There are no short cuts. There are no ‘easy ways’ to make a living online. You cannot make it to the top of the organic search engine results for just $50 per month. There is no secret sauce.

In every industry there are cowboys. Search is no different.

Sadly, many businesses are scammed because they get drawn in. They leave their common sense at the door.

So what is the truth about SEO?

1. You cannot buy an organic ranking on a search engine.

Even if you could, (which you can’t) you probably couldn’t afford it anyway. However, you can pay to advertise on search engines – this is called PPC or Paid Search. That’s what many of the $50 per month guys are actually offering. Alternatively, they may be offering you the opportunity to rank 1st organically for your brand name. You’ll probably find you already rank 1st for that anyway.

2. There’s no such thing as a Google / Yahoo / MSN Approved SEO

None of the major search engines offer training or qualifications in SEO. Anyone who claims to be Google / Yahoo / MSN approved or qualified is misleading you.

Somewhat confusingly, the major search engines do offer training in PPC or Paid Search, and, if you want to undertake PPC or Paid Search then by all means pick a qualified company or individual to run your campaign for you. Just be aware, that those qualifications they’re parading around have no bearing whatsoever on their SEO ability.

3. There are no guarantees

This is perhaps the most important point. Be extremely wary of anyone offering you guaranteed first page or first position rankings. Why?

Because there’s not an SEO on the planet who can control the search engine’s algorithms. And frankly, if you can’t control the algorithm, you can’t guarantee a ranking.

Search engines are understandably precious about the algorithms which they use to rank web pages. They have to be. They don’t share them. They make constant tweaks and refinements to try to return the most relevant results for users search queries. 

Many who offer guarantees are again actually just offering you the first place in the PPC or Paid Search listings - not the same thing at all.

 4. It makes no odds who you know at Google

Seriously. The notion that various Google employees sit around manipulating search results for their mates is nothing but a nonsense.

No one has a ’special relationship’ with anyone at Google. Well, actually – I’m sure they do – the guys and gals at Google have wives / girlfriends / husbands / boyfriends and so on, but that a different kind of  ’special relationship’, right?

It can be difficult to know who to trust and who to believe. Our advice? Read around the subject. Take the time to educate yourself and keep your wits about you. Oh, and if it sounds too good to be true -  it probably is.

Image credit Peter Blanchard

When looking to understand how search engines work, it is useful firstly to consider what the purpose of a search engine is:

‘A search engine’s objective is to provide the user with links to the most appropriate pages on the internet which pertain to the query which they have typed in.’

Let’s imagine a user types in the following query: ‘how do search engines work’.

For now let’s take the internet out of the equation – imagine there’s no internet it’s easy if you try (sorry couldn’t resist). So, how might you go about researching something like this?

 Firstly you might ask someone you know, respect and trust if they know of any good sources, for example:

1. someone who teaches computer science
2. someone who works for a search engine
3. a librarian

Now having asked around hopefully you’ve been given a shortlist of sources – how would you move forward?Remember – you’re not just looking for any old answer – you are looking for the most appropriate answer…

You might begin to narrow down your search by sorting through your sources -

Start by looking for content with a title either the same or very similar to the query; then begin to read through some of the content to see whether or not they actually provide an answer to your query.

Probably by reading some extracts from your sources you can begin to narrow down your selections further and come up with a list of content which answers the query.

So here comes the hard part – which is the most appropriate resource?

Now obviously, you are not an expert; so it’s very tricky to decide which is the most appropriate – but what sort of things might you look for?

1. How about how new / recent the source is?
2. Newest doesn’t necessarily mean best, but theories change over time – recency could be a good measure.
3. How about citations? Does the source refer to other sources?
4. How well respected is the author? Are they considered an expert in their field?

Ultimately, Search Engines think like you…

Now, the process which you’ve been through really isn’t all that dissimilar to how a search engine works. A search engine is not an expert, and therefore no more or less ‘qualified’ to answer a query than you or I.

Instead a search engine works to try to provide the most appropriate answer by applying a complex algorithm which emulates a human’s decision process.

 Search engine’s look at some of the following factors -

1.  How well respected is the web page?

Search engines use links to decide how well respected a given web page is – they see links like votes – i.e. if people link to something it means they like the content. (NB obviously not all links are born equal – a link from a strong page on a university site carries more weight than your best friend linking to you from their blog).

2. Recency

When the page was created / last updated

3. How relevant does the content seem to be?

In order to understand what the page is about, the search engine will analyse the words on the page – e.g. how frequently they appear across the page, in headings, in titles etc

Now exactly how each search engine weights these factors and indeed precisely how they measure them is kept secret by the search engines, as understandably they need to protect their algorithms in order to protect the integrity of their results.

Nevertheless – hopefully this will haven given you some insight into how search engines work.

Agree, disagree; or if you’ve any questions comment below, or contact us.

Image credit Joel Bedford