4.18.2007

Optimizing for search engines (SEO)

A friend of mine is an IT geek and was telling me about the new ways search engines are searching the internet. Gone are the days of searching meta-keywords. Now engines look at meta-content...descriptions of your site, who links to your site, etc.

SEO Quake is an interesting new tool he pointed me to. The browser extension looks at over 35 parameters it analyzes on your site including Google PR, Yahoo Link, Technorati, Del.cio.us, Alexa, etc.

For example ::
Four Corners Church (www.4cornerschurch.com) has - 139 Google links, 82 Yahoo links, 160 on Yahoo LinkDomain, 137 MSN links, and 10 Del.cio.us links.

A good start but we have a long way to go compared to someone like Relevant Magazine who has - 26,700 Yahoo links, 52,300 on Yahoo LinkDomain, 19,613MSN links, and 376 Del.cio.us links.

Now I know my local church can't compete with a nationally distributed magazine, but I want to think we could have the same reach (as I'm sure many churches/organizations do). I would love to see the number of people checking out what's happening in West Chester, Ohio increase. I want to see our sphere of influence grow broader and deeper.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, I don't think any church is going to have a "high" linkage rate, in terms of how this system works. This, essentially, looks for sites that link to you (which usually means, sites you link to as well). Relevant is full of users, message boards, comments, links to other sites and stories - thus easily increasing its ranks.

Northpoint; on the other hand -- a VERY large church, is at GOOGLE: 1,090; YAHOO: 1,920/3,160; MSN: 3533; DEL.CIO.US: 44. Nothing near Relevant. 4CC really links to know one else, doesn't have an over abundance of of visitors and isn't nationally recognized (yet). A billboard might help that ;-)

Speaking of, I saw a billboard for this church on Cin-Day/West Chester Rd ...

Unknown said...

Crossroads:
Google: 2000
Yahoo: 83/186
MSN: 776/err
Del.cio.us: 9

VCC
Google: 578
Yahoo: 90/121
MSN: 775/err
Del.icio.us: 0

Unknown said...

ha! The circus does, on average better than Crossroads and VCC (and not shabby compared to Northpoint) -- and its just a family blog!

Google: 696
Yahoo: 1900/1890
MSN: 215/err
Del.icio.us: 5

Blankenship:
Google: 1970
Yahoo: 614/3710
MSN: 723/err
Del.icio.us: 17