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Search Engine Optimisation – Understanding The Rules

One of the failings of do-it-yourself search engine optimisation is simply not knowing about the rules. And there are rules. These are not rules that are put in place by the SEO industry. They are rules that are put in place by the search engines themselves. Break those rules and the results can be devastating.

The rules can be a little tricky to comprehend at times, especially when it comes to link building. Google, for example, looks for ‘natural’ links – but what exactly is a natural link? Google has a host of help pages designed to help those who wish to do their own search engine optimisation. Generally speaking, those help pages are fairly straightforward. Bing and Yahoo also offer advice on how to best present your pages.

One thing you will notice is that the emphasis on all search engines is on the user. The basic tenet is to create pages for your users first and for the search engines second. It’s a sound policy and one that every business needs to focus on – after all, it is the visitors to your web site that become customers, not the search engines.

Having a basic understanding of what the search engines allow, and more importantly, what they don’t allow, provides a base from which to work from. Create pages that are focused on users and that avoid areas that will incur search penalties and you are on the right track. It should also be remembered that most search engine optimisation programs take months to show results – if you come across a quick fix then nine times out of ten it will be one that is not looked kindly upon by the search engines.

Google (a little old, or here where it’s a little newer) and Bing (you really don’t need to worry about Yahoo now that it is in the process of showing Bing results) have both got basic guides that will help to get you started. Sometimes, I think even the ‘experts’ need to re-read them to get a bit of a refresher.