SEO and Google Indexing - Why It Requires A Complex Blend of Skills

If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Getting a company's name and products, or services, onto the first page of a genuine Google search isn't a trivial piece of work. In fact, there are four distinct skills that a search 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 develop the other skills. Now, if you are running your own business, do you really have the time to do this? Is this the best use of your time?

Specifically the four skills needed for SEO work are:

• Web Design ? producing a visually attractive page
• HTML coding - developing Google friendly coding that sits behind the web
• Copy writing ? producing the actual readable text on the page
• Marketing ? what are the actual 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 entice the people onto their sites. This is the first big mistake; using designs like these will actually decrease your chances of a high Google rating. Yes, that's right; all that money you have paid for the website 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 get the spiderbots to like your site. Spiderbots are pieces of software used by the search engine companies to trawl the Internet looking at all the websites, and then having reviewed the sites, they use complex algorithms to rank the sites. Some of the complex techniques used by web designers cannot be trawled by spiderbots. They come to your site, look at the HTML 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 are a waste of money. The trouble is that both the web designers and the company that paid the money really do not want to know this. In fact, I have stopped playing the messenger of bad news (too many shootings!); I now work round the problem. So, optimising a website to be Google friendly is often a compromise between a visually attractive site and an easy to find site.

The second skill is that of optimising the actual HTML code to be spiderbot friendly. I put this as different to the web design because you really do need to be "down and dirty" in the code rather than using an editor 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, the search engine companies change the algorithms used to calculate how high your site will appear in the search results.

This is no place for even the most enthusiastic amateur.

Results need to be constantly monitored, pieces of code added or removed, and a check kept on what the competition are doing. Many people who design their own website feel they will get searched because it looks good, and totally miss out this step. Without a strong technical understanding of how spiderbots work, you will always struggle to get your company on the first results page in Google.

Thirdly, I suggested that copy writing is a skill in its own right. This is the writing of the actual 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 3-6 months, you can still be found but not until results page 14 ? really useful! As well as good English, the spiderbots are also reading the HTML code, so the copy writer also needs an appreciation of the interplay between the two. 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 on the Web. The key here is to set the site up to be accessible to the searches that will provide most business to you. I have seen many sites that can be found as you key in the company 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. So the marketing skill requires knowledge of a company's business, what they are really trying to sell and an understanding of what actual searches may provide dividends.

I hope you will see that professional Search Engine Optimisation companies need more than a bit of web design to improve your business. Make sure anyone you choose for SEO work can cover all the bases.

John Fowler trained as a Mathematican and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via SEO Gurus

In The News:

---

The Budget Webmaster?s 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings in Google

The Budget Webmaster's 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings... Read More

Search Engines: Tips and Strategies on Getting Listed and Ranking High for Newbies

You've got a website. You've put countless hours into it,... Read More

Keyword Selection- The Dark Horse of Search Engines Optimization

Below are what I call the "10 Commandments" for Keywords.To... Read More

Web Site Copy is about More Than Keywords

Let's say you are writing a web site to sell... Read More

How You Can Easily Compile A Gigantic Keyword List

It doesn't matter what kind of marketing you are involved... Read More

How to REALLY Profit from SEO

I want to give you a few more things to... Read More

SEO #5: Analyzing the Top Ranked Website on Google

Yesterday you should have read the forth course out of... Read More

Achieving Better Search Engine Optimization

The search engine giants are locked in an all out... Read More

PageRank for Websites: Is There More to the Web?

Google's PageRank has been around for years, and in the... Read More

Search Engine Musical Chairs

News broke this week that Yahoo has purchased the Inktomi... Read More

How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 3

Question 1How do keywords effect your conversion rate in terms... Read More

The Sandbox Effect

What once many people thought they had a penalty, is... Read More

Reciprocal Link Exchange Management Software

When shopping online for Link Management Software that can... Read More

Google Rankings ? Achieving a Top 10 Position in Google ? Part 1

Achieving a top ranking position in Google is every webmasters... Read More

Search Engine Ranking - What Works Now

The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may... Read More

SEO Made Easy!

Search engine optimization remains a minefield of old advice, outdated... Read More

Which Search Engine Optimization Services to choose, Google OR Yahoo?

Search Engine Optimization is emerging as the most powerful form... Read More

Search Engine Optimisation ? Why And How To Do It

In the following article I will give you some basic... Read More

7 Simple Steps to Spy on Your Online Competition and Acheive a High Page Rank

My Grandfather ran a small Grocery Store and when you... Read More

How Important is PageRank, Really?

Webmasters can spend most of their waking hours doing everything... Read More

Whats All This Hype About Links?

What's all the talk about links we hear about? Reciprocal... Read More

Google, Adsense, SEO, and How It All Works

Google uses an algorithm to determine the search engine results... Read More

SEO - Are You Making The Search Engines Mad?

If you've been involved in SEO (search engine optimization) for... Read More

One Way Link Building Secures Long Term Ranking Results

One-way link building is a great way to improve your... Read More

13 Tips For Good Search Engine Placements

When used properly in combination with other basic search engine... Read More

Whats the Big Hurry?

Quite often I get asked what the magic solution is... Read More

An Introduction to Google Sitemaps

... and why I 'm dying to get finally in... Read More

7 Steps to Prepare You for The Local Search Bonanza

At One Time Local Searches were reserved for services like... Read More

How Directories Help Search Engines

At the beginning of the web era, users would go... Read More

Maximize Your Search Engine Traffic - 13 Ways to Pull in More Visitors From the Search Engines

Maximizing traffic from the search engines to your web site... Read More

Adding City Names At The End Of Your Keywords Can Bring You More Profits

In recent times, I have been closely studying keywords that... Read More

Quick Keyword Research that Works!!!

Keywords are terms or words related to particular topic. Keyword... Read More

3 Principles Of Google

When online "Use it. Use it. Use it."Google is our... Read More