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Why Google Indexing Requires A Complex Blend Of Skills |
by:
John Fowler |
If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Gettingcompany’s name and products, or services, ontofirst page ofgenuine Google search isn’ttrivial piece of work. In fact, there are four distinct skills thatsearch engine optimiser needs to possess. Most people possess one or maybe two of these skills, very rarely do people posses all four. In truth, to get to all four, people who are good at two of these need to actively developother skills. Now, if you are running your own business, do you really havetime to do this? Is thisbest use of your time?
Specificallyfour skills needed for SEO work are:
Web Design – producingvisually attractive page
HTML coding - developing Search Engine friendly coding that sits behindweb design
Copy writing – producingactual readable text onpage
Marketing – what areactual searches that are being used, what key words actually get more business for your company?
Many website designers produce more and more eye-catching designs with animations and clever rollover buttons hoping to enticepeople onto their sites. This isfirst big mistake; using designs like these will actually decrease your chances ofhigh Google rating. Yes, that’s right; all that money you have paid forwebsite design could be wasted because no-one will ever find your site.
The reason for this is that before you get people to your site you need to getspiderbots to like your site. Spiderbots are pieces of software used bysearch engine companies to trawlInternet looking at allwebsites, and then having reviewedsites, they use complex algorithms to ranksites. Some ofcomplex techniques used by web designers cannot be trawled by spiderbots. They come to your site, look atHTML code and exit stage right, without even bothering to rank your site. So, you will not be found on any meaningful search.
I am amazed how many times I look at websites and I immediately know they arewaste of money. The trouble is that bothweb designers andcompany that paidmoney really do not want to know this. In fact, I have stopped playingmessenger of bad news (too many shootings!); I now work roundproblem. So, optimisingwebsite to be Google friendly is oftencompromise betweenvisually attractive site andeasy to find site.
The second skill is that of optimisingactual HTML code to be spiderbot friendly. I put this as different toweb design because you really do need to be “down and dirty” incode rather than usingeditor like FrontPage, which is OK for website design. This skill takes lots of time and experience to develop, and just when you think you have cracked it,search engine companies changealgorithms used to calculate how high your site will appear insearch results.
This is no place for evenmost enthusiastic amateur. Results need to be constantly monitored, pieces of code added or removed, andcheck kept on whatcompetition are doing. Many people who design their own website feel they will get searched because it looks good, and totally miss out this step. Withoutstrong technical understanding of how spiderbots work, you will always struggle to get your company onfirst results page in Google.
Thirdly, I suggested that copy writing isskill in its own right. This iswriting ofactual text that people coming to your site will read. The Googlebot and other spiderbots like Inktomi, love text – but only when written well in proper English. Some people try to stuff their site with keywords, while others put white writing on white space (so spiderbots can see it but humans cannot).
Spiderbots are very sophisticated and not only will not fall for these tricks, they may actively penalise your site – in Google terms, this is sandboxing. Google takes new sites and “naughty” sites and effectively sin-bins them for three-six months, you can still be found but not until results page onefour – really useful! As well as good English,spiderbots are also readingHTML code, socopy writer also needsappreciation ofinterplay betweentwo. My recommendation for anyone copy writing their own site is to write normal, well-constructed English sentences that can be read by machine and human alike.
The final skill is marketing, after all this is what we are doing – marketing you site and hence company and products/services onWeb. The key here is to setsite up to be accessible tosearches that will provide most business to you. I have seen many sites that can be found as you key incompany name. Others that can be found by keying in “Accountant Manchester North-West England”, which is great, except no-one ever actually does that search. Somarketing skill requires knowledge ofcompany’s business, what they are really trying to sell andunderstanding of what actual searches may provide dividends.
I hope you will see that professional Search Engine Optimisation companies need more thanbit of web design to improve your business. Make sure anyone you choose for SEO work can cover allbases.
Aboutauthor:
John Fowler trained asMathematican and has worked inIT industry for over threezero years, much oftime in sales related functions. He now spends his time between beingpartner in SEO Gurus and assales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via http://www.seogurus.co.uk
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