Too many people that work in marketing see the Internet as the Wild West; there are no real rules and the fastest gun always wins. The reality is that it is more like an urban maze, with a lot of rules that can be enforced at any time and no one really knows all of the rules. That definitely applies to search engine optimization, which is arguably one of the biggest headaches that any marketer has to deal with. Not only are there ways to mess it up, but there are ways to make it harder to accomplish. However, there are a lot of easy ways to look at it, which often make it easier to deal with on a number of levels. Check out the HigherVisibility guide to SEO to get a lot of your SEO questions answered.
1. An Easier Definition of Website
While everyone knows how websites work, a marketer needs to look at them a little differently than everyone else. That is, they need to have a working definition that allows for the different areas as well as areas that are linked. In that regard, a marketer needs to look at a large website, one with 20 or more pages, as defined as a number of different websites with their own marketing plans; you should differentiate between the catalog pages and customer service pages, for example. On the other hand, it can help to view the different social media you use for marketing the site as another website you need to deal with. Looking at it that way can actually help.
2. A Better Definition of Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is simply anything you can do that gets you a better ranking on the various search engines. It is necessary to note that there are black hat and white hat techniques and that using the former will pretty much wreck any goodwill you have created with those search engines. Search engines basically score all sites based on a lot of criteria. To most people, those rules seem pretty arbitrary. However, you need to remember that from a search engine’s perspective, the better it does its job of finding the best sites the more people will use it, and therefore see any advertising it offers. As such, search engines do the best that they can do to sort and organize websites.
3. Put On Your White Hats
There are a number of basic techniques that search engines like to see. A well-organized website makes them happy, as does a site with lots of repeating text. They like to see meta-tags used correctly, and a good, short summary of the site ensures that the site will do well. The site also needs to have a lot of visitors, all gained through legitimate ways, that shows the search engine that it is a relevant site. Lastly, all images need to be identified well, as that helps with sorting things. Anything that you can do to make your site well-organized and well-documented will always work in your favor.
4. Put Your Black Hat Away
On the other hand, search engines hate cheaters. You need to keep meta-tag descriptions to a minimum, usually under fifty words or so. You also need to cut the fluff; search engines hate seeing more verbiage than absolutely necessary on sites; keep it to just the basics and you will do a lot better than if you have more words than needed. You also need to keep in mind that the search engines see a sudden leap in hits as suspicious; such sites will usually be put in the sandbox until the number of hits stabilize. In this regard, building visitors is a lot more effective than buying views. Disobey these rules at your hazard; search engines reward rule-breakers with bottom rankings.
While there are a lot more rules, most of them follow the above guidelines; present a well-organized site with everything documented succinctly and the search engines will love you, but break the rules and the search engines will hate you. Better yet, change your appearance and viewers over time for best effect. That love or hate will be demonstrated by your rankings by that particular search engine. Keep that in mind and you should be able to change your ranking over time making any SEO you do well worth the effort.
