Excerpt
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 The Revolution of the Digital Era
1.1 Proliferation of Websites
1.2 Consumer Internet Consumption
1.3 Online Shopping – “An Old Hat”
1.4 Items purchased on the Internet
2 Aspects of the e-Retail Evolution
2.1 e-Retail revenue versus other traditional media
2.2 The Shift in Marketing Budget
2.3 Consumer-Driven Market
2.4 The Power of Trust
2.5 Click-through behaviour in web searches
3 Search Engines - “Gatekeeper of Cyberspace”
3.1 Impact of Well-Ranked Websites
3.2 Google - Introduction
3.3 Google’s Dominance
3.4 Google Search Technology
3.5 Google Algorithm
4 Search Engine Optimisation
4.1 Definition
4.2 Importance of Keywords
4.3 Keyword Research
4.3.1 Relevance versus Search Volume
4.3.2 Single Keywords Versus Phrases
4.3.3 Narrow-down the Keywords
4.3.3.1 Keyword Effectiveness Index
4.3.3.2 Keyword Opportunity Index
4.3.4 Number of Keywords Counts
4.3.5 Building a Website Theme
4.4 Keyword Page Placement
4.4.1 Page Titles
4.4.1.1 Title Tag Structure
4.4.1.2 Benefits of Page Titles
4.4.1.3 Length, Prominence and Capitalisation
4.4.2 Meta Tags
4.4.2.1 Meta Description
4.4.2.2 Meta Keywords
4.4.3 Headline Tags
4.4.4 Body Text
4.4.5 Alt Tags
4.5 The Power of Links
4.5.1 Link Structure - Anchor text
4.5.2 Link Program
4.5.2.1 Backlinks
4.5.2.2 Internal Link - Sitemaps
4.5.2.3 External Links
4.5.2.4 Reciprocal Links
4.6 Black Hat Techniques
4.6.1 Doorway Pages
4.6.2 Cloaking
4.6.3 Hidden Text
4.6.4 Keyword Stuffing
4.7 Not just SEO alone
4.7.1 SEO - Single-Channel Marketing Strategy
4.7.2 Insufficient Functionality
4.7.3 Multi-channel Shoppers
5 Conclusion
References
Table of Figures
Index
Glossary
Introduction
The Internet has become a vital part of our society. More and more people are connected to the web using it for a variety of reasons. The latest statistics revealed that shopping and information research have been one of the most common Internet transactions in recent times.[1] Not only the shopping behaviour but also the time spent on the Internet and away from other marketing distribution channels have caused a major shift in the nature of marketing and how it had been conducted.[2] Consequently the Internet has risen to one of the leading platforms for businesses to communicate directly to its customers. Thus most businesses are now digitally represented in the form of websites to increase brand awareness and sales.
Due to the vast growing number of websites in the World Wide Web(www) the majority of Internet users are now relying on search engines to find information of interest.[3] The main tasks of these search engines are to organise the World Wide Web’s digital information and to return a list of pages with relevant search results. Each query executed by the Internet user may result in millions of related search results; however research has shown that the majority of Internet users limit their research to a few matches within the first two to three pages.[4] Therefore a fundamental goal of all Internet sites is not only to be found by search enginesbut more so to appear in the top position of business relevant searches.[5] One way to achieve this is by creating search engine friendly websites that assist search engines to return queries with the most relevant results, this method is commonly known as Search Engine Optimisation(SEO).
Thus the main purpose of this paper is to give an insight of some of the most important search engine optimisation techniques that not only aim for search-engine visibility, but more so, focuses on users, making sure that their needs and demands are met when they arrived on the website.
Since Googleis by far the most dominant search engine this paper examined the search engine optimisation techniques required to improve visibility within Googleand therefore disregarded other search engines. Given that the length of this paper is restricted this study focused entirely on free search listings, also known as organic listings, and ignores other Internet marketing tools like Pay-Per-Click advertisement(PPC).[6]
1 The Revolution of the Digital Era
The Internet, as no other communication channel has done before, changed the way people communicate and do business with each other. The key role of the enormous popularity of the Internet is due to the improvement of Internet connectivity, and that little investment and knowledge is required to access and use the World Wide Web.[7] An estimated 1.57 billion users, that is an estimated 23.5 per cent of the world population are now using the Internet worldwide.[8]
1.1 Proliferation of Websites
As with the increase in Internet users, the number of websites has grown simultaneously; according to Netcraft, an Internet services company, the estimated amount of hosted websites in the April 2009 survey reached over 231.5 million sites (as seen in figure 1-1),[9] compared to last year’s 165.7 million, which represents a significant growth of nearly 40 per cent within 12 months.[10]
Figure 1-1 Total Sites Across All Domains January 1996 - April 2009
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Source: Netcraft Web Survey April 2009[11]
Many of these websites are simply ‘brochure-ware’, which solely display the range of products and services a company has to offer. This limits the website visitor’s actions to merely filling out a “Contact Us” form, emailing or telephoning the number displayed on the website. However more and more websites employ full transactional capabilities that support commercial activities like shopping carts[12] which increases the value of the website to the business by converting visitors into customers.[13]
1.2 Consumer Internet Consumption
Besides the increase of Internet users, the time spent on the Internet by consumers has also risen dramatically. A study, conducted in 2006 by Ofcom[14], revealed that UK consumers have spent 158% more on the Internet than four years earlier.[15]
Further research by Ofcom Research suggested that UK Internet users over all ages have watched less TV and have read fewer newspapers, showing the highest decline in the usage of non-Internet media amongst the age group 15-24 years (figure 1-2).[16] However when examined further, the decline of traditional media consumption have been primarily related to the shift towards online television, radioand news rather than a shift in the activity itself.[17]
Figure 1-2 Reduced consumption resulting from increased Internet use
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten Source: Ofcom research, April 2006[18]
1.3 Online Shopping – “An Old Hat”
With the rise of consumer confidence in online shopping the NielsenCompany, an American media research company, stated that the Internet has long passed its niche market status. Its survey revealed that 85 per cent of the world’s online population has used the Internet frequently to make purchases. This was an increase of 40 percent compared to a survey taken two years earlier.[19]
Figure 1-3 Percentage of Population that purchased over the Internet
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Source: Adapted from NielsenConsumer Report: Trends in Online Shopping[20]
1.4 Items purchased on the Internet
The majority of items purchased over the Internet are mainly concentrated amongst a small percentage of categories. According to the NielsenCompany 2007 survey the most popular products purchased over the Internet are books (41 per cent) clothing/accessories/shoes (36 per cent) videos/DVDs/games (24 per cent), airline tickets (24 per cent) and electronic equipment (23 per cent).[21]
Figure 1-4 Items purchased over the Internet in the past 3 months
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Source: Adapted from NielsenConsumer Report: Trends in Online Shopping[22]
As shown in figure 1-5, books are by far the most popular item sold online. The success in book e-Retailing has been linked to a number of suitable e-retail characteristics. The main attributes include that books have been described as low-touch products, which require less physical observation to make purchasing decisions. They are usually inexpensive, easy to deliver by post and generally the customers’ product expectations have been met before the order.[23] In addition to the beneficial e-shopping attributes of the product, as stated by Charles Dennis, Tino Fenech and Bill Merrilees, the success of the book and other favourable low-touch e-Retail items is explained by its e-Commerce savvy consumer group: “These typically are younger, better educated and of a higher socio-economic group than the general population.” This generation has known the Internet since early childhood and therefore has adopted Internet shopping as the modus operandi.[24]
In the case of Amazon.com these characteristics played a major part in the early success of this Internet-only book retailer. Since its online launch in 1995, Amazon.com has established itself as being the “world's largest bookstore”, progressively shaping the e-Commerce landscape along the way.[25]
2 Aspects of the e-Retail Evolution
Since online shopping became more economical and payment options became progressively safer, consumers are increasingly switching from the stressful department store outings to the more convenient online shopping experience. Due to this phenomenon, the online shopping’s market share has been predicted to rise to 6 percent of the total U.S. retail sales in 2009.[26] Furthermore the market research company Forresterpredicts in its recent report: “U.S. e-Commerce Forecast: 2008 to 2012” that the online sales figure may perhaps reach $334.7 billion in 2012.[27] However due to the current global economic recession the research company Forrester has recently announced a slowdown in e-Commerce growth and therefore re-adjusted the forecast of US e-Commerce sales to an estimated $229 billion in 2013. In saying that, e-Retailing still has taken a noticeable share from the traditional brick and mortar sector, which is predicted to increase in the years to come.[28]
2.1 e-Retail revenue versus other traditional media
Amongst a number of offline and online marketing strategies, a MarketingSherpasurvey revealed that 54 per cent of the interviewed marketers believed that search engine optimisation is one of the strongest tactics to generate Return-on-Investment (ROI) leaving online banners and printadvertisingfar behind (figure 2-1).[29]
Figure 2-1 How Search ROI measures against other tactics
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Source: Adapted from MarketingSherpa: Search Benchmark Guide 2008[30]
Even though the overall USA advertising budget has been predicted to shrink over the next 5 years due to current and foreseeable economic conditions, in contrast, the digital revenues generated by online and Internet marketing is expected to grow from $14 billion in 2008 to $32.1 billion in 2013. On the other hand the traditional segment (newspapers, direct mail, television, radio, print, Yellow Pages, non-digital out-of-home, cable TVand magazines) is expected to drop from $141.3 billion in 2008 to $112.4 billion in 2013 (figure 2-2).[31]
Figure 2-2 Revenue Forecast: Digital versus Traditional Media
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Source: BIA Advisory Services and The Kelsey Group, Digital Growth to Offset Local Ad Market Declines[32]
2.2 The Shift in Marketing Budget
As a result of the change in media usage and subsequently the ROI of specific media channels, advertisers have begun to migrate their marketing budget increasingly towards Internet Marketing strategies. A study, conducted by Shar VanBoskirk, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research revealed that of 208 marketers surveyed, 59 per cent are committed to allocating more and more marketing expenditure towards interactive marketing using the Internet as the main medium.[33]
Figure 2-3 Marketing Budget Forecast
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Source: Shar VanBoskirk, Forrester Marketer Survey: Interactive Taking Money From Traditional Media[34]
2.3 Consumer-Driven Market
As never before the Internet has given the online consumer a newfound power of choice and control of how and where to purchase. The ability to compare prices provided by the global online marketplace and to locate reviews of previous customer experiences on the Internet has fundamentally changed the marketing communication of a business with the consumer. People have become more “demanding, less loyal and less willing to forgive companies whose products and services do not meet their high standards”.[35]
As a consequence of market changes, the proliferation of e-Commerce websitesaround the world and the enthusiastic adoption by its consumers over a short period of time, marketers have been forced to redirect their focus towards online marketing strategies and away from traditional ones.[36]
2.4 The Power of Trust
An important driver of the online retail growth is that consumers were more trusting in spending their money online even without a physical shop front. However Nielsenstated in its latest consumer report that the majority of online shoppers preferred to stay loyal to the e-Retailer where they have purchased before and have had a positive experience.[37]
Another strong driver to locate trustworthy and satisfying shopping sites are personal recommendations by experienced online shoppers. Consequently it is essential to provide outstanding shopping experiences to previous online consumers as well as new ones, since it is the second-time customer who has been the major source of e-Retail recommendations. As Bruce Paul, Vice President of Customised Research for NielsenResearch stated: “If shopping sites can capture them early, and create a positive shopping experience, they will likely capture their loyalty and their money,”.[38]
One of the most influential forces of e-Commerce has been linked to the introduction of search engineslike Google, that isfrequently returning millions of search engine results, leaving it up to Internet users to decide which of the many web pages best match their needs. However, some studies have shown, that search engines have often been perceived as an expert device to find quality information. They represented the trust to judge the level of usefulness of information by listing the most relevant web pages at the top and the less relevant lower down. Inferring that a well-positioned page has been seen as quality brands and an authority in its market.[39]
2.5 Click-through behaviour in web searches
In correlation with the users’ confidence in search engine results, another study carried out by Amanda Spink and Bernard J. Jansen examined the Internet search behaviour in regards to the number of search result pages viewed at one given time. The study demonstrated that most search engine users rarely go beyond the first page of results[40], arguably implying that customers have been less critical and generally satisfied with the results given.[41]
The phenomenon of the high-level of trust towards search engines was examined in some additional research in which test subjects had a tendency to select well-positioned web pages even though the web pages had not been as relevant to the assignment than the ones further down the list.[42]
As an illustration, Frederick Marckini, Chief Executive Officer of iProspect, suggests that a low-ranked e-Commerce website is like “…a billboard in the woods. No one will find it”.[43]
3 Search Engines - “Gatekeeper of Cyberspace”
Search engineshave played a huge part in the development of the Internet and e-Commerce. One of the primary causes of the boost of web traffic[45] has been linked to the efforts of search engines in assisting Internet users to navigate their way through the Internet.[46] In pursuit of information, searchers place queries in one of numerous search engines, hoping to find relevant websites on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Integrated as part of society’s lifestyle, search engines have been executing an estimated 13.5 billion searches every month.[47][44]
3.1 Impact of Well-Ranked Websites
Since the Internet became such an important source for consumers the position of business-relevant SERPs often determine the success or failure of e-Commerce driven businesses.
David Viney has illustrated the impact of certain search engine positions as follows:
Imagine the web is one giant city with stores scattered through it. Having your site in the top 10 is like having your store right on Main Street or near the entrance of the largest shopping mall in human history. Being outside the top 20 is like having a corner store on the very outskirts of town. Your footfall in a major mall is massive, with people coming in and out of your store all the time. On the web, a top position on Google has just the same effect.[48]
A study was carried out by Oneupwebcomparing the changes of new visitors (web traffic) and the conversion rateaccording to the search result placement position of an average website. After the test website appeared one month in the first SERPthe amount of new visitors more than tripled. Additionally the conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who took a desired action like purchase or sent inquiry) increased significantly by 42 per cent.[49]
Therefore being visible on relevant search results has not only a significant effect on driving traffic to the site, but can also improve branding awareness, strengthening consumers’ trust and most importantly boost sales.
3.2 Google - Introduction
Before the search engine Googlewas first introduced in 1997 the Internet appeared cluttered and disorganised. Instead of fast and relevant search results the main focus of the early search engines like Lycos, Magellan, Infoseek, Excite, and HotBotwere primarily on advertising revenue rather then quality search results. At this stage search enginesregarded those websites with the highest number of keywordsto be the most relevant opposed to the ones with a lower keyword rate. Not only was this method easy to manipulate by webmasters, but also provided often meaningless and irrelevant search results.[50]
Dissatisfied with the quality of information provided by these search engines, two Ph.D. students at Stanford Universityin Computer Science: Sergey Brinand Larry Page, hypothesised that better search results can be achieved by counting the number of links pointing to a website. This method was drawn from their observation of publications within the academic world. They deduced that quoted references, which appeared more often, were deemed to be more significant than those that appeared less often. With that it can be assumed that websites with the highest number of incoming links from other sites were the most popular ones. However being a popular site did not necessarily mean that it was of a high quality or relevance. Therefore Brin and Page took a step further and added the logic of quality links, also commonly known as “PageRank”. Sites that receiving a link from a popular and business related website, gained importance and achieved a higher position.[51] Page suggested that this “democratic” nature of valuing each others websites would also improve over time as the web gets bigger and more and more websites point to each other.[52]
3.3 Google’s Dominance
Initially concentrating primarily on relevant search results, Googlesoon became the world’s leading search tool, receiving more queries daily than any other search engine. A recent US search trend survey conducted by comScorestated that Google has obtained 63 per cent of the search engine market share, carrying out nearly two third of all U.S. web searches.[53]
Figure 3-1 Search Engine Market Share
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Source: Adapted from comScore January 2009 U.S. Search Engine Rankings[54]
As the result of its strong presence in the life of Internet users the verb “to google”, which refers to using the Googlesearch engine to seek online information, has reached such a popularity that the American Dialect Societyhas elected the term as the "most useful word of 2002” and was added as a verb to the Oxford English Dictionaryand Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.[55]
3.4 Google Search Technology
Googleuses web crawlers, a computer program, that browses the World Wide Web in a systematic manner. Other terms for Web crawlersare ants, automatic indexers, bots, Web spidersand Web robots. The Web crawlers are placed on certain starting pages often called the seeds, where it retrieves data and then follows any links, known as hyperlinks,found on those pages to continue the data collection.
Contrary to human-powered directorieslike Yahoo!this procedure is carried out fully automatically, enlisting robot programs to navigate and search (known as crawlingor spidering) through the Internet.[56]
Google robots store the spidered web pages into massive databases. The information in these databases is indexed to enable almost instantaneous retrieval of information. If a page has not been spidered, in other words found by Google robots then that page will not be indexed and not appear in the results. If a page has been spidered it will not appear in the results until it has been indexed. After the web pages have been indexed another Google search engine software determines the keywords that are associated with each web page. In the final step before the search results are returned to searchers another program ranks all the pages found (figure 3-2).[57]
Figure 3-2 Stages involved in creating a Search Engine Listing
illustration not visible in this excerpt
Source: Syed Mustajab Ali Zaidi , Is Google the best Search Engine marketing solution?[58]
3.5 GoogleAlgorithm
This rankingprocedure is based on a selection of factors also referred to as an algorithm. The specific details about this formula are still protected by Googlemainly to prevent webmasters to manipulate the system, which may affect the quality of the search output.[59] However Google has continued to provide valuable concepts about its ranking evaluation over the years, which is based mainly on relevance and PageRank(measuring the quantity and quality of inbound linksto a page). Yet, the emphasis on individual factors of the algorithm is still unknown and is also continuously changing mainly to improve search quality to its search communities.[60]
Due to the growing online marketplace and therefore increasing the need to appear at the top of the search enginesresults, the art of search engine optimisation (SEO) evolved.[61] The following section explains the essence of the search engine optimisation procedures as well as the worst practices, which use unethical tacticsto manipulate search ranking.
4 Search Engine Optimisation
4.1 Definition
According to Wikipedia: Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a “…process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search enginesvia "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.”[62] While some sources refer to SEO as a subset of the overall Search Engine Marketing(SEM) process, and therefore is seen as one form of Internet Marketing,[63] others likedmnews.comdistinguishes search engine optimisation from search engine marketing by defining SEM as paid search advertisement.[64] Thus, for the purpose of this paper SEO will be referred to as a process to optimise web page rankings in the free organic listings of the search engine result pagesrather than the paid search engine advertisements.
4.2 Importance of Keywords
The keyword selectionand implementation amongst other SEO strategies is regarded as the most important part of the website optimisationprocess. The quality of the keyword analysis is often seen as the make or break of a successful search engine optimisation project.
Since search engines spiders are not intuitive; the way they classify websites is by looking at the dominance of certain keywords. If websites have been optimised on words that miss the business focal point, the websites may not attract enough or mainly irrelevant search traffic.[65] Consequently, search engineslike Googleoften respond to low Click Through Ratecommonly known as CTR[66] by placing the websites even lower on the SERPs.[67]
4.3 Keyword Research
According to most SEO experts, the first and most important stage of search engine optimisation should be the selection of business-relevant words or phrases by which a website can be found by its target group.[68]
The selection of business-related keywordsshould begin with people who are involved in the business and therefore know products or services sold on the website. However, these keywordsmight differ from the search words consumers use to find the website of interest. Thus, keyword research should also incorporate analysis of consumers search behaviour; search volume and alternative terms by using valuable tools like GoogleKeyword Tool[69], Wordtracker[70] and web log files[71].
Another excellent source of information is analysing the records of searches performed using the website’s own search box representing the consumer’s expectations when they are using the site. Another way of getting an understanding of the market and therefore ideas of what people search for is by reviewing competitor sites that perform well on search engine results for the keywords identified as pertinent for the business. They often provide useful answers on which keywordsto concentrate on and valuable suggestions how to communicate with the consumers effectively.[72]
[...]
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[53] comScore: comScore Releases January 2009 U.S. Search Engine Rankings, February 18, 2009, The Wall Street Journal Online, http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20090218-909721.html?mod=wsjcrmain, viewed: 2009-03-15
[54] comScore: comScore Releases January 2009 U.S. Search Engine Rankings, February 18, 2009, The Wall Street Journal Online, http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20090218-909721.html?mod=wsjcrmain, viewed: 2009-03-15
[55] Wikipedia: Google (verb): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_(verb), viewed: 2009-03-18
[56] Alex Michael and Ben Salter, Marketing Through Search Optimization: How People Search and How to Be Found on the Web, Butterworth-Heineman, Oxford, UK, 2008, pp 49-50
[57] Wikipedia: Search engine robots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_robots, viewed: 2009-03-18
[58] http://www.searchmarketing-uk.com/literaturereview_part4.php, cited from Dave Chaffey, at al., Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, Prentice Hall, 2003
[59] Alex Michael and Ben Salter, Marketing Through Search Optimization: How People Search and How to Be Found on the Web, Butterworth-Heineman, Oxford, UK, 2008, pp XI-XIV
[60] Udi Manber, Introduction to Google Search Quality, May 20, 2008, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/introduction-to-google-search-quality.html, viewed: 2009-03-01
[61] Ben Norman, Getting Noticed on Google in Easy Steps: Invaluable Tips to Increase Your Website Ranking on Google, Computer Step, Warwickshire, United Kingdom, 2007, p 13
[62] Wikipedia: Search engine optimisation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization, viewed: 2009-03-01
[63] Search Engine Watch: SEM Glossary, http://searchenginewatch.com/define, viewed: 2009-03-10
[64] Bill Wise and Dave Pasternack, SEO Isn't SEM, December 5, 2005 http://www.dmnews.com/SEO-Isnt-SEM/article/89604/, viewed: 2009-03-01
[65] Alex Michael and Ben Salter, Marketing Through Search Optimization: How People Search and How to Be Found on the Web, Butterworth-Heineman, Oxford, UK, 2008, p 71
[66] CTR: Percentage of the number of times an ad or free listing is displayed, also known as impressions, compared to the number of times the listing is clicked
[67] Alan Charlesworth, Internet Marketing: A Practical Approach, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, UK, 2009, p 199
[68] Alex Michael and Ben Salter, Marketing Through Search Optimization: How People Search and How to Be Found on the Web, Butterworth-Heineman, Oxford, UK, 2008, p 69
[69] Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
[70] Wordtracker: www.wordtracker.com (fees apply)
[71] Web log files: Stored information such as quantity, location and activities of visitors accessing the website.
[72] Alex Michael and Ben Salter, Marketing Through Search Optimization: How People Search and How to Be Found on the Web, Butterworth-Heineman, Oxford, UK, 2008, pp 69-74