So How do Search engines work Anyway?

Everyone knows that when you’re going to look for something on the web, you first visit a search engine website, such as Google or Bing, and type in what you’re looking for. Ta-dah! You instantly have results, and likely the information that you were looking for. It all seems rather magical, but search engines work off of real world principles.

A search engine is basically the index you use to find information on the World Wide Web. The web itself is far too large, and individual websites too narrow to navigate without using tools to filter and organize information. There are two main types of search engines: crawler-based and human-based.

Crawler-based engines, such as Google, automatically create listings. If you make any changes to your website, a crawler-based engine will eventually find these changes, but it will affect how you are listed. Elements such as page titles and body text also affect your listings.

A crawler engine works by a spider (also called a crawler) computer program visiting a website. It reads the page and visits links within the website. The spider periodically returns to the website, usually somewhere between two weeks to a month, to look for any changes. Everything that the spider finds on the website goes into the search engine’s index. The index or catalog contains a copy of every webpage that the spider visits, and they are massive databases. Google’s index contains around 38 billion pages, as estimated on June 3rd, 2011 by World Wide Web Size (the actual number is constantly changing). If a webpage changes, then the new version is entered into the index. This can take some time, from when a webpage is “spidered” but not yet “indexed,” but until a webpage is indexed, it cannot be found by the search engine. This is why it is recommended for new businesses to build and list their websites before opening their doors to business; it gives search engines time to get your website listed online with them.

The last part of a crawler search engine is its software. The program sifts through millions and millions of webpages to find matches to your query, and then lists them from most relevant to least. This is the familiar results page that you see when using a search engine yourself.

All search engines have these components, but each one applies a different value to certain areas through its computer algorithms. That is why you can search for the same thing in one engine, and get an entirely different result from another.

When a spider visits a webpage, it records information such as how many times certain words are repeated, where the words are located, such as in the header or body of the webpage, and it weighs how relevant the page is to the subject, based on the surrounding words. This last portion is the hardest job for a search engine to do, and this is what makes a search engine effective, and thus, popular. HowStuffWorks has a great article on comparing some of the largest search engines’ spiders. The Google spider, Googlebot, was built to index every significant word on a page, leaving the articles “a,” “an” and “the.” The Lycos spider is said to use the words in the title, sub-headings and links, along with the 100 most frequently used words on the page, and each word in the first 20 lines of text. AltaVista’s spider indexes every single word on a page, including “a,” “an,” “the” and other insignificant words.

The actual method that each algorithm uses are actually trade secrets. WiseGEEK has this to say: “The algorithms that various search engines use are well protected, to prevent people from specifically creating pages to get better ranks, or at least to limit the degree to which they can do that. This difference is why different search engines yield different results for the same terms. Google might determine that one page is the best result for a search term, and Ask might determine that same page is not even in the top 50. This is all just based on how they value inbound and outbound links, the density of the keywords they find important, how they value different placement of words, and any number of smaller factors.”

A human-based directory, such as Mahalo, uses editors to write descriptions about websites, or depends on users to submit their own listings. Any search only lists exact matches in these descriptions to your query. If you change anything on your website, it will not affect your listing at all. The benefit of human-based directories is that they are evaluated by actual people, thus tend list websites of higher value and relevance to search users. However, there is a tendency for listings to go ‘stale’ due to a lack of updates, and search results are much smaller than with crawler-based engines.

Many modern search engines use a hybrid of these two types, according to Search Engine Watch, such as MSN Search blending results from human-powered LookSmart and crawler-based Inktomi for more obscure requests.

The cutting-edge in search engine technology is using concept-based algorithms, as opposed to keyword-based. This means that the search engine will suggest webpages that are related topically to your search term, as well as direct matches to your inquiry, by using statistical analysis (think Netflix’ widely-touted recommendations algorithm). Research is also being done in natural-language queries, that is, typing in a question exactly the way you would ask it to another person. The most popular natural-language search engine is Ask Jeeves, but it is presently restricted to only simple questions.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) works to maximize the placement of your website for different search engine results, so you will get more ‘hits’ from visitors using that search engine. We’ll talk more about this in later articles, but this is a tool that most businesses will want to use to promote their business online.

Search engines are marvelous everyday tools of computer technology, and a key to making your business’ website successful.

How google works

 Janet Houck is the Senior Editor for the Small Business Online Toolkit
She has been a freelance editor and published author for almost a decade.
Read more about her on her SBwebtoolkit Bio page

Thinking Outside the Construction Box

Editors Note: This is the first in a series of personal accounts of small business owners and their experiences in the online world.  I have found that there are Many valuable lessons that can be learned from one person's account. Let us know know what you think of the article.

After 7 years of climbing the corporate ladder, from 28k annually to 60k plus bonus, I launched abruptly into starting my own small business, thinking I could make more. I heard a lot of advice from people, and from what I know now, I should have listened to that advice. Looking back, I know all of the advice fell on deaf ears. To start with, I listened to a lot of bad advice that my then-business partner told me: "I will work so hard, you will have to force me to take days off." ...Yeah, I really wish that was what happened. Going into it, I had about $15,000 saved up. Not a lot, but enough for what I needed, if only the ‘business partner’ would have done his part.

It did feel free and exhilarating to tell my boss what I thought about the way they ran things and
what I thought needed to be changed, and to see the look on his face when I gave my two week’s notice! The only things I did do right was to set up the company’s name with the state  as an LLC before leaving my then-current job, and making business cards for myself and my partner. I spent the last month at my job working on the side, getting the new small business set up. This should have been planned during a year if not more, not only over ONE month!


Here are the other things that I did not do right:

-Trusting another person entirely, regardless of knowing him very closely for 15 years.

-Not having jobs and/or customers lined up (I had a few, but not a full set). Again, this was in part because of being promised about 10k of work waiting for us, month after month.

-Buying a truck for the business, and using my credit because I knew leaving my job would affect
my credit badly. Why this was a bad thing? Because I trusted the company selling me the truck that it was in mint condition and had a 110-point inspection. Week after week, it got worse and worse, until it finally neglected to even start. It was very clear that nothing had been inspected. A dead bird was stuck in the radiator, the oil had not changed in a very long time... I could go on and on; it was completely ridiculous! Again, instead of trusting the sellers and making a few phone calls to ask about the year and mileage of the truck, I should have taken the time to have it inspected by my own mechanic before buying.

-Not having a domain name and/or website set up months prior to starting up my business, let alone doing any type of search engine optimization (SEO).

-Not planning on what I would do if something did go wrong with the other person that I was relying on so much. Would I able to replace him quickly? Could I manage all the work on my own? The answer to both of those, by the way, was NO!


After only the first two months, it was obvious this person was absolutely worthless as a business partner. It was going to tarnish our friendship, but it had to be done. We went our separate ways. I went on struggling for the next 10 months, doing jobs by myself and hiring complete strangers off of Craigslist to ‘help me.’ I learned so much and so quickly because I had no other option. Using my computer and sales skills (and people skills), I managed to get a lot of business drummed up by myself.


From then on, here are some things that I did do right:

-Dressing nicely when going to a customer’s home to do an estimate. Sometimes even with a shirt and tie. I imagine I looked a lot more professional than the other contractors they were meeting.

-Read as much as I could about the services that I would be providing. I talked to as many people as possible to not only network, but also to learn from them. I would work with them for free on jobs, just to learn. I ended up knowing more than most people doing a lot of the jobs that I was offering, like tiling, drywall, etc.

-Getting insurance and licensing, so I could get leads through lead-generation companies. Not that I am recommending them, but servicemagic sent me a lot of business.

-Posting ads online, and networking as much as possible, through blogs, Myspace, Facebook, Craigslist, Brownbook, and Linkedin. I even did out-of-the-box things, like eBay!

-Making very detailed estimates for customers that outlined all facets of a job or service to be provided. I also provided a take-off list for free along with the estimate (made with Quickbooks).

-Following up with customers on jobs after they were completed. I always answered my cell phone, and had it on me as much as possible. I also replied and checked emails almost hourly.


I screwed up a lot of things, however, and I knew I would be when going into some of these newly-acquired jobs. But I also knew I would learn a lot in the process, and I would take that with me onto the next job.

I continued running my own ads and doing my own estimates, meeting with customers on their
property or place of business. I used the money that I made from these jobs, along with the original $15,000, to buy the tools that I needed as I went along. I hired a few good people through friends of friends. None of them lasted longer than a few months, but we actually had some fun times. I got to the point of having over 300 customers, jobs worth more than $55,000, 2 licenses and 11 certifications (all self-taught), and then I became overwhelmed. On top of working for literally two months with no days off at times, my wife was now pregnant. We had been planning for this, just didn't think it would actually happen so soon,  I guess?!

After some struggles, some good times, and many, many lessons over 3 years, I took down my website and stopped all advertising. This wasn't until after our baby was born, which may have been the ultimate ending. Those last few months of me not being home for my wife, and her needing me became a serious issue. Anyway, even up to 8 months after ‘quitting,’ I still was getting leads, and had people asking for estimates after how they had heard how great I was from friends and family... I had to turn them all away, but I took everything in this chapter of my life as a great many lessons learned! Although there are many things that I could have done better, I’m proud of the work that I did!

Dustin Burnetti is a Small Business Adviser for Intuit. His wife is a Russian tutor, Her site can be found at denverrussian.com

Website Design: The Basics

Introduction

This article is going to show small business owner the basics of design and layout of a website.  This article is aimed at people who are using a DIY website tool, but the information can be valuable to anyone who is getting ready to get a website up and running.  Knowing the elements of design will help inform you as to what is needed from your website’s design.

Because this is a basics article, I won’t focus on things that should be added to a page for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes, those elements will be covered in a later article.

Elements of a web page

Let’s start with the elements of a web page, I will use the Toolkit as an example site for this article and together we can break down the site and see why I made the decisions that I did when I first designed the toolkit:

Header

The header is the top-most portion of the web page and will almost always include the logo of your company along with several ways to contact your business.  For any type of business that wants customers to contact them via a phone number, that number should be at the top of every page usually on either the right or left hand side of the header. Because I would like my visitors to contact me using the Toolkits various social media outlets, I used that space instead for my…

Social Media Call Outs

If you are using Social Media (SM) sites like Twitter and Facebook to help market your business, having links to your SM accounts prominently displayed will give your customer a visual reminder to visit the links and friend/follow your company.

Footer

The footer usually holds 2 important elements if a webpage, 1st is the bottom navigation menu, this allows customers who have gotten to the bottom of your page navigate to another page without having to scroll back to the top of the page, this will make your customer’s experience on your site better, which will make them more likely to stay on your site.  The 2nd page element in your footer will be the copyright information.  This will help you protect the content in your site and it is one of the triggers that search engines look at when ranking your site.

Navigation

The Navigation menu will usually be located either at the top or down the left-hand side of your site.  The navigation menu will include links to the main pages on your site, but may not always include links to the sub sections/pages of your site.

Content

This is the text and images on your page, you will want to have a good amount of content on each page to give your customers information about your business/service/product etc. you should shoot for a minimum between 250 and 300 words of relevant content per page.  This amount of text will give search engines a lot of content to pull keywords from.

Call to action (not Pictured)

The call to action is a prompt for a customer to perform some action. Whether this is subscribing to a mailing list/newsletter or to send you their contact info to get more information/a quote etc; the call to action should be prominently displayed so that the customer can not miss the fact that the call is there.

Best Practices 

Consistent design

Most sites should maintain a consistent design from page to page, the content on each page, when you start moving the navigation menu to different places on each page you start to confuse and frustrate your potential customers.  Additionally when you radically change your page design and color scheme with each new page the effect is jarring; colors and design help your site visually convey a feeling for your customers about your business; whether that feeling is warm and inviting or cool and professional.  When you radically change your design and color scheme from page to page, the whole site comes out as schizophrenic and un professional.

Images 

Websites are a visual medium and as such benefit from having good pictures on them.  Remember that the key for images is to not let the images overwhelm the content of the site.  Ideally pictures should be used to accent and highlight the content of the site whether that is showing the customer your products or examples of your services, or just as a design element to help convey an overall feeling for your company and website.  I would say that for any non ecommerce site, limiting yourself to 3 images per page is a good guideline, unless the page is a portfolio or gallery page. In the case of those types of pages, your main concern will be presenting your images in a clear and concise manner and organizing them for easy viewing by your customers.  For ecommerce sites, I would limit images to 3 on any pages that are not a product page, and then depending on the type of ecommerce software that you use and the options available to you, I would limit you to 4-5 images per product.

A note on the quality of images, I can't stress enough how important having good professional quality images are going to be for your business especially if you are selling things through your site, this means taking professional quality photos of your products, the snapshot of your necklace that you took with your 5 year old camera phone will not cut it.  This also goes for more informational websites, either have professional quality photos taken, or use a stock image source like istockphoto.com or Photos.com, you can usually get a good deal per image (around a dollar an image) and they are professional quality images.

Words

The content of your site, this is what tells your customers about you. The text on each page should be focused and concise, but not too sparse that you are left with nothing for a search engine to pull keywords from.  I would normally aim for 250 -400 words of relevant content on your pages.  And make sure that you are using terms that you would like to be found for in search engines.  If you are a landscaper in Denver, then not using the terms landscaping and Denver on your pages would be foolish.

The Wrap Up

Creating a professional website is an exercise in consistent design and relevant content.  Anyone can learn these skills and create professional looking websites, but as with all things, it takes time and effort to do it right.  If you have decided that a website is the next step for your business, then a working knowledge of basic website design is vital, as is an honest evaluation of your ability with design and the amount of time that you can devote to the creation of your site.  If you decide that you are ready to take the next step and create your site, then the tips that I have presented here will give you a head start.  Good Luck!

Matt Houck is the Founder of the Small Business Owners Web Toolkit.

He currently is a Small Business Consultant.  Read more about him on his SBwebtoolkit Bio Page

Is It Time? Deciding if your business is ready for an online presence.

We live in exciting times, where more and more people are looking to start a new business and work for themselves. In both good and bad times, the American economy is driven by the success of small and medium-sized businesses. In this era of smartphones and “googling” for information on businesses, as opposed to using the Yellow Pages, the public expects businesses to have an online presence. The lack of an online presence can deter customers from your service and products, and limit the amount of advertisement exposure your business will have overall. Many people exclusively use the Internet when looking for business services, and without any online presence, you will be missing an ever-growing group of potential customers.

A website gives you greater control of your public image. Instead of being at the mercy of customer review websites such as Yelp, you will be able to communicate directly to potential and long-time customers, such as relaying up-to-date information, hours of operation and location of your physical storefront and answering commonly-asked questions. This also lends itself to a time savings for you, as customers can be referred to the website for information.

Mindie Burgoyne asks, “If you often wish you could communicate effectively with a broader range of clients / customers, publicly post answers to frequently asked questions, attract new customers, break in to new markets and take the market share from your competitors – then a website is a MUST!”

A website allows you to set yourself apart from your competition and to discuss the unique of your service or products (especially if your main competitors do not have a website), and you will be able to update information much faster and easier than with traditional media, such as magazines and newspapers. You will be able to direct search engine traffic towards your business, thus increasing your exposure. Additionally, a business website also allows you to establish yourself as an authority with your customers and within the industry, thus leading to greater credibility. This is especially true when it comes to businesses in specialized fields. It also gives you the opportunity to generate a mailing list of potential and existing customers by gathering website visitor statistics.

You will also gain the potential for online sales. Tim W. Knox advises business owners not to be too quick to dismiss the feasibility of offering products and services online. “Nowadays, there's very little that can't be sold over the internet. ...I'm not saying you should put all your efforts into selling your wares over the internet, though if your product lends itself to easy online sales, you should certainly be considering it. The point to be made here is that you should at the very least have a presence on the web so that customers, potential employees, business partners and perhaps even investors can quickly and easily find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer.”

Although all businesses should have a web presence, there are a few situations where a website is not ideal. If you are currently at your capacity to serve your customers, and are not looking to expand, your web presence will be focused more on building trust and communicating with your current clientele. In this situation, you will be centered more on maintaining customer connections through social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and blogging. “I love blogging because I build relationships with new people and with potential customers and existing customers, but that’s not the actual business,” says LaShanda Henry, owner of Multiple Shades of You Online. If a business finds much of its clientele through foot traffic or word-of-mouth, they would want to center more on building and maintaining detailed online listings, such as Google Places.

It’s important to take time to examine your web presence goals before building a website. A website centered on building an online community is far different than a web storefront. As with any major business endeavor, it requires a good deal of forethought and pre-planning.

All businesses benefit from having a website to base their online presence. Whether you are focusing on doing business only locally or are intending to be worldwide through web commerce, your business will gain from reaching out into the online world.

Janet Houck is the Senior Editor for the Small Business Online Toolkit
She has been a freelance editor and published author for almost a decade.
Read more about her on her SBwebtoolkit Bio page

Ready for the June 1st launch!

We are getting ready for the Toolkit's launch day, the writers are busily writing the articles and informational sections that will soon fill this feed. good things are coming friends.  6 days away, I can't wait to show you all what we have in store!