Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

results to show and in which order. And each search engine changes its algorithm

from time to time, often without so much as a friendly warning. So, the truth is this:

(unless you work there, in which case, give us a call sometime!).

Imagine if other forms of marketing worked this way! What if you couldn’t rely

on alphabetical order in the Yellow Pages anymore? What if the TV networks chose to

air only the bits of your ad that

they

felt were most important? What if your billboards

were periodically relocated without your consent? We’re so glad you’ve got a good

head on your shoulders because, now that you’re doing SEO, you will have to find a

balance between keeping up with the algorithm and keeping your sanity.

Why do the search engines guard their algorithms so closely? Because, first and

foremost, they value the searcher’s experience. If MSN published a guide called

Instruc-

tions for Ranking #1 on Our Search Engine

, of course you’d use it. And so would

everyone else. Then all of the results on MSN would become so manipulated by site

owners that relevance would disappear—investment sites could rank high for “grape

bubble gum” on purpose—and searchers would drop the engine like a big useless hot

potato. Even without a manual, the little bits of algorithm that people figure out them-

selves often get so abused that the search engines eventually devalue them.

How do you find the balance between seeking the Eternally Unknowable Algo-

rithm and making sure your SEO efforts are effective? Matt Cutts, the popular blogger

and Google employee who sometimes indulges his SEO-obsessed readers with tantaliz-

ing bits of inside information on Google’s algorithm, says, “Most of the right choices

in SEO come from asking, What’s the best thing for the user?” Bringing targeted

users to your site is, of course, the point of SEO, and that’s the reason we made you

clarify your audience and site goals before we started talking about how the search

engines work.

We asked Danny Sullivan, probably the best known and most respected author-

ity on search today, what he considers to be “Eternal” about SEO. His answer: “Good

HTML titles, good body copy, great content, ensuring that your site doesn’t have road-

blocks to crawling—these have worked for nearly a decade.” Notice he didn’t mention

anything about chasing the algorithm.

Pearl of Wisdom:

You will never really know exactly how Google works

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