If there was an SEO handbook, and there probably is, it would list a number of elements within your site to optimise for success. It would seem relatively straightforward, with easy to follow steps. The end result of following these steps, though, would be an even lower ranking than your site had before.

You may have heard many SEO experts talk about search engine optimisation as an art. This is because it is. The placement of keywords, although predictable in some ways, will be different for every site. Just as a machine can paint a picture but never create a masterpiece, the scientific approach to SEO can get all of the elements right but nevertheless miss out on ranking.

The approach to a site’s optimisation has concentrated on certain traditional elements. From the early days of SEO, keywords have been placed in the domain name, file names, on-page and off-page titles, tags including meta descriptions and headers, and navigation. SEO formulists have placed keywords as the first words of a page, highlighted them in bold, italics or colours, positioned them near the top of the page and used them for multiple hyperlinks.

These approaches all work, but they don’t work all together. The trouble with the scientific approach to SEO is that it tries to work to formulas. It is a mistake to think that just because search engine spiders are mathematical machines they are predictable. Search engine spiders are only technically predictable, but only in the way that human behaviour is. Predicting behaviour has spawned an entire industry of professionals who still haven’t entirely figured it out.

What the SEO world has worked out so far is that although many factors are important, not all of them are important at once. It is important to include your keywords in title tags, but it’s also important to avoid including all of your variations. It’s important to feature your key phrases throughout your site’s navigation, but mentioning keywords in every one of your links can get you into trouble. You can solidify your authority on your subject by featuring the industry’s keywords on every page, but you can also tip yourself off the index by keyword stuffing. Links make you look popular, but too many or bad links make you look suspicious. The list goes on and on and there is no way to quantify what you should and shouldn’t do.

Search engine optimisation isn’t easy to distil into a ‘how-to’ article, although many have tried. This is why so many sites seek expert advice when optimising. Unless you have an experienced person on board, it’s very easy to put a foot wrong with search engine optimisation. If you are considering professional SEO help, talk to us at SEO Consult.

The most important thing to keep in mind is the light touch. The search engines all advise that you shouldn’t do anything to your site for optimisation that you wouldn’t do if search engines didn’t exist. This advice is not strictly practical, as you wouldn’t be optimising if search engines didn’t exist. However, keeping your site’s users strongly in mind can help to keep you on the right track.

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