SEO Is Easy – Just Tell The Truth

It is undeniable that search engine performance has become a major ongoing concern for modern marketers, those not on top of this are surely being left behind quickly. The good news is that due to the advancements in search engine algorythmns achieving a good page ranking for key words that truly relate to your business is easier than ever, so easy it’s almost become a by-product of building a high quality Web site and a sound online marketing strategy. What is worrying though is how many people still try to bodge, spam and force their way to the top using out-dated search engine hacks that only serve to damage the results they set out to improve.

Search engines such as Google are built on serving users with high quality relevant results for their search queries. Search engine developers are working constantly to find new ways to rate sites by the true merit of their relevance and significance while identifying loopholes and penalising the sites which try to fool the system.

Marketers need to consider which search engine terms they truly believe their business deserves a high ranking for and target those terms, trying to force an unknown irrelevant site to the top for various generic terms is futile and counter productive.

If you are doing any of the following you need to stop and rethink before you do too much damage:

• Relying on keyword meta-tags, this particular meta-tag is no longer considered relevant by the popular search engines and long lists will have a negative affect, new better meta-tags have been developed which perform better.
• Key word cramming by inserting many loosely related keywords into content can actually have a negative effect on your strongly related keywords.
• Link harvesting by submitting sites to poorly regarded directories can cause your site to be heavily penalised.
• Not having a Web master account with the likes of Google and MS,  binding your site to those search engines and supplying them with critical back end data is effectively closing the door on them.
• Actively trying to raise the rank of small new unknown microsites or brochure sites above well established content rich sites.

The fundemental rules for search engine success are simple:

• Build accessible sites which separate content from style.
• Keep all content relevant to your true target audience.
• Focus on good results in niche areas.
• Have an online marketing strategy to generate quality links
• Interface with the search engines behind the scenes
• Bide your time and be patient

The underlying conclusion to draw is that the age of fooling search engines is coming to a close and those relying on lazy keyword cramming are being homed in on fast. Those building Web sites that have quality design and content are already seeing good results, for example searching for “freelance design wolverhampton” sees this very site appearing three times on the first page, it’s a fanstic time for many of us while some laggards may need some drastic rethinking.