How to stand out from the crowd
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Latent semantic optimisation, content DNA, H1 tags, meta data, keyword density, Google algorithm. It’s enough to make your head explode. All you want to know is “will people be able to find my website when they enter specific terms into a search engine that relate to my new product or service?” The answer is NO, unless your website has been optimised in the correct way. You can do some of this Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) yourself whilst other technical activities will need to be carried out by your web developer.
Basic SEO doesn’t require specialized knowledge of algorithms, programming and taxonomy but it does require a basic understanding of how search engines work. There are two aspects of search engines to consider before jumping in. The first is how spiders work. The second is how search engines figure out what documents relate to which keywords and phrases.
Google and Yahoo both have an uncanny ability to judge the topic or theme of documents they are examining, and use that ability to judge the topical relationship of documents that are linked together. The most valuable incoming links (and the only ones worth perusing), come from sites that share topical themes.
After Titles and Meta Description data good content is the most important aspect of search engine optimization. The easiest and most basic rule is that search engine spiders can be relied upon to read basic body text 100% of the time.
No agency is able to give you cast iron guarantees with SEO as this is a constantly evolving area due in most part to Google continually “tweeking” the algorithm by which it displays search results. The only way to guarantee No1 spot is to outbid your competitors and invest in Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign – proceed with caution here as this is the quickest way to literally burn money if not set up and managed right. Agree on budgets for media spend and demand detailed reporting on a weekly, or daily basis if necessary.
Never be afraid to ask questions of your online marketing agency. If you don’t get the answers you want simply go online and find another one that speaks in plain English.