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Systems-based Search Engine Optimization

Posted by Michael Martinez on May 2, 2008 in Advanced SEO

There are many definitions for the word “system”. When I was in technical school many years ago, our Systems Analysis class was provided a definition similar to a system is a collection of hardware, software (rules governing how the hardware functions), and people (who use the hardware) that work together to combine a specific task. Many definitions of “system” have been sterilized to use “components” rather than enumerate specific elements but most of them point toward the same thing: you have several distinct entities, each with their own special properties, working together for a common goal.

The search environment is a system. In fact, it’s a complex system, meaning that it includes other systems in its various components. The components of those other systems are not themselves components of the search environment system. For example, the PCs in a search engine data center are not components in the search environment system because individually they don’t contribute anything to the search environment. The data center is the component (or you could class it as a component in the system of search engines).

In other words, things change based on how you view them. Components interactions with their environment may cause their environment to interact with other environments (or things) in a way that the components themselves cannot interact. A cog in a mechanism helps the mechanism perform a physical operation that the cog itself is incapable of performing. A tree helps a forest cover many square miles of landscape that the tree cannot cover.

Forests are complex systems (as are most things in nature, including our bodies). The components of a forest could be defined as plants (hardware), animals (people who use the hardware), and the laws of nature (rules governing how the plants function). All animals use the plant life around them but the interaction of plants and animals is governed by what we call the laws of nature — the natural processes of growth, development, reproduction, and death that affect all living things.

Search engine optimization can be implemented systematically but that is not systems-based search engine optimization. A system has to bring several components together to accomplish a task the individual components cannot accomplish by themselves. There are several types of systems in the search optimization world.

The search system consists of the search engines (hardware — including the databases indexing Web sites), searchers (people), and algorithms that determine what is being searched and found.

The search optimization system consists of the search engines (hardware), optimizers (people), and the principles we employ in creating Web site content (indexable text and links) to influence search engine decisions — the principles of SEO are the rules (the software).

Now, when I speak of “principles” in this context I don’t mean best practices, search engine Webmaster guidelines, or spammy techniques. Rather, I am referring to content organization, content distribution, and content connectivity.

The SEO Principle of Content Organization tells us that content can be organized so as to provide an optimum answer to any query.

The SEO Principle of Content Distribution tells us that content can be placed where it will or will not be found. A corollary to this principle is that content can be made visible or invisible to a search system.

The SEO Principle of Content Connectivity tells us that the union of content is stronger than the diversity of content. That’s sort of like a gestalt (the whole is greater than the sum of the parts). In other words, the Principles of Content Connectivity tells us that diverse content, when brought together into a collective set, obtains a value achieved only through its collective state. Think of the books that a library assembles. All the books provide value by themselves and the act of assembling the books doesn’t increase the amount of knowledge they record and convey, but assembling the books together creates a new value the books don’t possess individually: you can compare books to each other, supplement one book’s knowledge with another, search all the books, etc.

Search engine optimization is founded upon the Principle of Content Connectivity. We need to organize content that has been connected in order to provide the most optimal answer the basic question, “What is …?” What is represents every query that search engines are used to resolve. You can phrase it as “where is”, “who is”, “how can”, etc. but they all translate to “what is (the best possible Web site to provide me with something specific)?”

With content connectivity we cannot have search systems. Without search systems there is no need for search optimization. The less content you connect the more easily the optimum answer is provided. Search engine optimization is required by the difficulty or complexity of providing the optimum answer. In the Theory of Search Engine Optimization I mentioned the “three estates of search (engines, users, and content providers)”. All three estates employ or are governed by the Principle of Content Connectivity.

That is, users collect content virtually through their search results. Content providers collect content through their linking relationships. And search engines collect content through their crawling and indexing processes. Each estate must organize the content it collects (i.e., create a library) in order to create value that only the collection provides.

Now let’s focus on the content providers. When we create networks of Web sites we have the ability to leverage those sites to help each other in many ways. SEOs have, of course, struggled with how to connect their networks of sites without triggering search engine filters. Matt Cutts described the challenge succinctly from the search engines’ point of view: if you build only one Web site you’re more likely to imbue that site with unique value than if you build 50 sites.

Think of the time and effort you put into creating Web content. It’s like peanut butter: you can only spread it so thin. If you are faced with creating 50 Web sites in a short period of time, you’re not likely to take your time and devote a lot of love and care to each site. You’ll take short cuts. The problem is that short cuts strip Web sites (and networks) of potential value.

When you have to create 50 sites you need to be sure that you get more value from the collection than you could obtain from each of the 50 sites individually. To put it another way, if you can reasonably project an income of $50 per year per site, your network should produce MORE than $2500 (50 times $50) in annual revenue. If you cannot leverage the system (the network) to generate additional revenue then you’ll never get ahead. The value you create in a network does not have to grow exponentially faster than the value you create through the components; it just needs to grow faster than the value you create through the components.

Leveraging a network does not consist of interlinking every site from the footer of their root URL pages. That’s about as stupid a tactic as one can devise for search optimization, so naturally it’s the first trick most people try. Some sites get away with the trick but a lot of people burn themselves sooner or later by turning their networks into link farms.

Leveraging a network means using the content intelligently. You want each site to draw people in deeper before you start telling them about other sites. You want people to move through your site toward a conclusion. You want the conversion and then after the conversion you want to provoke their curiosity about the rest of your content. Now, a lot of marketers immediately thrust ads in your face after you make your purchase (or engage in some transaction). I don’t like that. It works, although I’m pretty sure they get only a small percentage of post-transaction conversions in most cases.

A more subtle approach is to be less pushy, less promotional, more informative. Just mentioning as a matter of fact (without arguing or implying that the consumer will grow wings and fly if they visit the site) that interesting fact A is available on another site can reset the consumer’s state of mind.

Let’s talk about consumer transaction mentality for a moment. Think of what happens when you buy something in a store. You’re not really buying a lot of things if you go to the grocery store; you’re buying one thing that you call “groceries”. Once you’ve made your groceries purchase you’re less likely to make another comparable purchase. In American grocery stores, however, you often find special vending machines near the exits — the kid-friendly candy and toy dispensers, the soft drink machines, the lottery ticket machines, etc.

American grocers try to address a different need upon the consumer’s exit. They don’t start telling people about next week’s specials. Instead, they offer to help parents reward cihldren for behaving in the store; they offer to help quench the thirst that has grown from the long, tiring shopping process; they offer to let you win a million dollars with the change the cashier just gave you.

In other words, you’re no longer thinking about buying groceries or spending a lot of money when you pay the cashier but the grocery store still wants to get more money from you. So instead of pitching more groceries to you they let you relax and think about something else: doing something special for the children, doing something special for yourself, or buying that lottery ticket you discussed with your spouse because the jackpot is now up to $100 million.

Web site transactions can work in a very similar way. When you have concluded a transaction with your visitor, you can change the subject and entice their attention toward a different type of content. They just bought an insurance policy from you so maybe they don’t want to spend any more money, but if you happen to have a Web site that is full of health or home care or auto care articles, maybe the insurance policy you sold them can help them think about learning to take better care of their bodies, homes, or cars.

Not that every insurance Web site has sister sites with health, home, and car care information (but why not?). The point is that if you’re creating a network of sites on diverse topics there is no reason why you cannot provide bridging information between sites. The bridge content not only provides a rich source of relevant links, it also builds logical pathways between consumer interests that helps reduce the need for search.

In other words, your network of 50 Web sites can function like a single mega site with gradual transitions from dense content through light content. The transactions your visitors engage in don’t have to be purchases or clicks on ads. Most consumers now use the Internet as a research tool and they may take up to two weeks (or six months) to make a purchase decision. If you have created Web sites for diverse topics you can help people let their minds wander through your Web.

Changing topics gives the mind time to absorb and evaluate information it has just acquired. A visit to your site doesn’t have to conclude in a purchase or click transaction because if you can entice the visit to come back again you’ll have another opportunity to engage them in that purchase or click. In other words, generating repeat visits that ultimately terminate in a commercial decision is as much a desirable conversion for a business site as it is for a purely informational site.

The system can help produce that type of conversion better than the individual sites, but the system can also help your search performance by increasing your search visibility for each topic.

Of course, I can see the patterns of abuse now. People too often conclude that if “1 pill is good for me then 50 must be great”. I’m not saying people should create 49 segue pages on each site (again, that makes the network of 50 sites a link farm). Rather, each site should provide bridges to the most appropriate other sites in the network to help people move from one topic to another. Let your visitor’s mind wander.

Search engines will find and index the relationships between your sites and you’ll find that natural bridges help improve search visibility and performance. Search engines don’t have to return the most relevant results for a query as long as they return minimally acceptable results. You can leverage your system of Web sites to help search engines return more than minimally acceptable results, thus improving your chances for conversions.

There is more to this than what I’ve been able to describe. I’ll have to come back to this topic in the future.