Examining what top-quality SEO really means

Examining what Top-quality SEO Really Means

• Your Takeaway – SEO is about giving search engines what THEY need to make a profit.
  

Really understanding the point of SEO means:

Online content/results is what search engines deliver.  So it had better meet the needs of search engine stock-holders and companies.

In other words, nowadays, the sites that rank highest (and stay in that rank) are the ones that deliver the best value to the users.

This in turn makes search engine visitors more likely to come back multiple times.  Because search engines nowadays are also monetized (think Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher), that gives search engine companies more avenues for profit as well.

Certainly, you can game the search engines so  blackhat sites ("illegal" SEO) rank high in the SERPS (search engine results page) but take our word for it – unless you're a master site builder and can command hundreds of blogs/CMS systems at your fingertips, more sooner than later Google will penalize your site.

It wasn't always this way.

Long ago back when MOPARs were the car of every red blooded American man's choice (late 1990s), search engines ranked pages based upon their page construction.  Included in this evaluation were:

• Title tag construction
• Use of capital letters
• H1, H2 tags
• Alt tags
• Keyword frequency and placement
• Metatags

Consideration to inbound/outbound links was less important in SEO than a football team mastering how to thread a sewing needle to assist the cheerleaders.

Regrettably, the influx of cockroach webmasters who used javascript and other dishonorable techniques to fool search engines caused search engine developers to change the algorithm that ranked the sites. 

This is a process that's been evolving to this day.

If you want to understand what's important to quality seo, the answer is in front of your nose.  Just put yourself in the drivers seat and ask yourself, "What do I look for in search engine results?"

It's simple.  Quality.

A quality site in the SERPs is one that actually answers not only your question, but other people as well. 

It arises from a site that is acknowledged as an authority site – one that a lot of other resource hail as a niche portal.

The search engine algorithm designers know this…so they've now built into their equations powerful rules that give importance to popular authority sites.  That means for you – if you want your site to blaze out in the SERPs, it's no longer enough to focus on page and site design.

You also have to become an acknowledged niche destination on the Internet as well.  The more others refer visitors to your site (in other words, they include one way outbound links to your pages), the more authority you gather.  The more authority you gather, the higher your site will rank. 

The higher your site ranks, the more free traffic you enjoy.

SEO these days is all about quality and reputation – quality of information shared, and the reputation others ascribe to your site. 

You never want to fool yourself that all you need to do is link to sites or pay others to boost your SEO for you.  Such tiny actions are short-term at the best, and damaging at the worst.  Instead, top-quality SEO means taking the long-term approach and ensuring that others view you as authority as well.

Approach your site's SEO that way…and you'll be on the right path for your niche site's targeted visibility.

It's that simple.  And it's that hard.  The choice, of course, is how you view it.