Why Do The Search Engines Change Their Minds?
Article Title: Why Do The Search Engines Change Their Minds?
Author: Old Welsh Guy
One of the common questions that come up time after time on
forums is , “why do the search engines keep changing their
minds about what they want”. The search engines really don’t
chop and change what they want, really they don’t. They all
want one thing, to deliver the most relevant pages to
searchers. it isn’t rocket science (despite what some of the
telephone sake oil salespeople SEO’s tell you). SEO is simple,
here are off my cuff the simple basics of seo.
1) Make sure your site can be spidered
If not then all else is wasted, this is a basic that believe it
or not many overlook.
2) Make sure the spiders can spider it quickly and understand
the importance of every page in your site.
Set up a nice clean navigation and folder structure with the
site broken dow into little pockets of focused pages. Put in
place a sitemap, with links to the pages, and a brief text of
what to expect at that page.
3) Carry out keyword research and do not cut corners.
Keyword research is the bedrock of any marketing, be it PPC or
organic SEO, get it right and it is a joy, get it wrong you pay
the price miles down the line when you have to come all the way
back and start again.
4) Create the structure above, and create informative clear
crisp focused pages.
A page should focus on a subject and the subject should be
clearly identifiable. Make the subject the page title and your
away.
5) Create clear page titles
How on earth do you expect a search algo to know what your
pages are about if they are not clearly marked? Leep in mind
that the page title serves two masters, the search engine, and
more importantly the searcher. A clear focused page title will
encourage clicks to your page.
6) Create clear quality on topic content. Search engines need
content to work out what your site is all about, without it
they have to guess. Quality content matched to quality
backlinks into your site will help you rank well, and will
please your visitors.
7) Focus your pages! The search engine algorithms need to be
able to work out what each page is about on the web. Covering
three or four topics on the same page will only serve to
confuse the issue. Focused tight content and outbound on topic
links will help both visitors and search engines.
Be proud of your site.
Let people know it exists, submit to directories, contact other
sites that are likely to be able to share client types, and swap
links.
9) Link out
So much is made of incoming links, but I am a firm believer
that you can assist the search algorithms greatly by linking
out to good authoritive pages from within your site. This is
how it was in the beginning with academics citing each others
work, and this still works today.
10) Use the right anchor text
Anchor text was again how we did it in the early days, but
people kind of lost track of that. Now again they realise the
importance of anchor text. Use descriptive anchor text when
possible, and this includes internal links within your own
site.
Well that is that take a look and tell me what is new there?
The answer is nothing really. So SEO doesn’t change, the search
engines don’t keep changing their minds about what they want.
The problem is that too many people create sites that algo
chase one factor or another of the algorithm, and when the
weight is altered for this factor, they have to move onto
another to shore it up. Create a good well balanced site with
all the elements covered, and it will stand the test of time.
About The Author: Old Welsh Guy is a web marketer and SEO who
owns http://www.umbrella-consultancy.co.uk ,
http://www.web-design-wales.com. His blog can be found at
http://www.oldwelshguy.co.uk ask me.
