I know the title sounds a little weird, but it rhymes, so it must be true.

This was an article that I wrote for Andy Beal’s contest (PDF) a couple of years ago. Looking back, I would like to re-write it, as there are just a few points I would say differently now. I’m not too sure if I was trying to appeal to the audience, but some of the statements I made don’t really make sense.

I was looking through some old posts to rehash and repost to appeal to the budding SEO or small business owner looking for information. This was an idea that I had, and still have, about the SEO process. Obviously, we are tasked to gain rankings, but there is a lot more to it; and getting too wrapped up in «rankings» can in fact end in us neglecting the bigger picture (which is creating and having better overall websites). So, I give you the updated version of an old article.

What does ‘SEO’ mean? Search Engine Optimization, duh. No, no. What does it meeeaaan? It means ‘to optimize a site for search engines.’ Sigh. I guess that’s pretty close, but going with that thought alone can actually land you in a bit of trouble.

We often talk on SEO and what the searchers are looking for, how they are acting, how to optimize a site, etc. But we often neglect a very important idea. Simply optimizing a site for the search engines isn’t really the best idea. If we do that and that alone, then we won’t likely find success in our business endeavor. We would then neglect our clients’ needs and/or any help that we might provide to the online community.

Optimizing a site for the sole benefit of the search engines could result in spam or content that sounds too repetitive because we are trying to make sure our keywords are on the homepage a certain number of times to achieve ‘density.’ We may end up getting tons of links to and from areas that are less than acceptable because we keep thinking that ‘Link Popularity’ means ‘get as many as we can.’ We may end up in jail because every time we walk into Albertsons we keep hearing ‘It’s your store.’ So, what should we be doing?

Yes, SEO means ‘to optimize a site for search engines,’ but we should be thinking of it as ‘optimizing a site, so as to show search engines what the site is about and how it can help the
online community/consumer.’ If you have relevant copy on your site, you will likely be using your desired search terms sufficiently anyway. If you have relevant and helpful text on your site, you will get quality inbound links from other sites simply on merit. If you just remember that it’s just a jingle, your hands won’t become idle and attempt to steal your favorite candy bar.

In closing, we shouldn’t be making and optimizing sites for the search engines alone. Consider the site and its visitors. Given proper content and quality, the optimization-for-ranking efforts will get the visitors. Yes, optimize the site for the crawlers. Make sure you aren’t doing anything too spammy. Correct errors. Clean up the code. Make proper use of header tags and meta tags. But do this for your visitors, not just the search engines. The search engines will love you for it.

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