How The Art Of SEO Has Evolved
March 30, 2010 | Optimization by Paul Baumgarthuber |
Search engine optimization has long been held as a black art or type of witch craft to most of the world. Through search engine alchemy an optimizer would cast a spell to the Google god and a clients website would magically appear in the top position in the search engines. In the early days of search engine optimization these feats could be achieved through white hat methods such as providing valuable link worthy content or more often than not through black hat tactics such as keyword stuffing, web rings, invisible text and other underhanded methods. As the years have passed search engines have been waging a war on SEO’s trying to “game” the engines, building in all kinds of detection mechanism, value metrics, and penalties. Now we find ourselves in the year 2010 with the search engine king, Google, trying to make search engine optimization a thing of the past.
Google is the one search engine that every SEO tries to optimize for. According to HitWise.com Google has 71.01% of the search engine market. Such a disproportionate market share gives Google the ability to make or break businesses both large and small. With so much emphasis on Google rankings SEO’s now more than ever need to understand why the Big G does what it does and how to work with them.
After reflecting on all my experiences and research I have found that Google’s primary goal is a very simple and altruistic one. They want to provide their search engine users the best experience possible by providing the most accurate, relevant and quality results for their search query. Now the way Google goes about measures these metrics is not so simple. Although the metrics are complex there actions that can be done to make sure a site is viewed favorable by Google. This can be done by aligning your goals as an SEO with Googles goals as a search engine.
How has the role of an SEO changed? In the current search engine environment search engine optimizers have to keep in mind the target audience and provide real value to them. They have to be fluent in web usability, prioritization and design. They have to have a solid understanding of development and server technologies. The role has evolved from someone who can “game” the system with some strategic keyword placements to a best practices consultant. The role of an SEO is to relay information to a site owner as to how best satisfy their visitors wants and needs. Some basic on-page principles to stick to that are both beneficial for the user and advantageous for the site are:
- Provide content that is unique, relevant and valuable to a user.
- Create clean site architecture, coding and URL structures.
- Make sure that every change that is made improves the usability and experience for an user.
Google is looking for websites who put their users first. As an SEO this altruistic mentality needs to be accepted and embraced. As long as SEO’s put the user first and try to provide them with the best website interaction experience possible rankings will follow.
