of small websites, and those home pages tend to get the listings.
For this reason, the WebHealer system offers only limited optimisation control over internal pages, however the following on-page optimisation is available.
For those that would have preferred more control over Keywords and Description, please be aware that in addition to the challenges of internal page optimisation already discussed, the role of these fields has been significantly reduced in the algorithms of search engines. Google themselves have said that they do not use it.
One field that is still of great importance is the Title. Some clients may wish to have a keyword rich web page title for an internal page but have the page name in the menu more compact. For example, you may wish to have a page which is called "About Me" in your menu but with a web page title of "About My Therapy Practice in East London". There is a way of doing this using a double bar separator ||. The "|" character is typically above the "\" character on your keyboard. In the example below the second page in the menu will be called "About Me" but the web page title (which also gets incporated into keyword/description) will be "About My Therapy Practice in East London".
Internal URLs are the web addresses of pages other than your home page. For example the URL for the second page of our client Nicholas King's website is: http://www.nicholaskingcounselling.co.uk/phdi/p1.nsf/supppages/5105?opendocument&part=2. An area of on-page optimisation that is often discussed amongst SEO experts is that of URLs, and the degree to which they should contain keywords. So for example, this web address might be set up differently as http://www.nicholaskingcounselling.co.uk/couples_counselling.htm. This is something we have also researched and tested, and (although things can change) we currently subscribe to the view taken by many experts that this is a technique often employed by "spammy" websites, and is not a key factor. Clearly if it was critical, the Harry Potter example at the start of this article would not be No.1 on Google. As a rule we are always circumspect when it comes to search engine techqniques that are easy to overdo. Our current position is therefore that we are looking at making changes to the internal URLs for readability and usability purposes, but not for SEO reasons.
In conclusion, a small website which does not have 'authority' status and which typically has all off-page optimisation targetted at its home page will struggle to gain much benefit from internal page optimisation for search engines. If you are frustrated that the "top 3" categorisation of searchMAX restricts you, and you would like more phrases, you can indeed give names to internal pages focussed on other important search phrases. If the phrase is not too tough, then it may well be that with clear (not excessive) on-page optimisation you can gain a placement for that internal page. It is still likely however, that as your home page will also have some on page optimisation for that phrase, the home page still ranks first. If the phrase is a tough and competitive one then it will almost certainly require the off page optimisation, which the home page benefits from, to get a good placement.
This is not to say that you should ignore your internal pages, as they do have one role in supporting your SEO, which we haven't really mentioned yet. By having a number of internal pages, which have a clear and more detailed focus on specific areas of specialism which are covered in summary on your home page, the interlinking of your pages which the simple text menus provide, will re-inforce the on-page optimisation.
The purpose of this article was to focus on how searchMAX handles internal pages, and so it has not gone into detail about other factors that aid overall performance on search engines. Keeping your content updated is key and becoming increasingly important. Load speed is another factor. Our websites are deliberately designed to load quickly, as slow loading websites tend to get marked down on search engines. See our EZ Guide links in the top right of this web page for more information about other factors.