I thought I would write a quick note on Search Engine Optimization.
For any business considering using an SEO service there are a couple of key things they should consider:
Firstly SEO is not an exact science. It is more of a black art, there is no one defined set of rules you can follow, that if you follow them you will get a guaranteed result such as placing top of the search results list for your chosen search engine. You should therefore be aware that any SEO Expert who says they can guarantee this, is perhaps being overly optimistic in their sales pitch.
Now, there is a set of guide lines and generally accepted tasks you must follow to improve your position such as the way you write you copy, the meta tags you use, the landing pages you set up, the inbound links you have from other sites and how important those other sites linking to you are. The differential between a good SEO and a not so good SEO is how they tune these variables and others.
Google et al, do not publish their search algorithms – these are their secret sauce, the same as Coca Cola’s ingredients are not publicly available. Nobody external to these organizations has a true insight to current algorithms. They therefore can only perform the tried and tested techniques to improve position, and stay up to date with the latest information and snippets on how the algorithms might work. As more people do this, the advantage will be diminished for your chosen sector, then the algorithms will need to be tweaked by the search engine to once again differentiate form all the well optimized sites – someone has to be top of the list.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying don’t use SEO – it could be very beneficial but be careful in reviewing who you use, what they say they can achieve and how much you pay.
The first and best test of an SEO experts reputation is by typing SEO consultant or expert into Google and seeing who comes up top. If your intended provider isn’t on the first page, you can probably be sure they aren’t the best at it and someone else may be a better choice…
