With all the hype around the net about SEO, the basics often get skipped. For example, it is very rarely explained how, exactly, when you get down to it, search engine optimisation actually works.

The answer is really very simple, even if the methods of SEO aren’t. Search engine optimisation uses a number of tactics to draw the attention of search engines to your site. The idea behind SEO is to make your site fit as closely as possible with the searches performed with your target market. This is achieved by streamlining the elements within the site in order to make it more easily read by search engines.

Of course, making your site easy for a search engine to find is only part of the journey. SEO is also designed to help make your site appear the most relevant to the searches your target viewers are likely to make. This is what makes SEO such a tricky game to play. While search engines, algorithms and computer behaviour follow lines that are relatively easy to predict, human behaviour is slightly more complicated and a lot more volatile.

This is where keywords come in. A keyword is a term that is commonly used in connection with the subject of a site. When a site is found to have a certain number of keywords that are related to those used in the search, it appears relevant to the search query. Sites are then listed in order of relevance, although this is calculated via a far more complex equation than is easily explainable or guessable.

A site can boost its relevance by becoming the authority within its topic area. Older sites have the edge on this, as the age of a site is taken into account in the search engines’ algorithms. This means that sometimes the key to becoming number one in search engine results pages is playing a good waiting game. In order to stay in the competition, however, work must be done to keep the attention of the search engines. SEO is an ongoing process.

Search engine optimisation is unwittingly led by the search engines themselves. When a person searches on Google, the query is compared with stored information hauled back by the search engine’s spiders. How these spiders choose the information and how it is then sorted is a secret closely kept by the search engine companies. SEO techniques are extrapolated from observations about search engine behaviour. Search engines respond by dropping sites whose behaviour catches the attention of spiders, but do not provide valuable results for searchers.

Optimisation begins at the page level and branches out to include everything about a site that is on the web. From the page’s place within the site and its URL, through its code and content and out to its links, SEO tactics can be implemented to make it more search engine-friendly. Clarity is important here, but a certain amount of finesse and reaction to the changing world of the internet is also required, and this is why it’s always good to get the advice of our experts at SEO Consult when planning SEO.

SEO is a form of communication. It is also a marketing method. It informs target viewers in an honest manner and at the same time tries desperately to win them over. It both works with search engines and tries to trick them. It is technical, but it is an art.

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