I get asked a lot of questions regarding SEO practices from clients and industry peeps alike. A lot of the questions are usually, what SEO tricks do you know? how can you get to the number 1 spot on Google really quickly and so on and on and on….
SEO is a very tricky subject, both to talk about and to master. I mention often in my blog’s and to my clients that SEO is far from an exact science but more of an art form, but lately I have come to the conclusion that SEO is magic and to master it you need to be a wizard! As the major players in the search engine world ( Google, Yahoo and Bing ) constantly change up some of their hundred or so criterion for listings, and the fact that very few people actually know what the the criteria are in the first place, a whole amount of what we web designers and SEO gurus do is trial and error in the unknown, hence my referral to magic.
However, out of all the little tricks and tools available to optimise your web site for the search engines, there is one overriding factor that remains at the core of the process, and that is and always will be CONTENT!
Content is like the golden shining beacon at the centre of the wild maze that is SEO. I always tell my customers that no matter what meta tags you use and whatever plug-ins are available, you cannot beat solid, reliable, keyword relevant content. The fact is the search engines, whilst they won’t admit it, will take content into consideration first and foremost when analysing your site for a listing. The simple reason behind this is people.
Ultimately it is people you are designing your website for not search engine spiders. All the little tricks we play with the code of the website are for the benefit of the search engine bots alone, the viewers of the website cannot see any of it. You have to remember that whilst Google looks at over 250 elements of your web site to determine the listing, the peeps at Google want to make sure that your site is full of relevant content, because that make the person searching and using their engine happy.
Ultimately, and this is the best piece of advice for those developing a website or building a new one, the more relevant content you have the higher you will go, and more importantly, the happier your viewers and customers are, generally means a better business for you.
Yes you need to be a wizard to master the magical land of SEO, but content will always be King of that wonderful land.
Yak Out!