As a website owner, I am always interested in improving my Google and other search rankings, and one of the things that this requires is that I optimize my site.
[I hasten to add that I am not talking about this site - nomorepencils - this is just where I rant, observe, and write poetry.]
That may sound a vague term, but to website optimization professionals it has a very precise meaning. They may argue among themselves as to which techniques are the most worthwhile, or which way to do certain things, but they are very aware of what those ‘things’ are.
The full term is search engine optimization (SEO) – which means optimizing the site so that it is most likely to be found and valued by search engines such as Google.
Behind the search engines there are real people searching on the web, and what the search engines are trying to do is provide those people with the best experience possible. So that is what the ultimate focus of SEO professionals is or should be.
There are some recognized good practices. Well written unique copy on every page of the site is worthwhile. Unique and well researched key-phrases in the Title Tag, and the Meta Description of every page are important. A proper use of the H1 tag for titles on the page is important, as is good internal linking of pages.
Backlinks
And then there is something that has nothing to do with how well optimized the website is, and that is the number, quality, and quantity of incoming links.
Links from other sites pointing to your site (backlinks as they are called), are very important.
I would hazard a guess that most SEO professionals would say that if one absolutely had to choose between a well-optimized page and a site that had lots of high-quality backlinks, well the latter would win every time.
But of course, website owners do not have to choose. They can optimize their websites and try to get good backlinks.
And this leads me to the focus of this article.
I don’t know how big the readership is of the various SEO sites. One thing I do know, however, is that when they write articles, they get lots of comments.
If one ignores the type of blogs that get fifty you-hug-me-and-I-hug-you comments, SEO blogs are probably the most popular after political blogs.
And that’s funny. The most popular blogs are the ones telling people how to become popular.
From my side of the fence there are a couple of problems. The first is that if I search for a post on an SEO topic, I can probably find one that recommends ‘X’ and one that tells me that ‘X’ is a waste of time and that it is better to do ‘Y’.
The second problem is that it becomes clear pretty quickly that the majority of these SEO blogs are funnels designed to give out valuable knowledge but also to draw web owners in to pay the SEO companies to manage their SEO, their PPC (pay per click) Adwords campaign, their backlinks, and whatever else I have missed.
And therein lies the problem for me and a lot of website owners.
Which company do I choose? They mostly look professional. How can I possibly make a sensible choice?
If you have any ideas on the subject, please let me know.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for sharing this material and shining a light on what can be a confusing subject. With so much information out there it’s nice to have the material narrowed down to a simple and concise presentation of the facts.
Gervais Group
For my part I must say how good it is of you to put a nofollow tag in the link to your site.