What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Persuading the search engines that they want you in their main listings
Almost synonymous with: Google, natural listings, organic listings
Not to be confused with: search engine advertising, black art, prayer, dirty tricks, the web.
The quick summary
- Improve your chances by being the best website in your field.
- Make sure you are well represented across the web.
- Make your site “accessible”
- SEO needs “buy-in” throughout your organisation
Who Gets to be no.1?
In many ways, search engine optimisation is easy. All you need to do is the following:
- Create a good site;
- Include the phrases that you want to be found for within the copy of your website;
- get lots of relevant sites to link to you.
In many ways, however, search engine optimisation is actually very difficult as you need to do all the following:
- Create a good site;
- Include the phrases that you want to be found for within the copy of your website;
- get lots of relevant sites to link to you.
To use the newspaper analogy you may have heard us use before, with newspaper editorial, theoretically what gets in deserves to do so, on merit. If it is more relevant to the reader’s needs, then the editor will choose to write about it. Theoretically search engines will list the site that they believe the searcher wants to find.
We all know, however, that it is possible to influence the editorial process in newspapers and this is what search engine optimisation is similar to.
Public relations is largely about encouraging editors to write about you rather than your competition and there are a number of different approaches to the process – you could bribe them, attempt to manipulate the system or our preferred approach is simply ensuring you meet the needs of the editor by giving them something they can easily write about.
If you set out with the attitude of seeking to be the most relevant site for the search phrase then you are most of the way to being the number No. 1 listing. Sure, there are a number of technical requirements you need to meet but you invariably need to meet those to improve your website for your customers. It is this approach that Attacat believes you should take to search engine optimisation – a combination of a good website and sound internet marketing.
But What About This Rubbish?
We all know sites that are number 1 and are anything but the best site for that term. There are two main reasons for this:
- Many sites that are actually very good, may not appear that good to the untrained eye. It ain’t about look! The well known brands may also be absent because their sites are not as good as their offline brand.
- The search engines can be manipulated.
Those of you desperate to get on with optimising your site will probably be interested in the second part of this. The search engines can be manipulated because their editors are not human but instead are complex mathematical equations.
If you know (or can make educated guesses) as to what those equations are, then you can make sure that your site meets the requirements and scores well, thus achieving a high ranking.
There are optimisers out there who will seek to understand every single parameter that goes into those equations. They will then use every technical trick in the book to persuade the search engine to rank them well. Often it works.
Sounds great. And it is, but only for as long as it continues to work. What you need to bear in mind though is as time goes by, the equations get better and better at determining what is a truly useful site. If you have reverse engineered to the hilt, then even small changes (as happen regularly) could see your rank drop off suddenly.
If on the other hand, you concentrate on evolving the best web presence you possibly can, then you should see your rank continue to rise, as long as you keep ahead of the competition.
So should you forget search engine optimisation all together? Well actually no. It is important that search engines can understand what your site is about. What might work for your users may not work for the search engine spiders (the programs that search engines use to find new web pages). The good news is though, that what works for spiders will invariably work better for users.
The majority of sites rank well in the search engines, not because they are optimised but because they are user friendly and they are well marketed. Sure the website owners may prioritise some forms of marketing or specific content because they will help gain ranks but that is the limit of their optimisation. Be the best, be number one.
If you are reading this because you want tips, here is one: the more pages of quality content your site has, the better.
Do we do SEO as a service?
As you may know, we specialise in search engine advertising rather than optimisation (the subject of this article). You should be doing both. Below is not the complete picture, but it is part of the story as to why we chose to leave optimisation (SEO) alone:
- We believe in offering a service at the very highest level. We don’t believe we can do that without being specialist.
- The SEO of Tomorrow (and to a large extent Today) doesn’t lend itself to outsourcing. The equation for good SEO is as follows:
- Good SEO = Good Design + Good Online Marketing
- Good Design – We believe all sites should be designed from day one in a search engine friendly manner – that comes down to having the right knowledge to find yourself a smart web design company who know’s SEO.
- Good Online Marketing – who really outsources marketing? Sure you bring in agencies and others to help but a marketing strategy that isn’t at the heart of an organisation is unlikely to succeed. Online marketing, is just marketing with a word in front. The same rules apply.
- We just enjoy PPC more – sad, we know, but we get a buzz out of seeing instant results and being able to see the direct effect of trying out different things.
So rather than pretending we have all the answers and offering it as a service, we have simply settled for knowing a good bit about it. Enough to know that any suggestions we make in improving your website will either help your natural rankings, or in the worst case, have no detrimental impact.
We do however partner with some of the UK’s very best SEO companies, as such we can easily make it happen for you. We can even project manage the whole process for you if you wish.
