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Five Basic Principles of Successful SEOSEO or Search Engine Optimization is an illusive dream of many webmasters seeking to improve their websites rank in the results pages of the major search engines. Through the maze of convoluted information available, not to mention countless eBooks, regular books, and entire websites dedicated to the field, more than one novice has found that they are confused and disillusioned. To help provide a solid foundation for newbies or even old hats that have lost their way, here are five basic principles of SEO. 1. Content is KingProviding useful, original, purposeful content is the single most powerful factor of SEO. “But what about links”, some may say! I’ll get to that; the point is, without good content and rich, original, expanding content, your website is not going too far. If you have a 5 page basic small business website, that rarely changes, all the links in the world will not achieve the ultimate goal of SEO stability. You may glory in a top spot for a while, but eventually your site will fade out of the picture. Fresh, original and useful content not only looks attractive to search engine bots, but also give visitors a reason to return to your site or even encourage webmasters to provide that all important unsolicited backlink. Expanding and growing your original content offerings is a foundational key to SEO success. 2. Clean CodeThere are many speculative theories in the professional SEO world, one of them is that if your HTML does not validate, then the SE’s punish you. This theory is unproven and seems to defy reality since 99% of all websites do not validate perfectly. However, there may be some obvious common sense to this argument. If your code is so bad that the search engine bots can’t follow it, you will have a problem. If you site is full of Java script or other client-side scripting, the search engine bot will ignore it. Hence, if key information is contained in some JavaScript code, then that will never get indexed. A common mistake like this is where the designer uses Flash, or JavaScript for the internal page links instead of plain HTML anchor text (i.e. <a href”blahblahblah.html”>About us</a>). If there are no readable links, guess what… the indexing bot will not find the rest of the site. Bad <head> code is also a common culprit in defeating SEO efforts. Making sure each page of your site is well-constructed code that is search engine friendly, is crucial to successful SEO. Validation is good, but small attribute errors won’t affect your efforts; it’s the big errors that kill you. "Providing useful, original, purposeful content is the single most powerful factor of SEO."
3. Internal Page Linking (Intra-linking)Here’s one of the most common reasons for SEO failure: poor internal page linking. 4. Back-links Make the DifferenceThe idea is simple really; if your website has other sites linking to it, it will achieve the following: more frequent visits by search engine bots, more recognized popularity and assumed relevance, and more actual visits by visitors who find your link. Backlinks are qualified in two general categories: reciprocal and one-way links. Reciprocal links are when your site links back to the site that is giving you the backlink. This is a one-for-one trade deal. One-way links are when a website links to your site and you don’t return the favor. For obvious reasons the one-way links are harder to obtain, yet more powerful in achieving popularity. The best kind of one-way links are unsolicited. This is where a webmaster thinks that your site has something so good that they want to link to it for their visitors to find. Whether you are dealing with reciprocal or one-way links, the quality of the website that you are linking to it very important. Your outbound links are your choice and if you link to ‘bad neighborhoods’ you will have problems. So, link well and often, but be careful as to who you link to and with. As you build up your links, keeping in mind the previous concepts, your site will improve dramatically. 5. Avoid Foolish Spammy MethodsAs with every competition, there are always cheaters. SEO is no different. If there is an “easy way”, people will take it. However, for the serious businessperson this kind of thinking is utter foolishness. Google sets the standard for acceptable methods, so their way is the right way no matter how much we may disagree. I will not bother to list for you great spammy ideas to enhance your search engine rankings quickly. I will rather just warn you that search engine banishment, guilt by association, and deviant tacticians are all real and true actualities. You can get banned, you can get penalized for associating with bad neighborhoods, and there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing waiting to impress you with their tricks, and then devour your marketing budget leaving you high and dry. Stay away from this nonsense, and be patient! In a soon-to-come article, I will talk about determining legitimate SEO offers from bogus tricks and frauds. By following this five-point foundation, you should have enough information to start out right or correct your misguided ways. This is not all there is to know, but it’s a solid start. Happy optimizing! ©2006 Core Web Solutions. All Rights Reserved. Hard-copy dated and archived; do not duplicate or use this article without express written permission.
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