Search Engines and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
There is a lot being said about Search Engine Optimisation these days. There are many strategies and tips out there that simply confuse most business owners. There are many SEO specialists out there claiming quick and effective results, often not telling you exactly what they are doing. You must be extremely careful who you use for your Search Engine Optimisation and the strategies they use.
If your SEO provider is promising your results quickly but does not tell you how, you should be very careful. They may be using ‘black hat’ techniques which are basically designed to trick search engines to send you more traffic than you deserve. Once the search engines find out how you are manipulating them, you could find your site blacklisted and receive no traffic at all from the search engines from that point on. It is not worth the risk.
Understanding Search Engines
Google’s business model hinges on their ability to help people find the best sources of information when a search is done. Their algorithms are always being improved and are becoming more and more sophisticated so they continue to provide a fantastic user experience. That’s why they are so successful and that’s why they guard against manipulative search engine techniques.
When you understand what the search engines are trying to provide users, you can see why they will crack down on websites that try to trick them into ranking them higher than they deserve. The last thing they want to do is list a poor quality website highly because when users click on that link they have a poor experience and are likely to start using other search engines that will give them what they are looking for.
Basic On Page Search Engine Optimisation
It is good to keep track of all the changes done by search engines so you can make sure you are ranked as highly as possible. If you get into ‘playing games’ with the search engines you always need to watch this closely. If you stick with these basic SEO rule you can’t go too far wrong:
- Provide high quality, unique content
- Structure your site so it is easy to navigate
- Use high quality, clean code so search engines can understand it
- Constantly update your website with fresh content
- Use words your target market may search for (keywords) particularly in headings and titles.
Advanced On Page Search Engine Optimisation
Once you have got the basics in place you can start looking in more detail at how search engines work. When you get to this stage, you should keep your ears to the ground for any changes, especially those done to the search engine algorithms effecting search results. Keeping up-to-date with the latest changes will allow you to optimise your website better. You will be able to tailor all your SEO tactics for better search engine rankings but don’t try to manipulate them. Give the search engines what they want and you will gain better benefits over time. If you do this right, you will not only gain high rankings but should stay there over the long term.
Links to your website from other, well respected websites that are relevant to what you do will increase your page rank. For this reason, people often try to build up their inbound links with a variety of tactics. In years gone by there were reciprocal link directories, this is now almost completely ineffective and in fact can cause your website more harm than good.
Old SEO tactics can sometimes lose their effectiveness. For example, while there are some search engines that are using meta-tags, (hidden code on web pages to help search engines understand what the page is about), most search engines have moved on and are now using other means of understanding what a web page is about.
There will always be scams and tricks available to manipulate search engines, just make sure you avoid them. They will eventually have negative effects on your site ranking in the long run and may even result in your website getting banned.
Think about SEO realistically and always consider the long-term effects of your efforts. When you do SEO, remember that long lasting results will take time to develop. Just make sure you use SEO tactics that are legitimate and are even recommended by search engines themselves. The goal of your search engine optimisation is to be recognised as the authority in your niche and gain links from other website based on your websites merit. If your website is authoritative and commands the respect of others in your field, then it will become one that people will want to visit and link to. This is the ideal way of gaining high search rankings and stay there.
