What’s All This SEO Stuff?

When you first start working online the amount of jargon and acronyms you see can be extremely off-putting.

Which is no different from starting any new type of activity, by the way, but for people who may be a bit nervous of technology it can be enough to keep you from getting started.

So let’s de-mystify one today – Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.

Here’s what SEO is about.    

This first thing to understand is that SEO is not a black art. It’s common sense, nothing more.

The second thing to understand is that the search engines see their customers as the people doing searches for stuff. They do not see webmasters (anyone building a website or blog) as their customers.

But they do encourage webmasters to work with them to help provide a good search experience for their customers.

So how does that knowledge help us?

Knowing that the search engines are competing against each other to provide the most relevant and highest quality information in response to a search, tells us that good quality content is one of the basic building blocks of a site that’s well optimised for the search engines.

Or it should do.

The volume of actual business done on-line is growing day-by-day, but the majority of people still use the Internet as a source of information.

And they’re looking for the most relevant and highest quality information they can find.

As a result, and in their drive to gain competitive advantage over their rivals, the search engines are getting better and better at assessing the actual information on a site.

Often called contextual relevance, the search engines can dig deep into your site and assess the depth and breadth of information you have there.

In fact, it’s reasonable to assume that it won’t be long before the search engines are able to assess the quality of articles on a site – meaning spelling and grammar – and give greater priority to better written sites.

After all, spelling and grammar checkers have been around for years and it’s unusual now to find a website where you’re entering information that doesn’t highlight what it perceives to be mis-spelled words.

So the first and most basic rule of good Search Engine Optimisation is this: plan and develop a site that has in-depth, good quality, well written information.

And, while we’re on the subject of rules, here’s the second: if anyone tells you they can guarantee to get your site into the top spot on Google within a week/month/or whatever, don’t believe them.

No one can do that, and here’s why:

The only people who know the algorithms that the search engines use are the people who program them.  And, because of the competition I mentioned earlier, those rules are kept more secret than the CIA’s information sources.

Plus – the algorithms are changed on a regular basis for two reasons:

1. To shake off the black hatters – people who try to game the system
2. To improve the quality of search results they can deliver.

So claiming that a specific SEO technique will get your site into Google’s top 10 may be possible one week – but it will probably see you down at page 150 the following week.

Which brings us back to content.  It’s all about content: good, regularly updated, accurate and well written content.

Having said all that, here are some things you can do to help (and work with) the search engines:

Site Navigation

Just as people use the navigation (menus and links) you provide to find their way around your site, so do the search engines.

So make your navigation clear and easy to follow.

Avoid using Java or DHTML based drop down menus – you can do those using CSS. The search engines can’t read Java and, if someone has scripts and flash disabled in their browser (as many do), they won’t be able to read your navigation either.

Page headlines and sub headers

Headlines and sub headers help people to understand quickly what your page is telling them. By using your H tags to style your headers and sub headers you will also help the search engines get a quick understanding.

META tags

META tags are standards-defined bits of information that tell the search engines what your site is about. They’re also used to tell the robots that crawl your site where they can and can’t go, how often to re-visit and a whole lot more.

There are loads of free META tag generators available on-line. All you need to do is fill in the template they offer with information about your site, click the button and – hey presto – you’ve got an entire set of META tags that you can copy into your site.

Use them.

Many will tell you that META tags are no longer relevant – in which case I’d refer you to basic rule number 2 above.

At the very least, using them tells the search engines that you’ve taken the trouble to structure your site properly, and within the agreed standards.

Create a sitemap.

There are lots of free sitemap creators online too. Create and install a sitemap for your site, and remember to create a new one each time you add or remove a page.

Sitemaps tell the search engines about all the pages in your site, so if they miss a page in your navigation menu they can find out about it here.

Read Google Webmaster’s Tools

Google Webmaster’s Tools is the way Google extends the hand of co-operation to webmasters.

There’s a huge amount of very valuable information in Webmaster’s Tools and I strongly recommend you activate it within your Google account and absorb as much as you can.

At the very least read the Google Webmaster Guidelines.  It expands on the principles I set out earlier.

So how would I summarise all that?

Step 1: Plan and build a site which contains high quality, well written articles. Update it frequently as new information comes out.

Step 2: Look at your site from an outsider’s perspective: is it logically structured? Is it easy to find your way around?

Get a friend to give their view as to how easy and intuitive your site is.

If it’s easy for people to find their way around your site, it will be easy for the search engines.

Step 3: Create and use META tags

Step 4: Create and use a sitemap

Step 5: Absorb as much as you can from Google Webmaster’s Tools – and implement it!

Filed in: SEO, Web Pages

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