SEO Basics
Introduction to SEO
Before I start talking about keywords, backlinks and metatags, I'd like you metaphorically to step back and try to look through the eyes of the people who will have the most impact on your internet marketing success.
At the top of the list is your actual audience.If you provide content that is valuable then there is a greater chance that, not only will they buy from you but they will do some of your marketing for you by bookmarking your site, commenting, passing details to their friends and colleagues etc. At all times you should be considering how others can do your marketing for you.
The average person receives over a hundred spam emails per day. Most of us don't see many of these because of spam filtering software. This software identifies spam through an algorithm that has rules related to the use of certain words and the sender's email details.
Well spamming is not limited to email. There is a a legion of "black hat" internet marketers who have at their fingertips a vast array of sophisticated automation tools. Using these tools, they can create a blog with hundreds of pages (scraping content, including videos,from the websites of others) and create links to it on thousands of pages across the internet - in minutes. The blog is stuffed with advertisements and every so often somebody will click on an advertisement. The blog may only make a couple of dollars a day but when it is one of thousands created by the same person, you begin to see the incentive to spam.
If a website like this ranks well on Google, then people will lose faith in Google.
Hence Google, and many others, have algorithms similar to spam filters. You need to be aware of these to avoid becoming inadvertently tagged a spammer.
Get the Google Perspective
Being found on Google or other search engines is a major element of internet marketing. Fortunately it is complementary – in other words, the things that you do to rank high in the search engines, will also help to promote your site by other means. Thus, creating a video that you post on YouTube with a link back to your website, will help your website ranking. You may also be found by people browsing or searching within YouTube or from another site linking to your video.
Ask yourself the question, “How would I look at this if I were Google.” The answer is a circular one. Because Google’s algorithm for ranking search pages is derived from Google asking the question: “What would the person typing in the search question regard as useful content.” And the answer, according to Google is content that is:
- related to the search query
- original – in other words not just a copy or re-hash of somebody else’s content
- is interesting to other people (how many people link to the site) – and of course if the site making the link is important itself, then that link should carry more weight
Underpinning these three criteria, which are at the heart of most of search engine optimisation techniques, is the principle that the content creation and linking should be done by humans who are interested in the topic being researched. To understand why, imagine you have a skin problem. Which of these 2 sites would you want to appear at position 1 in Google:
a site created by a consultant dermatologist who objectively reviews medical literature and gives a balanced perspective on alternative treatments
a site created by a bot that has randomly lifted content from any website featuring the word acne and then posted links to this site, again automatically, from hundreds of other sites – forums, blogs, Digg etc
The Google algorithm will seek to place site A at the top. Exactly how is a closely guarded secret and the subject of much conjecture. However we can probably have a good guess at some of the rules of the algorithm. For instance on links, Google’s view is that links pointing at your website are an indication of the importance of your content and so it is keen to ensure that the links are valid – ie a human considered your site to be important. Thus:
- links from important sites are more important
- too many links created in a short space of time suggests automation and not natural human behaviour
- links appearing on several sites at the same time suggests automation
The consequences of being identified as a spammer by Google can be severe, including de-listing from the index.
.. and the Digg, Stumbleupon, YouTube, Yahoo Answers etc Perspective
And, of course, it is not only Google which is protecting the authority of their brand. Social bookmarking sites like Digg will be of little value to real users if their content is compromised by spamming. A “Digg” is like a vote and the system, like democracy, works on one person, one vote. If I open a thousand accounts and cast a thousand votes for my site, then the results are distorted. So Digg will monitor things such as:
- IP addresses – are the Diggs for a particular site coming from the same IP address
- patterns of bookmarking – are there a number of accounts which mysteriously have bookmarked the same sites
- frequency of bookmarking – is there a sudden burst of activity on an account
There are, of course, many other indicators of non-human behaviour. You need to be aware of these if you are to be successful in your internet marketing and the best way to do this is to get into the mindset of the people on the ‘other side’. See it from their perspective.
