The Search Query Report

The Search Query Report

Basic Description

What is the Search Query Report? In short, it’s a report that tells you the exact search terms that resulted in the click of your ad. Ever wonder what words you’re really paying for? The Search Query Report will tell you that.

And it’s a goldmine of opportunity, especially for newer advertisers who are bidding on more broad and phrase match terms. Broad and phrase match types can do weird things sometimes, matching you to words that make no sense. The Search Query Report can be used to weed out those terms to save you money. Other things the Search Query Report will give you:

• Negatives
• New Keywords
• Common Misspellings
• New Product Ideas
• Common Issues Your Product Must Discuss/Overcome

Overall the Search Query Report is the best way to understand, sort, add to, and optimize the keywords in your account. And it’s the quickest and easiest method to cut fat from your keywords and turn your account into a lean, mean keyword machine. Stop wasting money and pull yours today!

Pulling the Search Query Report

To pull the report, access your Adwords account and go to Reporting–> Reports–> Create New Report and select the “Search Query Performance” button. As you use the report, you will decide what “Level of Detail” you prefer under “Settings.” For now, leave the default “Ad” option selected. Then for date choose a date range that will give you enough data to work with. For smaller advertisers, I would choose at least a month. For larger accounts, two weeks is acceptable.

Next, go to Advanced Settings–> Add or Remove Columns. This is where you select the data you would like to see. I have taken the liberty of supplying a screen shot of the criteria I usually choose. (Click the image to enlarge.)

Search Query Report Criteria

Now name your report (I name mine “Search Query Report”), save as template (you are going to use this a lot, you can even schedule it!), and enter an e-mail where you’d like the CSV file e-mailed (optional). Now press “Create Report”!

Analyzing the Results and Taking Action

When I first open this report in Excel, I like to do some sorting. First, I sort by Impressions, then by Clicks (both from largest to smallest). This will allow me  to start with the most important words first, that is, words with the highest volume and words that spend the most. Go through the list, search query by search query. I usually add two tabs to my Excel spreadsheet: “Negatives” and “Questionable.” Words that are okay and I’d like to add to an Adgroup or Campaign stay on the main tab. I cut over all data to the “Negatives” tab when I would like to make a word negative and cut over all data to the “Questionable” tab when I’m unsure of a word.  By the end I have 3 lists: “Add (original main tab)”, “Negative”, “Questionable.”

At this point, I review the questionable tab and decide on the words. Some may need more thought and that’s fine. Keep in mind when reviewing that you want people in the mode to buy (or whatever your target action is.) So words like “review,” “advice,” and the like may not be the best since they’re still in research mode and may not be ready to part with money. Keep this in mind.

Now you can add the keywords to your account manually from within Adwords, through a bulk Adwords upload, or with Adwords Editor’s multiple keyword upload option (my personal favorite).

When To Pull

The frequency with which you pull this report is depdentent on the size and volume of your account. The best way to decide how frequently to pull the Search Query Report is by trial and error. If a month’s worth of data provides too many keywords to sort, try pulling every 2 weeks instead. The main points here are:

1. Pull frequently enough to catch trends or bad keywords before it’s too late.
2. Pull frequently enough so that you have enough data to make decisions with but not too much that it’s overwhelming.

Tips to Keep In Mind

There are some small nuances of this report that you must understand.

1. The Search Query Report only gives data on search queries that resulted in a click on your add. Therefore, you do not get incite into the search terms done that were merely impressions — searches done that your ad didn’t grab.  You will want to pull a Keyword Report and dive deeper into why these keywords don’t get clicks. But that’s the subject of another post.

2. The Search Query Report will deliver search queries with low impression volume and/or low click volume. Personally I add everything, regardless of volume. I then use the Keyword Report to determine whether or not to keep it in my account.

3. When adding keywords, may close attention to where they are going. With very complex accounts, a keywords may be negative in one Campaign or Adgroup and may be added as a new keyword in another Campaign. This kind of piecemeal choosing is common, especially as your account grows and becomes more sophisticated. It’s perfectly fine to do and will aid in your sculpting. Just pay close attention to what you are doing and GO SLOW.

That about wraps up using the Search Query Report. Be sure to use this report regularly and I can guarantee your ROI and Quality Score will improve. Letting an account run without this report is like throwing your wallet out the window. And that seems pretty silly, especially with the Search Query Report at your fingertips. Try running it today. You can thank me later!

~Andrea

Other Posts You May Like:

Part 1, The Impression Share Report

Now, I want to clarify a few points:

1. If you have a Google e-mail account, use it to sign in on the homepage at the top. Resume the tutorial at Step 2, “Name Your Blog.”

Where To Sign In on Blogger If You Already Have a Google Account.

2. If you do not have a Google account and are prompted to create one, use your preferred primary e-mail address (@Yahoo, @Hotmail, etc.). This will be your Username when you sign in to your blog.

Setting Up Your Blog Best Practices

1. Pick a name that is keyword rich, easy, and short! Do not use:

• More than 3-4 words
• Words that are easily misspelled, misunderstood, or made-up
• Dashes or underscores
• Arbitrary numbers, numbers instead of actual words, or your username

2. Choose a template that is simple and attractive. Dark colors with a light background are easiest to read and less stressful on the eye. Stay away from white letters and a black background.

3. Write a blog “tag line” that explains the purpose of your blog. Keep this to one  sentence. Go to Settings–> Basic–> Description and enter your tag line in the Description box.

4. Turn comment moderation on. This will prevent spammers or ugly comments from posting to your blog without your prior approval or knowledge. Go to Setting–> Comments–> Comment Moderation, choose “Always” and enter an e-mail address where you want comment notifications sent. Also, choose “yes” to Word Verification.

5. Offer an RSS feed. “RSS” stands for “real simple syndication.” Basically it’s a way for your readers to subscribe to your blog and get a notice when you write a new post. It makes it much easier for your blog to generate a reader base and following. You can do this by going to Feedburner.com and following the directions. Enter the feed URL at Settings–> Site Feed–> Post Feed Redirect URL.

Now start blogging!

Not sure where to start? It’s ok. Try this article if you don’t know what to write about.

To find local keywords, the best place to go is usually the query report from within Adwords. But what do you do if you either don’t have an Adwords account, don’t have enough data to pull from, or don’t have money to run an Adwords test? Keep reading to find out how to find local keywords for SEO without a PPC account.

Basic Local Research

The first thing I do when doing research for a local client with no PPC account is to try to find local, geo-modified keywords to work from. These become my jumping off point. For this research, I use two things: a reverse rank checker and a keyword density checker. I use both in the same way that I outlined in my previous post, but this time I look specifically for local terms. I then add found keywords to an Excel spreadsheet, my master list.

After using these tools, I will go to Google Trends and Google Insights to see if I can find geo trends for terms. There are a lot of filtering options so I tend to stick around and play for a while to see what I can find. Again, any findings go on the master list.

I then run my master list through the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool. Any words with volume are added, exported, copied and pasted back to the master. From here, the words go to Aaron Wall’s Keyword Tool. The same thing happens with volume words: export, copy, paste.

What To Do If Results Are Thin

At this point if my results for geo-modified keywords are still thin, I simply start researching national, broad terms, following the same keyword research method as outlined before. Once I have my complete master list, I write down the counties, cities, states, and regions my client serves. I use a local keyword generator to help me decide on cities. What the local generator does is generate keywords based on the zip and radius you enter. Quite helpful.

With the highest volume keywords and my city list, I go to a keyword list generator tool to come up with keyword combos, placing the core terms in box 1 and geo modifiers in box 2. I then run these combos though the Google Keyword Suggestion, and any words with volume then go through Aaron Wall’s tool. Export. Copy. Paste.

By now your list should be shaping up. If the list is still thin, I’d go to Google’s Related Search or Wonder Wheel for ideas. Screen shots below. Click to enlarge.

How To Get To Google Related Search and Wonder Wheel

Google Related Search and Wonder Wheel Links

I don’t use Related Search and Wonder Wheel often, because many of these words have no volume to them. Still, if you’re dry on words, you must leave no stone unturned.

Once you’ve got your final list, choose your keywords by measuring their competitiveness. After that, you’re home free!!

P.S. Reading my previous post will make doing local research make more sense and much easier. Read it here.

What is your local keyword research method?

Initial Keyword Research

The first thing I do is check my client’s Adwords account by running a query report, sorting, and copying the best words (i.e. volume, conversions, etc.) into an Excel spreadsheet. (I know, irony that this is first since I just badmouthed PPC.)

Once I’m done with Adwords, I use a reverse rank checker and a keyword density checker. Using the reverse rank and keyword density checker, I enter my client’s domain and their competitors’ domains to see what keywords they rank and are targeted for. I will also pull any words the competitors bid on in Adwords (a list also provided by the rank checker). I add all new keywords to Excel, “the master list.”

Then I run each keyword through Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool, adding keywords with volume, and then exporting and copying the list to my current running master list.

Based on the current master, I run each keyword through Aaron Wall’s Keyword Tool. You can use Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery, but I use this tool because it’s free. I then export the results and copy relevant words over to the master. (The only criteria I really worry about copying is Wordtracker, Google, and Total Daily Volume.) I keep doing this until I have stats on all my keywords.

I then run the highest volume words through Google Sets, an Google Labs tool that will predict other words from the ones you enter. This is a good place to find keywords that are related, but that normal keyword suggestion tools miss or won’t give you. The ones I find through Google Sets then go through the Google Suggestion Tool, and the Aaron Wall tool if it has volume. As usual export, copy, paste.

I do some final tweaks to my list, like using the “CountIf” formula to find duplicates, sorting by keyword volume, and heavy pruning of irrelevant keywords that might have snuck in.  Sort and organize as you like. This is just what I do.

Determining Competition

At this point, I have my keyword list. I also know search volume. Now I need to know how competitive the keywords are to determine which are worth targeting.

There are two methods I use to measure competition, one paid and one free.

Paid (Easy Way!)
The first is SEOMoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool. This is the tool I personally use. It’s quite complete, giving you a firm difficulty score that makes decision making and comparing words easy. However, the tool is only available with Pro Membership, which comes with a $79/mo price tag. Sounds hefty, but you get so much with Pro that it’s worth it. If you’re an SEO or firm, I highly recommend this option. It will save you time and money in the end.

Free (Manual)
BUT, if you don’t mind taking extra time in your research, you can do it yourself manually. A word of caution though… doing it manually requires many repeat Google searches back-to-back. Doing many searches back-to-back will get you temporarily blocked from the SERPs. It isn’t harmful in any way and it isn’t a penalty. It’s just Google’s way of protecting itself from automated requests. So if you have many keywords, be sure to spread them out over the course of a few hours or days.

To do this manually, you need to find out how many pages are optimized for your keywords. I say “optimized” because (usually) pages that are optimized are harder to compete with than pages that are just there through circumstance.

To test the SEO strength, use the following search operators:

1. [allintitle:"kw"]

2. [intitle:"kw" and inanchor:"kw"]

Plug your keyword in for “kw.” So, if my word was red shoes, the operator would look like this:

[allintitle:"red shoes"]

Enter the above operators one at a time into the Google search bar and get your results.

Add columns to your keyword master list and record the number of results from your search operator search. You can get this number from the upper right side of the SERP page. The lower the number, the better. Low numbers mean that there are not many optimized pages, so it will be easier to rank.

Now, take note of the page rank of your competition. (On-page data provided by the SEO Quake browser plug-in helps a ton!) Do a normal search with your word. Write down and average the top 10 results’ page rank to get an average overall page rank. Record the averaged number on your keyword master list as well.

Note: Going into the competitive analysis portion of my keyword research, my keyword list is usually quite long. Because of this, I tend to work my way down the list, determining competition for the highest volume first. Rarely will I pull competitive stats for all my keywords. I simply stop when I feel I have found enough words of good volume and low to acceptable competition.

Choosing the “Right” Keywords

To me, the “right” keywords are words that are relevant (obviously), have healthy volume, and are low to moderately competitive. These are the keywords that you can get rankings for the fastest and where your efforts will yield the most results.

I tend to stay away from the high volume, moderate to highly competitive words. Instead, I find keywords that are less competitive with equal total volume to the highly competitive word. If I target these keywords, I will rank quicker and better than had I targeted the high volume alone, and I will not have traded any volume. Makes sense to me.

To make your choice, peruse your list. Find words that have good volume with low optimization and page rank competition. These are the words that are “right” to target. Done!

This may seem like a lot, but the extra time spent here will make all the difference. Who wants to spend hours optimizing for words your site will never rank for? Who want to promise a client rankings for a word and not deliver? Or who wants to do work ranking a client on a word that has no value or search traffic? Not me. My time is valuable and I value my clients. Do the extra work in the beginning — it will pay off in the end!

Image Provided by Ivan Walsh

Pay per click campaigns live and die by data. An account may be a stinker, but with the right data you can transform any campaign. The essential element to getting this data is reports. Specifically, those available under the “Reports” tab in your Adwords account.

But which reports do you need to worry about, and which are just extra info? Read on. This 5 part series will uncover the reports that can take your campaigns from zero to hero.

(To run any of the discussed reports go to “Reports–> Reports–> Create New” in your Adwords account.)

The Impression Share Report

Basic Description

For any PPC advertiser, the biggest primary hurdle is getting your ad shown to visitors. The Impression Share Report will tell you quickly how successfully your ad is being show and how often.  It does this by comparing the impressions your ads receive to the total possible impressions for your specified campaign or account. It will depict the result as a percentage. So, if the report tells you 60%, your ad is being shown to 60% of searchers. Thus, 60% is the “share” of impressions that is yours.

This report is great for taking a pulse of your PPC dominance. And while you should base your CPC on ROI goals, the Impression Share report is important in understanding market saturation, demand, your competition, and where you fit in. Plus the Impression Share Report is potentially the best resource to go to if you want to increase impressions and don’t know how.

Pulling the Impression Share Report

Go to the “Creat Report” link on your “Reports” page. From here, you have two choices: Campaign Report or Account Report. You can run Impression Share for each one and only these.

The Account Impressions Share is a summarized and aggregated Impression Share. It will tell you the share of impressions your ad showed for over your whole account, across every keyword. To me, this is much too high a level to get any real actionable data.

The Campaign Impressions Share is much more useful. This Impression Share will tell you the percentage of impressions each campaign received relative to the total possible impressions available to each campaign. Take note that the denominator in this equation (i.e. total impressions) is the total impressions at the campaign level, not the account. So you get exact Impression Share for each individual campaign.

To pull the report, select the “Campaign” radio button, select your date range (can be run as frequently as daily), select all or specific campaigns to run the report for, and then select the Advanced link. Although your needs may differ, see the below screen-shot for the options I usually include in the report to ensure I can get all the data I need and only run the report once.

Common Criteria to Run Impression Share at the Campaign Level

Now choose your delivery options and run the report. (I usually save this report as a template to make things easier in the future.)

Analyzing Impression Share Data & Taking Action

To make use of this data, you can diagnose why impression share is low or high by looking at the “Lost IS (Budget),” “Exact Match IS,” and/or “Lost IS (Rank)” data in your report. These will tell you if your budget (i.e. too low), your match type choices (i.e. too refined), or your ad positioning (i.e. too low) on the page, respectively, are causing you to miss out on impressions by limiting your account.

As I said above, just because the Impression Share report says your budget is too low, does not mean you should raise your budget. This decision should be made based on your ROI and ability to handle current volume. Additionally, one of the primary goals of every PPC campaign should be to bid on as many exact match keywords as possible, and limit broad match as much as possible. This is because exact match keywords allow you to control what your ads show for and are the most cost effective since they convert the best . To this end, take “Exact Match IS” data with a grain of salt. “Exact Match IS” tells you the % of impressions you miss because you are not using enough broad match. And since you want to limit broad match, a high “Exact Match IS” might actually be a good thing in the end.

Also realize overall Impression Share has an inverse relationship to Budget IS, Exact Match IS, and Rank IS. This means that all added together will always equal 100%.  So if Impression Share is 60%, Rank IS is 20%, and Budget IS is 20%, you are receiving 60% of the total impressions and are losing the other 40% due to your budget and ad position equally. This scenario would also mean that you are losing 0% of impressions to match type.

While these data points are good, don’t forget about the other data in your report. Use some of your analytical reasoning to diagnose problems. Impressions Share may be quite high for a specific time period because there is low volume of impressions overall or less competition. And vice versa — Impression Share may be low because there is a sudden spike in impressions, maybe because of the holiday season or an event. Or there may be something simple affecting Impression Share, like a campaign that has mistakenly been paused. Impression Share is good at giving you clues about where to look to increase impressions.

Another plus of pulling this report regularly: It will make you aware of what’s going on in your industry, whether that be seasonality or when your competition uses ad scheduling, based on your impression share peaks and lulls.

When To Pull

I recommend pulling this report at a number of times: at the beginning of each day for the previous day’s results, at the beginning of the week, and then monthly. For very competitive niches, a couple times throughout the day is also required. This may seem like overkill, but keeping tabs on this very important metric will help you uncover hidden pockets of opportunity and industry search cycles that will help every area of your business. Keep a spreadsheet to track Impression Share in order to uncover trends more quickly.

Tips to Keep In Mind

Keep in mind that impressions are not exclusive. On a search results page, there can be anywhere from 0-11 ads, all of which share the same impression, or in other words, they share the same searcher. So when the report says 60%, it does not mean your competition only gets the last 40%. The report is telling you that out of all searches, your ad was shown to X number of them.

Also, the Impression Share report will not explain low impressions due to Quality Score. If all your ducks are in a row, your are bidding as high as you can, buying every impressions Google will give you, you may want to work on your account health through Quality Score to increase impressions.

That exhausts the Impression Share Report. Stay tuned for Part 2, The Search Query Report.

Image Provided By Danny Sullivan

Running a site that is attractive, informative, and search engine optimized can be tricky. Many people follow the basic rules, like generating keyword rich content and filling in meta data, but forget the more complicated SEO coding. Here below are 3 to not forget!

1. Flash.

It makes your site dynamic, stand out, and “flashy.” But it also zaps some of the SEO value and opportunity from your site. Why?

Search engine spiders require content to scan in order to rank and categorize your site. Flash uses code that the search engine spiders cannot read or access. Therefore, the content contained within flash provides no SEO value since it will not be read. For this reason, inserting flash in your site is almost the SEO equivalent of leaving a big blank space where content should we. And what is big, blank space? Wasted.

Now, I’m not saying that you should never use flash. Just be choosey with it. Prime website real estate like your homepage should have the important pieces in text. If flash is used, be sure to put it in a place that won’t hurt your SEO. Remember, search engines read from the top left down to bottom right.

If you’re dead set on using dynamic content, try animated gif’s first. It won’t be as eye-popping, but at least you can make it SEO friendly with alt tags.

2. Embedding Text in Images.

Plain ol’ text can be boring sometimes. So you want to spruce it up with some pretty pictures, but you’re decided against flash. Still be careful about where your text is. Embedding important text in images can be dangerous. Like flash, search engines cannot read the content in your image. So if you have your navigation, company name, slogan, or any other important information in an image, the search engines cannot read it.

This is especially bad for navigation, since the text links used to connect pages are the basis of how Google crawls your site. Think of your main navigation as the map. Without that map, how does Google know here to go? Sitemaps can help in this case to guide the search engine, but why settle for a fix for such an unnecessary problem?

If the image contains major content about your site, the best thing to do in my opinion is to try designing around the problem. Talk with a web designer about your options. If the image in question does not contain critical content, make sure it’s image alt tag is present and accurate. You can also do other thing to SEO your images, but that’s another post.

3. Allowing Computers to Determine Your Permalink

Above I touched on the importance of links on your site. Links tell Google where you want it to go, but the text of those links are also important because it tells Google what page it is going to. All this is taken into account when Google scans and indexes your site.

The often forgotten about “link” though is the permalink in your address bar — the direct URL that if typed in will take you to the exact article or blog post you want. All too often people allow the text of this link to be determined by your computer. For blogs this may be the date (i.e. http:// theseoptimist.com/2009/October/26) or the file name  (i.e. http:// theseoptimist.com/337).

As you can see in both instances, no value is provided by these names. Depending on your blogging platform, there may be a quick and easy fix to this by installing a plug-in that allows you to set your permalink or pulls your permalink from the post title. If you are using a custom blogging platform, consult with your web developer. For web addresses replying on file names, simply rename files using keyword rich text. Problem solved.

Good luck!

~Andrea

Related Reading

SEO In Plain English (How Search Engines Work)

Image Provided By RevJim5000

Stuck? If you are blogging regularly, this may be a complaint that surfaces A LOT. But it doesn’t have to! Don’t feel pressured to grab topics out of thin air. This makes your writing process much harder and may deter you from blogging at your full potential.

Instead, venture off your blog for inspiration on what to write about on your blog.

1. Follow and read posts by your fellow bloggers. Take to heart what they are saying and use their ideas to generate your own blog post.

2. Following links and comments on competing blogs or even blogs you are just plain interested in. Make the most of them.  Comments take you to places on the ‘Net that you may not have discovered yet. Use them as an asset and resource in keeping your creative juices flowing.

3. Forums are another untapped resource for inspiration. Nosey around a related forum to see what’s being asked or how things are being answered. From this you can take part in the discussion on the forum (which means more visibility for you) and also get good post ideas from current problems people are having or good/bad advice people are sharing.

4. Use Social Media to spark your imagination. Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. YouTube. Spend some time finding and subscribing to users in your niche. Check their status updates and recent uploads for ideas. (The given site list is in no way exhaustive!)

5. Lastly, stay current on the news in your niche. Use feedreaders like Bloglines and Google Reader to subscribe to feeds of all kinds. Check these feeds once a day or every other day and save the articles that you find thought-provoking. When it’s time to write, you’ll have a plethora of content to choose from.

Hope this helps and good luck writing!!

~Andrea

Picture Provided by Chitrasudar

Internet users are lazy. So how do you write for lazy people, that is, the Internet as a whole? Remember these easy steps:

1) Use appropriate line length. This means 12-16 words per line. You don’t want people have to move their whole head to read across your post.

2) Use paragraphs abundantly. Short lined paragraphs… I’d say no more than 4-5 lines. Trust me, it’ll look better and be more appealing to the eye.

3) Use headers and subheaders. This will allow user to more easily follow where you are going.

Ex.

Header 1

Subheader1
abcdefg

Subheader 2
abcdefg

Header 2
Etc…

OR

Header 1
abcdefg

Header 2
abcdefg

4) Use lists and bullet points often… ‘nuf said.

5) Use bold and italic typefaces. It’ll help discern or draw attention to your most important points.

6) Use images!! Create an appealing post or use it to separate areas.

Good luck and happy writing!

~Andrea

First, optimizing for search engines in concerned with the natural search results when you do a web search. If you look at the results page of your search, you’ll see sponsored listings across the top and right side. Then to the left you’ll see you’re natural search results. SEO is aimed at getting your website there, on the left.

Why?

Because it’s free and establishes you as an authority on whatever word was searched for. After all, out of the whole web, the search engine delivered the ten links before you as the best.  Additionally, studies have been done and surfers are much more likely to click on a natural result on a search engine result page (SERP) than a sponsored (paid) listing.

So how do I get a natural listing? To get on the left side you must give the search engines what they like in order to make them like you. This involves two main parts: on-site stuff and off-site stuff. Let’s start with on-site.

On-Site Stuff

Search engines like sites that operate in a certain way. They like them being correctly coded. They like certain data to be present in the code and relevant to the site. They like the content of the site to be new, fresh, and in close relation to the topic of the site. They like the internal linking structure (pages linking to other pages of the site) to make sense. Basically, they like a nice, tight, organized, clean, honest package tied with a nice little bow and placed at their doorstep to easily unwrap and play with. Making this super-package is hard though because what a search engine likes to see and what a real person surfing the web like you and me likes to see and use isn’t always the same. So this balance must be struck.

Additionally, search engines guard exactly what they want to see out of your site for fear of manipulation by SEO’ers. So this muddies the waters even more. But I digress… When it comes to appeasing the search engine gods, we can only work with what we know: the site should have clean, pretty code and smart, well-written content. These are the main necessities of good on-site SEO to keep search engines happy with you.

Off-Site Stuff

The second piece of the puzzle involves off-site stuff, more commonly known as inbound links. Inbound links are those things that take you from one site to another. So, if I put a link to Search Engine Guide here, this is an outbound link for me and an inbound like to Search Engine Guide. (You’re welcome, Search Engine Guide.)

Google likes to see a lot of inbound links to your site. It means that other sites are seeing enough value in your site to send their visitors to you for whatever reason. Additionally, search engines like it better when these links are from sites that are similar in topic to your site. Because a site knows it’s own topic. If it knows it’s own topic, it must be able to accurately judge the value your site brings to the topic. And if after all this that site still links to you… well then, you must be good!

But, to go even one more level, reputable sites that already have a strong, trusted presence, like The New York Times or CNN, give you even more value because Google trusts them the most. Google sees getting a link from one of its trusted sites like a pat on the back from the boss–you must’ve done something right to deserve it.

So, basically that’s the “what” and “why” of SEO in simple terms. Having a well-written site, well-written code, and lots of inbound links will make you shine in the search engine’s eyes. If you’ve done these three things (code, content, and links) better than you competition, you’ll be listed first. And that’s what we all really want now, isn’t it?

Now, doing this all right is another story…

~Andrea