Learning SEO can sometimes seem confusing and hard to grasp, you can get lost in a mass of 'keywords' and led astray by tales of 'tip and tricks' and easy quick fixes that promise to get your website to the top Google. Really, though, there is only one fact and that is that there is no easy fix or trick that will give you instant SEO success. That having been said, you should not give up all hope there, because SEO can be much more simple than you think, and certainly not a task that should be feared.
When anyone ever asks me the best way to introduce themselves to SEO I always tell them the same thing; have a good read of the Google Starter Guide to SEO. If you are going to try and conquer Google, why not get your answers straight from the horse's mouth? (Google being the horse that is...obviously).
I have always been a fan of the Google SEO Starter Guide. It is a simple document, and more often than not the simple things are by far the most helpful. In a world of evolving technologies and constant information bombardment it was a breathe of fresh air to read a document that just says it like it is.
So, what makes the Google SEO Starter Guide so special? I hear you ponder. Well, it is simple really. All too often am I presented with a website and a plucky SEO interested chap behind it will be explaining how he has spent 5 months (taking breaks only to eat and sleep) re-writing H-tags on their site and yet, Google doesn't seem to have got the message, and even more harrowing, sales continue to be distinctly average. I then explain to them, this is all very well and indeed H-tags are an important piece of the recipe (I can often be found re-writing the blighters myself), but that is the problem; they are a part of a whole, not the entire SEO recipe in themselves.
So, you can spend as long as you like chipping away at H-tags, or title tags, or meta descriptions or whatever you like but if you have a rubbish website (and let's face it, a lot of people do) then no amount of 'tweeking' is going to help.
Pause for deep breath.
So, what is a webmaster to do? Well, it is really quite simple; have a read of the Google SEO Starter Guide, absorb its common sense approach to running a website and give your site some love. You see, unlike many wannabe SEO-ers, Google do not see SEO as the task in hand, they focus on making your website better. If you can make your website better in terms of explaining what it does, being easy to use and a nice place to be, Google will be happy to take care of the rest; I have said it before and I will say it again, Google spend thousands on perfecting the art of finding websites so don't try and second guess them, just try and make their lives easier.
The SEO Starter Guide
The Google SEO Starter Guide is written, as I touch upon above, in terms of the effect each optimisation task will have on your website users and Google (search engines). Google state that "a title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is." Notice how there is no mention of ranking effects or how this will help your site to become more visible in the search engines, instead, Google are giving you a simple clue that they like page titles because they simply tell them and your website users what your page is about. If you tell them what your page is about with a simple title and it does indeed reflect the content of your page Google will be pleased because your users will be pleased and then you will get a tick for the page title box!
The SEO Starter Guide continues in much the same way throughout. It is split into six main sections as follows:
SEO Basics - Explaining, yes you've guessed it, the basic principles of improving your site for search engine crawlerrs.
Improving Site Structure - Often overlooked this one, the importance of improving the structure to your site; don't make the navigation clunky, keep it simple so that visitors can find their way round easily.
Optimising Content - This one is a no brainer; fill your site with decent content, make sure anchor text is meaningful so people know what they are clicking on (instead of 'click here') and generally name and categorise your content properly using real text!
Dealing With Crawlers - I see this section as more of an admin type task, it is concerned with telling Google what to look at and what to ignore and stuff like that!
SEO for Mobile Phones - This is a new section and it is concerned with making your website accessible from a mobile, sure to be big business very soon, some would even say it already is!
Promotions and Analysis - Help with promoting your website, tips on what Google likes to see and some tools you can use to monitor your progress.
I am consistently amazed by the amount of website owners who consider themselves 'SEO-savvy' who have utterly failed to take care of the basic principles outlined in the SEO guide from Google. The Google SEO Starter Guide has been fully updated and is chock full of useful information and as a bonus you even get introduced to Googlebot himself (that is him the picture at the top of this page!).
So before you do anything else go and make friends with Googlebot, he isn't too fussy but he likes things just so. Please him and then you can move onto the 'advanced SEO' that is so desired.
You can download the Google SEO Guide here!
