Some people think that search engine optimisation (SEO) is a bit like magic. It can sometimes seem impossibly difficult to understand but the results can make your jaw drop. But put it in the hands of a novice with little to no idea of how things work and it can be risky. Understanding how search engines work, especially Google, can help to give an insight into best practices to use when developing content for your website and your own SEO campaign.
Search engine history
Search engines have existed on the web since the early 90’s. Back then it was all about Excite, Altavista and Lycos, for those of you who remember! Then came Yahoo, with Google following on in the late 90’s. Here in 2013 it’s all about Google and they currently have an estimated 90-92% share of the search market here in the UK.
Search Statistics
There are somewhere over 30 trillion pages on the web and that number is growing everyday. There are close to 200 billion searches conducted every month and Google itself covers 181 countries and 146 different languages. Almost 30% of all searches have some kind of local intent (i.e. restaurant in Bolton, days out in Chester) and 15% of all searches are totally unique, which effectively means Google has never seen them before. There’s a staggering amount of data out there for us to access, so here’s a snapshot of how Google sorts it all out for us.
Indexing the web
If you want the story from Google about how search works then the best place to go is Google themselves. Their program Googlebot (known as a spider) crawls the web, following links from page to page. These links can be both internal, i.e. from your homepage to your Services or About Us page; or they can be external links, i.e. from your local Chamber of Commerce or a networking group. All the pages that Google can find are indexed in one of 13 data centres they have dotted around the globe. When you type in your request to the Google search bar that triggers their algorithm, which looks at various ranking factors to determine which pages on the web are most relevant to your particular search query. Nobody other than the genius’s at Google know what these ranking factors are, but that doesn’t stop many folks in the SEO industry from speculating. The algorithm is constantly being tweaked and improved with anything around 500 changes made each year. In fact Google has just celebrated its 15th birthday by rolling out a brand new algorithm called Hummingbird. If you want to read more about that just go online and search for “Google Hummingbird” – there’s plenty to read.
Why SEO is important
SEO done the right way helps to make your website both stronger and more visible. It’s the glue that binds all other aspects of your website and online marketing together. It helps to send the right signals to Google about who you are and what your business does. If you’re targeting local customers then it can also help you provide Google with the correct location details for your business. There are technical aspects to SEO that are hugely important if you’re operating in a very competitive market, especially when it comes to ecommerce. But no matter what your business does, beyond the geek stuff SEO broadly comes down to two basic functions: creating quality content – interesting, informative and relevant content that people are actually searching for building relationships – offline through networking and online through social media.
If you focus on these two aspects and ignore all the countless emails you get each day that promise you Page 1 rankings then you’ll be heading in the right direction with a successful and sustainable website.
Más sobre posicionamiento SEO.