Search engines are becoming cleverer.

That is to say they are becoming more intuitive, more accurate with their ranking and listing algorythms, and dare I say it, more human. The key to any real success in seo is in approaching the task in the mindset that the search engine is at least as good as a human at reviewing, appraising and listing your site.

Let's think about this logically for a moment. We all know that the search engines like google and yahoo just can't review each site on a physical, human basis. But let's imagine they did. When submitting your next site to them would you...

stuff it with indecipherable keywords phrases?
stuff paragraphs to increase keyword density?
have a title with 30 keywords in it?

No, I don't think you would - a search engine will catch you eventually and will penalise you - but if a human being were reviewing your site you'd be out of those listings and into the internet ether indefinately.

But we know search engines don't check sites in a human way, so why not keep tricking them?

It's simple really. When you're looking for the most well positioned sites, take a look at the content on them, their keywords, their backlinks. In short, take a look at their on-site seo. The sites at the top of the natural search listings on all the leading engines always have several things in common.

Their content - it's usually comprehensive and relevant to visitors

Their service - the site acts as a knowledge disseminating authority on their subject, providing a valuable resource to the visitor base

They are seen as 'Authority' sites by their Internet peers. The developers and owners of these sites don't go round grabbing as many links as is humanly possible from other sites, they provide content that is so captivating, so useful, and so relevant to their audience that their peers WANT to provide a link to them. When the content's that good, you don't need a reciprocal link.

I know we can't all be expected to build authority sites. I know we can't expect to blow the global corporate websites out of the water with our smaller business sites, but by providing a great resource for your users, you are providing a great incentive for the search engines to list you - if you give no value to your visitors the search engines will catch up with you sooner or later, then it's 'click here for obscurity'.

Harry Hardisty is a UK SEO expert providing expertise, consultancy and seo services to government, corporates, small business and individuals across europe and globally. Harry is recognised as a leading seo and has achieved phenomenal success listing sites in competitive industries for the most competitive keywords. He recently completed an experiment to achieve a number 1 listing on google.com for 100 keyword phrases with over 200 million competing sites - in 5 days. Harry runs harryhardisty.co.uk offering seo services worldwide. He also provides on-site face to face consultancy to clients and free seo audit based on your existing site and position. You can contact Harry by email here, or visit the site and sign up for the award-winning seo monthly newsletter.

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