The way to successful SEO (part 1.)

Posted by Tomas O.
700 Pageviews
Maybe you've read a lot about Search Engine Optimization already. The trade is constantly changing as everything else and my intension is to write about the future of SEO in a series of blogs here.

Lets start from the beginning. The idea of SEO is to construct a website in a way that makes it appear amongst the top search results, on the biggest search engines online, when searching for keywords related to the content of the website. If the optimization is properly done, it will lead to more interested visitors visiting the website.

Search engines use simple software to index websites, and the software analyses the content of a website to decide what the site is about. Should a keyword be integrated so that it appears in a natural way in the text, it will cause the search engines to see the site as relevant for the keyword, thus pushing it higher amongst the search results.

What is required for a successful SEO?

The right keywords

It's very important to select the correct keywords for the SEO. When it comes to searching the web, it's common for people to search with a single word, and some of those single words can be incredibly popular, but rarely lead to contacts or a deal of some sort, whether it's selling or buying. There are also words specific to a certain trade, that are so special that nobody searches for them. The optimal keyword is supposed to be one that many people search the web for, and that leads to contact, or sale.

Search engines demand well written, relevant and unique text in a correct scope. The keywords should fit in into the text in a natural way. Then, the website's source code is adapted so that the search engines can understand what the website is all about, and thus discover what search term should result in a link to the website.

Link building

Building inbound is essential because a link to a website can be seen as a vote on that website. The more 'votes' a website gets, the better it will be ranked amongst the search results. Search engines determines the relevance by links. Links from unrelated websites doesn't help as much as links from websites within the same subject. A link from a website which has a lot of links linking to other pages within the same site, is valued higher than a link from a less popular website.

Within SEO it is essential to continually build inbound links. It doesn't help if you've got more links than your competitor today, if your competitors continue to build with links and as a result pass you next week. It's very important to understand that to build with links is not just something you do once, but is an ongoing process.

To pay for links can cause trouble. Search engines don't like bought links, since they see them as sort of 'fake' votes on the website. In Google's official policy it's stated that they see bought links as an attempt to beat the system. That said, the importance of natural links can not be repeated enough.

Thanks for reading!

Tomas Ohlum
ToJo Marketing Consulting
Natural SEO

I'll be back soon with part 2.