The Eternal Truths of SEO

<<< >>> Published on: December 20, 2009 <<< >>> Last Modified on: December 20, 2009 <<< >>>

You’ve probably heard that SEO and the search engines change constantly, and it’s true. But there are some things about SEO that haven’t changed much, and probably won’t for a long time to come. These Eternal Truths include basic information that you can start using in your SEO campaign. You don’t want to chisel this stuff in stone, but it calls for something a little more permanent than a dry erase marker.

Robots Deliver Listings:

Let me start with the basics of how the search engines work, and a major component of this is a robot, or spider, which is software that slurps up your site’s text and brings it back to be analyzed by a powerful central “engine.” This activity is referred to as crawling or spidering. There are lots of different metaphors for how robots work, but we think ants make the best one. Think of a search engine robot as an explorer ant, leaving the colony with one thought on its mind: Find food. In this case, the “food” is HTML text, preferably lots of it, and to find it, the ant needs to travel along easy, obstacle-free paths: HTML links. Following these paths, the ant (search engine robot), with insect-like single-mindedness, carries the food (text) back to its colony and stores it in its anthill (search engine database). Thousands and thousands of the little guys are exploring and gathering simultaneously all over the Internet. (See the below image for a visual example). If a path is absent or blocked, the ant gives up and goes somewhere else. If there’s no food, the ant brings nothing back.

So basically, when you think of a search engine, you really need to think of a database that holds pieces of text that have been gathered from millions of sites all over the web. What sets that engine in motion? A search. When a web surfer enters the term “grape bubble gum” into the search engine, all of the sites that might be relevant for that term are brought to the forefront. The search engine sifts through its database for sites containing terms like “grape growers,” “stock market bubble,” and “gum disease.” It uses a secret formula a.k.a. search ranking algorithm to sort the results, and in a fraction of a second, a list of relevant sites, many containing the exact phrase “grape bubble gum,” will be returned in the results page. There are lots of things that factor into the way robot search engines determine the rank for their main search results. But, just for a start, in order to be in the running for ranks, you need to provide HTML text to feed the search engines and HTML links as clear paths to the food. Keeping those robots well-fed and happy is going to be one of the biggest jobs in “Your SEO Plan.”

Search Results Are Blended:

If you’ve spent much time searching, you have probably noticed that the search engines are not displaying one set of homogeneous results. Most search engines take the “chef’s salad” approach, displaying a mix of robot results, directory listings, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Your site is probably already represented by most of the types of results we’re about to discuss. Knowing what each type looks like and where they come from is the first step in being able to influence your own listings in a positive way. You learned about robot results earlier; here are the other types of results that are available to searchers.

Algorithms Change:

Here’s something that drives people crazy about SEO: “You can’t ever be 100 percent sure that what you’re doing will be rewarded with the rank and the listing you want”. This is because the search engines keep their internal ranking mechanism, even the criteria by which the ranking is determined, under wraps. Welcome to the secret formula of SEO: The Search Engine Ranking Algorithm. The algorithm is the formula that a search engine uses to determine its ranks. It’s a way of sifting through a multitude of factors, including keyword repetition and page titles, inbound links, and even the age of the site. Some elements have more weight, meaning that they are considered to be more important in determining rank, and some have less. Each search engine uses its own algorithm to determine which results to show and in which order. And each search engine changes its algorithm from time to time, often without so much as a friendly warning. So, the truth is this: You will never really know exactly how Google works.

Humans Are Smart – Computers Aren’t:

Let’s face it: The search engine’s job is not easy. Take a look at your filing cabinet, multiply it by about a billion, and imagine someone throwing you a couple of words and then hovering impatiently behind you, tapping a toe, expecting you to find exactly the right document in the blink of an eye. Nobody could! We humans are wonderfully intelligent creatures, but we’re just a tad on the slow side when compared to computers. Unfortunately, machines are still just that: machines. They struggle with ambiguity that even a kindergarten student could handle. Not to mention misspellings, regional dialects, and punctuation. For search engines to bring back great results, they need to combine the best of both worlds: the speed of the machines and the intelligence of the human mind.

Text Matters:

You probably can etch this one in stone: Text is Eternally Important in search. The entire process of a web search is text-based, even when the item being sought isn’t text at all, like a picture or video file. The search engines care about how much text you have on your site, how it’s formatted, and, of course, what it says. To help prepare your SEO campaign, you should know some Eternal Truths of text.

• Keyword selection is the key
• Your site has many keyword placement opportunities
• Your site’s message
• Meta Tags (Title, Description & Keywords)
• How other sites are linking to yours

It’s Not Just about Rank:

While your ranks are the easiest aspect of SEO to grasp, don’t let them be the only thing you care about. We don’t mean to be dismissive of people who really, truly live and die by their Google rank. We know that there are industries that are so cutthroat and specialized that this is the only thing that matters. But we have found this to be true: The vast majority of businesses do best when they use a holistic approach to SEO, combining elements of organic and paid search with a healthy dose of good writing and usability.

Search Engines Don’t Like Tricks:

The search engines are aware of the many sneaky ways that site owners try to achieve undeserved ranks (in SEO lingo, these sneaky activities are called spamming). If they discover that you’re trying to do this, your site may be penalized: Your rank may be downgraded, or your page or even your whole site could be banned. Even if your site is never caught and punished, it’s very likely, we dare say inevitable, that your tricky technique will eventually stop working. Here are some practices that have been on the search engines’ no-no list for so long that they can safely be labeled as “Eternally Bad for your Site”.

• Cloaking
• Duplicate Content
• Keyword Stuffing
• Hidden Links
• Invisible Text

SEO is Not Brain Surgery:

So many people feel intimidated when approaching SEO. They think it’s ultra-technical or it requires a huge budget. Many people think SEO requires some sort of degree or a lot of insider knowledge. But SEO doesn’t take any of that. The only thing that is really necessary for SEO is the willingness to learn. So here is my most special gift to you, an SEO mantra that you can adopt as your own: “I wonder why that’s happening”.