The magical mythical world of SEO

Anybody with a website has no doubt heard the term SEO, Search Engine Optimization. In fact it is a billion dollar industry. Everyone seems to think there is some magic bullet that will miraculously rocket their web site to the top of the SERPs , that's short for Search Engine Result Pages by the way.

Well the truth is, there simply isn't such a thing and anyone that tells you otherwise is either trying to deceive you, or is simply not very bright. I often do SEO work for clients, but the bulk of my work is mostly undoing the damage that occurs when overzealous webmasters cross the line and are penalized for attempting to manipulate search engines. They are usually oblivious to the fact that they have shot themselves in the foot, so much of my time is spent explaining what I'm explaining here.

In short, SEO is not about knowing what to do, it's about knowing what not to do. Tactics like creating mirror sites to funnel page rank to your primary site are quickly discovered for what they are, attempts to manipulate search engines. If you are lucky those mirror sites will simply be disregarded. If you are not so lucky, your primary site will be penalized, or possibly completely removed from the search engine's index.

Keyword density is another one of the many apples "search engine experts" hold in front of web site owners to entice them out of their money. Suggesting there is some magic number that will take their site to the top... that number is of course 2.83881% .. Joking, there is no such thing.

Instead, here is what I suggest. Open up note pad. Enter your sites title, your meta keyword and description tags, and finally the copied text from your main index.

Now read it as if you've never read it before. Read it out loud. If it reads like poorly translated Japanese, then you have a problem and should rewrite it. If your dog or cat's head tilts in that "what the hell are you saying" way, you should rewrite it. While doing so keep the following in mind.

1. Your website is for people not search engine bots.
2. Googlebot will not laugh at your jokes or buy your products.
3. If you discuss a topic in depth, your keywords and their variations will occur naturally.

There, thats simple right? Now read your new copy 5 times. Better ? Good!

That is not to say you should not be aware of your keyword density, just don't obsess over it. To make sure you haven't gone overboard (which is prone to get your site penalized) check out this tool http://www.keyworddensity.com

Entering your top competitors URL, your own and your primary keyword phrase, you can see if you have gone overboard. Your goal here is not to one up the competition, just to ensure you are in the ball park, within a few percent of the competition. Again there is no magic number, but there is a number that will get your site penalized, so a bit lower than your competition is probably a good idea.

Once your on site work is done, it is time to get relevant and quality back links to your site.. something I dread because it is time consuming and does not provide immediately noticeable results.

Again the same rules apply. Your website is for people. So provide them with content and resources they can actually benefit from, whether it's a funny video or an article on potty training gerbils, write for people, not search engines and you'll do well.