SEO Blog

The phrase ‘content is king’ often gets bandied around in SEO circles. Not without good reason either. It is pivotal in ensuring that search engines understand what you’re all about, it is a unique identifier and is a link enabler.

However, not all that far away from content is its close neighbour context.

Whilst content provides the bulk, context delivers the value. It is what will get search engines to take your site seriously and help deliver the rankings you deserve for the terms you are going after.
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You’re probably tired about reading how evil paid links are by now. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that they continue to work; however, criticisms against them rarely come with any explicit examples of the negative impact they can have.

Well, how about this one? Econsultancy yesterday highlighted the case of gourmetgiftbaskets.com, who offer exactly what their name suggests [see: The $4m Google penalty]. They were making huge profits and sitting comfortably in the top couple of places on Google for all of their primary terms. Unfortunately though one day all the rankings disappeared. No word of warning, no apparent reason why, the site just wasn’t visible any more.

The culprit? Paid links of course.
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In the old days you’d expect that the obvious answer to this was to continually submit your site to the search engines and you’d be away. Sadly not only was this not very time effective, it just wasn’t very effective full-stop.

Once Google got around to processing your request you were probably about ready to send another one. Now you can save yourself the bother.

Whilst you might still choose to submit your site at the outset, that is probably enough. There are far more effective way for you to get the attention of search engines today, the most effective being strong links and your Webmaster Tools Account. Let’s see how both work.
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Before starting out on this post, I would like to acknowledge that there are exceptions to this rule. Google’s algorithm isn’t perfect and sometimes bad sites do rank above those that offer value; not sure why but hey, it happens.

Anyway, if you want to rank higher for your selected keywords then you had better have a site that is better than your competitors. Search engines reward those sites that people enjoy using. They analyse content and visitor reaction (i.e. bounce rate, time on site etc.) and make informed decisions based on that data.

Of course you can attempt to manipulate that through excessive (blackhat?) SEO practices, like spamming comment boards, getting involved in link farms or exchanging cash for a few inbound gems, but ultimately you can’t blind Google to a bad site.
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Google has become a generic term for search. I use it as such quite regularly in this blog, more often than not because that is what readers expect. We optimise for Google because, in the UK at least, they have a 90% share of the search market. By any standards, that’s pretty impressive.

Very few websites are ever going to be brave enough to optimise solely for Ask or Bing. Whilst they do control a slender slice of the overall searches being performed day in day out, ignoring Google in pursuit of a niche would be foolhardy at best.

Unfortunate as it may be, the priority is and will continue (for the foreseeable future at least) to be with Google. That’s where the people are going, it is on their pages that you’ll earn most traffic. This often creates a narrow, even blinkered approach to Search Engine Optimisation. Why go after 2% of the searchers when there’s 90% coming from one source?
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It’s often said that the rich get richer whilst the poor, well you know the rest. The same though can be true online. Not necessarily in terms of finances, but the SEO work required to succeed.

When you’re down at the bottom you need to work hard to try and get to the top. However, if you have developed a strong brand identity, are sat at the top of search engines for your primary keywords, others might do the work for you.

You see, when you’re at the top you have instant visibility. People know who you are and are more likely to discuss your brand on their blogs and social media profiles, thus helping to promote your brand further. In amongst all of these mentions you may even find the occasional link too.
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Whenever you include an image to your website it adds a certain aesthetic quality to the page. It helps users navigate through and quickly evaluate what you are offering. Unfortunately not everybody can see them, including the search engines.

To a search engine spider, an image is simply a bit of coding to be looked at and largely ignored. That is, unless you have an ALT text attribute attached.

One of the simplest bits of coding you can hope, but still largely underused, the ALT text within any image or non-HTML element will add vital context. It provides you with an opportunity to describe the element and include additional keywords on a page.
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A criticism levelled at SEO is that it is largely a simple activity that anybody can do. People don’t see the value in hiring a professional to do a job that can easily be done by any site owner. Of course, that isn’t entirely untrue.

Anybody can do SEO, I’ve certainly never knowingly suggested otherwise. Theoretically though most of us could, if we put our mind to it, play football, master nuclear physics or build a home from scratch. Unfortunately we wouldn’t be much good, certainly not at first.

Getting to grips with the basics might be easy. Learning to control a football, you might be able to work out what an atomic nuclei is and understand how to mix cement, but that won’t make an expert at any of these pursuits. The information to become an expert is out there, but you’re not going to learn it over night.
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In the SEO business we often go on about the importance of building your inbound links. Not without good reason admittedly. This is where you’ll get your PageRank, your site strength and help your website get ranked. But what’s the point in linking to a half-cocked website?

It is a difficult one though. There’s always a temptation to get your site on Google’s radar and get those first links set up; nothing wrong with that at all. But before you embark on a full blown link building odyssey, you need to get your house in order.
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Even the smallest websites designed for the most basic of purposes need a few standard pages. Of course if you’re a large ecommerce site, you’ll have products, categories, sub-categories, buyers guides, FAQs and all-sorts. These are of course vital in this context.

But at the heart of any website their needs to be a core trio of pages. These are there to provide visitors with information, create link fodder and give you an opportunity to gain search engine rankings. Whilst many take them for granted, some still don’t give them the respect they deserve.
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