Tying It Together:
SEO For The Big Three

This article is part four of a four part series on optimizing your website for thethree major search engines. Part one, titled "SEOFor MSN" covered optimizing your website to rank highly on MSN, while part two,titled "SEOFor Yahoo!" covered optimizing your website to rank on Yahoo! and part three, titled "SEOFor Google" covered how to rank highly on Google. In this article we will coverhow to tie your optimization strategies together to attain the highest rankings possibleon all three engines simultaneously.

The Major Factors:
There are some constants in search engine optimization; some factors that,by necessity, must be considered by all the major engines. Fortunately for use, thesefactors are generally the most important. Unfortunately, each of the engines uses themin different ways. Let's begin by listing these factors:

• Age
• Content
• Keyword density
• How it fares in the results
• Site structure
• Backlinks

Age
Many of you will already be familiar with the aging delay that is commonly referred to as "thesandbox". For those of you that aren't familiar with it, the sandbox is a penalty that isapplied to new sites and new links under the assumption that they cannot play nicely withothers. It is only after time that the penalty is lightened and eventually disappears andthe site is left to play in the park with the rest of the "nice sites".

This penalty is applied most strongly by Google and to a lesser degree Yahoo! On Googlea new website cannot expect to rank for any competitive phrases for between 6 and 8months. Even then, the links that are being built to this site still have to age sofor most new sites competing for high-competition phrases you're looking at a goodyear-or-so to see top results though you'll likely see good results for many of yoursecondary phrases well before then. The penalty is also applied by Yahoo! but to afar lesser degree. The penalty on Yahoo is both shorter and lighter than that appliedby Google. MSN does not apply such a penalty at the time of this writing.

Content
This is obviously a key feature across all the engines but again Yahoo! and Google take thelead in penalizing sites that do not have a lot of content related to a similar theme.Recently we have seen this act as mixed blessing, at least on Google, with some major sitesgetting overlooked due to a large amount of information on a wide variety of topics inexchange for sites focused on a single topic however with their recent tweaks they seemto be balancing the overall content focus with other factors to create a solid set of rankingsthat are relevant, will provide results that are more likely to produce the desired information,that don't neglect sites that may contain wide information on a wide variety of topicsyet provide a good deal of valuable content on the searches subject. Yahoo doesn't seemto be catching up in this area with some holes in their results. That said, as the arenot "gamed" as much as Google they haven't had to put on such strong filters and theirresults remain solid despite this.

It should be noted that the content does not necessarily have to contain the samekeywords to be considered related. The engines are getting far better at determiningthemes of sites and knowing which words are related to each other. For example, Googlewill view the word "personal" and "personalized" as related by theme. You may not rankthe same for both words in a search however they are tied together and

Keyword Density
Keyword density is the overall percentage of your page content that is made up of the targetedkeywords. An additional factor in keyword density is the percentage of your keyword contentthat used special formatting such as bold, italic, anchor text, etc. While keyword densityis not the end-all-be all of SEO (there is no single factor that is) it is a factor andone of the more difficult to optimize properly. While hitting specific densities for bothoverall content and special formats is easy enough, it becomes more difficult when youconsider and are even more important than optimization: your real-for-real human visitor!

One should try to attain near optimal keyword densities using a tool such as TotalOptimizer Pro (see below), GRKDA, or other similar software however one much alwaysbe aware of how the optimized content reads to your visitors. It's important to keepyour visitors in mind, your sales message clear, and also remember that if you haveto sacrifice a bit in one area (like keyword density) it can be made up through strongerefforts in others (such as link building).

Keyword density holds the most weight on MSN, followed by Yahoo! with Google comingin last. This does not mean it should not be considered for reasons which will followbelow.

How A Site Fares In The Results
One factor that is not often discussed among SEO's and which is not known to many outsidethe community is that how your site fares in the results is a factor. This factor is afairly recent addition but is sure top become a stronger and stronger part of the overallalgorithm as it matures. Google pioneered this technology however Yahoo! appears to befollowing suit and MSN is sure to do so as well considering that this is information thatis very easy for any engine to track and truly adds to the "democracy" of the results inthat it becomes the users "vote" that helps secure or topple a high ranking site.

This factor breaks down as such; the search engine knows when you have clicked ona result. They also know when you have returned to the results to try another site.If a site shows up for a specific search query often yet visitors tend to return tothe results quickly after visiting the site the engine can thus assume that the searcherdid not find what they were looking for on the site and thus the site can be deemednot relevant for that phrase. This factor alone has far-reaching effects on a numberof traditionally non-SEO related factors and pulls them into the SEO-realm. Contentnow has to be more captivating, navigation has to be clear and easily accessed andthe visitor has to be able to find the information that they're looking for quicklyand easily. If the searcher returns to the search results quickly you will lose a point.If this happens often enough you will lose positioning.

Site Structure
The way your site is structured determines how easily a search engine spider can get throughit, the priority is gives specific content, and how much code the spider has to weed throughto get to your content. Essentially, having a structure that allows the spider to easilyget through your website, placed the content areas as high up in the HTML code as possible,and which minimizes the use of formatting code such as the font tag will increase the overallweight of the content and insure that the content you want the spiders to focus on arewhat they "see" early on.

Many sites are structured such that the actual content doesn't appear until half-waydown the page as far as the HTML code is concerned. Having a content area that startsat line 174 in the code is not a good start when it comes to SEO. While there is nospecific answer as to what line the content area should start, using proper table structuresor better yet, tableless design practices using CSS can greatly increase the weightyour content is given. Using CSS again we can significantly reduce the need for formattingcode, further reducing the amount of coding that the search engine has to go throughto get to the content.

The higher up in your HTML the content lies the greater the weight it is given. Optimizedsite structure, especially in moderate to high competition industries, is one of thefirst steps one can take to secure a competitive advantage over one's competition.

Backlinks
Ah backlinks. Once upon a time simply securing mass numbers of links to your site using whatevermeans were available was enough to rocket sites to the top of the rankings. Fortunatelyfor search engine users this is no longer the case. With backlinks, as with websites ingeneral, it's quality that counts. While there are numerous factors regarding the valueof a link (many of which were discussed on the article, "SEO For Google") the basics are:

• Age. The older the link the more weight it has. (Google and Yahoo!)
• Link location. Links higher up on the page hold more weight. (All three)
• Link location two. Links occurring within content hold more weight that a directory-stylelink. (Google and Yahoo! to a lesser degree)
• Anchor text and formatting. The anchor text and the use of special formats in thetext affect a link's weight. (All three)
• Relevancy. The relevancy of the site linking to you. (Google and Yahoo predominantly)
• Number of links. The more links there are on a single page, the less valuable thelink to your site from that page is.
• Non-recip links. Non-reciprocal links hold more weight than reciprocal links.(Google and yahoo! to a lesser degree)
• Authority sites. Links from authority sites (.gov, .edu and respected news andinformation related) hold more weight.

Tying It Together
Knowing this one must assess the best course of action when launching into a new SEO campaign.For the purposes of this conclusion we will assume the the keywords we are targeting arein the moderate to high competition levels. In this event one must balance off the variousfactors and timelines to produce the highest ROI in the short term with an eye on maximumprofitability in the long term. What we mean by this is that with aging delays occurringon Google and to a lesser degree Yahoo! one should focus first on MSN. This means thatwhen you are adjusting your keyword densities and tweaking the onsite factors early inthe campaign you will want to focus on hitting optimal levels for MSN knowing that Google,regardless of what you do, is unlikely to rank you highly for your primary phrases forsome time.

Your link building efforts will need to take into account the long-term objectiveof ranking highly on Google with an understanding that MSN is not going to penalizeyour newly created backlinks with aging delays. A balance of speed vs perfection willbe required. All the links you build should be relevant (if your visitors wouldn'tbe interested in going to the site then don't link to it) however if you can't alwaysget inline links or your link will appear lower on the page you will still want tosecure it.

After time (assuming that the right tactics have been used) you will notice your MSNrankings improve. This is a good benchmark for how your site will fare overall. Onceyou are ranking well on MSN it's time to focus your attention on Yahoo! At this stageyou will want to slowly shift the onsite optimization towards Yahoo! You may be asking, "AmI about to lose my MSN rankings?" Good question and the answer should be, "no" if yourcontinuing on the right path. Non-optimal levels in one area can be offset by increasedstrength in another. While you are slowly shifting the onsite optimization away fromMSN's optimal levels you are continuing to develop more and more links further strengtheningyour site in this area to make up the difference.

After a couple months you will notice your Yahoo! rankings improving. A general timelinewould be (assuming you are working diligently at it and are targeting fairly competitivephrases with a new site):

• 2 - 3 months: MSN rankings secured
• 4 - 6 months: Yahoo! rankings improving
• 6 - 8 months: Yahoo! rankings secured and Google improving. Many secondary phrasesare attained on Google.
• 8 - 12 months: Google rankings secured.

The timelines will be quite different if you are working with an existing site (i.e.it has a solid history and a good PageRank already), are targeting less competitivephrases, and a variety of other considerations.

Conclusion
The path is not an easy one (or SEO's would be out of their jobs) however with hard workand perhaps more importantly, constant work it can be done. Remember, there are currently10 sites sitting on the first page. Match what they did, do 10% better and you will bethere too.

Resources
Below are a few important resources to help you on your path to higher rankings:

Total Optimizer Pro -Total Optimizer Pro is the tool we use for onsite and offsite competition reportingincluding keyword density and backlink analysis.

Google'sWebmaster Guidelines - They're put out by Google but apply to allthe major engines. Add this one to your favorites and reference it often.

Search Engine Watch -Great source for news on the search engines in general. Also great coverage of theSearch Engine Strategies conferences when they're being held.

About The Author
Dave Davies is the owner and CEO of BeanstalkSearch Engine Positioning, Inc