Forget Everything You Think You Know About SEO
Monday, 17 November 2008 00:00
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not the Holy Grail of web traffic that many web designers will make you think it is. In fact, you can create a website that ranks well in search engines without any emphasis on SEO.
The main goal of a search engine is to provide relevent results based on keywords or phrases entered by an end-user. During the beginning stages of the Internet, search engines needed help with this and allowed users to tag their own content with relevent keywords using metatags. Of course the first thought was to see how search engine results could be tampered with by modifying meta tags in different ways. Thus began the cycle of users trying to game the system and search engine trying not be gamed.
As search engines get better at what they do, the need to help them out becomes less pressing. Sure there are things you can do to boost your results. But I am talking to the small business owner who does not have a huge marketing budget. My advice to you is: skip the SEO consultant. Write good content.
Search engines are hungry for content. The more content you have, the better you will do in search engines.
Now let's get a little more specific.My company is a web design company. If I write articles, no matter how good and thought-provoking, on the difference between sushi and sashimi, I will not get the traffic that I am looking for. The simple equation is this: figure out what your users want to read and write about it, as it pertains to your business of course.
To take this a step further, think about where your customers are most likely to look for this type of information. Is it on blogs, news websites, forums, email lists? Once you figure this out, make sure you get your articles posted on this source.
You are now giving your customers what they are looking for in the places they are looking. I don't think a better way to market exists.
For those of you who still want to please the search engines, or are looking at a redesign project, I will be posting a brief list of simple things every site should have. Pass it on to your web designer. Look for it next week.
