Let’s Talk About SEO

Let’s talk about Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short. There are so many facets of marketing that the so called experts think to be the most important in any campaign, but time to hit them with some truth. No marketing effort is going to have any impact whatsoever if our customers can’t search your brand and its products!

Now, we all know how to Google something that we are interested in. Whether it is a topic that we want to know more about, a product we want to buy or to figure out what song is stuck in our heads based off the three lines that we actually remember, we have made it a habit to hit that search button, and expect an immediate result. That means that we only go to page 2 of Google when we are desperate, and even then, we use it as a last resort. But page 1 of Google is where the interesting stuff is. It is where the algorithms think whatever we are looking for actually is. But how does it do this?

There are three basic components of a search engine. We have our crawlers, which comb through content gathering keywords and important pieces of information, our index, which stores the information that our crawlers discover, and finally, our SERP, or Search Engine Results Page, where all of our information relevant to our search appears for our perusal. Now, I call them basic, and individually, they are, but combining the three of them can be a real challenge.

Navigating through the algorithms of Google and other search engines can be quite difficult, but by keeping these three basics in mind, we can move our website to the top of the search algorithms. It can be quite simple. All we need to do is maintain original content on our website. Crawlers will seek out the information on our website, and if it finds information that has already been indexed, it will simply ignore it, and our website will be left in the dark. So changing it up will be a big step in the right direction. We must take a similar approach towards the keywords on our website. By using the same buzz words, we are wasting precious real estate on our website. Once again, crawlers will see repetition, and ignore it, preventing its admission into the index, and blocking its entrance to the SERP.

Let’s also have a look at SEO done wrong. It is so easy to fall into the trap of over-complicating SEO that we even get the basics wrong. Often, we fall into the trap of seeing dollar signs, and lose track of the bigger picture. One way to fall down the search engine rankings is to load up your page with paid advertisements. Paid links have a similar effect. This is for very similar reasons to posting unoriginal content. Why should crawlers comb through content that it has already seen?

Search Engine Optimisation is a critical part of any marketing strategy. The best way to navigate such a difficult component is to think of the bigger picture. Stop thinking like a marketer, and put yourself in the shoes of who we are talking to. Would you want to comb through information that you have already read? No, so why should a crawler read through your copied content. Would you like to complete your project, only to realise that somebody else had already completed the exact same body of work? No, so why would you fall under Google’s indexing?

Think about it. Have a real look at it. Embrace your inner creativity, and get posting. SEO can be a world of good if done correctly. It just takes a bit of woah.

Got any questions? Feel free to drop a comment below, or slide into those DMs on my socials

Jason Cuschieri