Search Engine Juice

After search engine optimizing web sites for countless numbers of clients over the past 7 years, we’ve noticed that much has changed…and much has stayed the same.

What’s Changed?

• New niche search engines pop-up regularly.
• Microsoft now favors changing it’s search engine name at least two or three times a year.
• Google et al. are incorporating many different forms of media in “Universal” search results giving us much more to peruse than just a simple web page.
• Social Media is playing a much larger role in the relevancy of a web page than ever before.
• Yahoo is giving up the search war to Google and Microsoft in favor of a strong focus on digital advertising.
• “Paris Hilton” is no longer the number 1 requested keyword search each month (thank you!).

What’s Stayed the Same?

• Microsoft still hasn’t figured out that it cannot build a search engine that people will use with regularity. Not just because their technology is inferior to Google’s, it’s actually not that bad, but because a majority of online searchers don’t like or trust Microsoft’s brand image. Searching is a very personal experience.  Every day we pour the questions that are on our mind into a little tiny box on a screen and divulge our inner curiosities. This information, in the wrong hands, can be damaging and no matter what they call their search engine (MSN, Live, Bing), people still will not trust them.
• Tried and true search engine optimization tactics are still the safest and most effective way to increase search engine rankings over time.  Let’s extrapolate on this topic.

Tried and True

The SEO tactics that are working well in today’s awkwardly changing search environment are the same techniques that worked 5 years ago.  Fundamentals like proper TITLE tags, H1 tags, lots of inbound links, well-formed HTML and good page content still heavily out-weigh the tricks and traps that you can find when you search for seedy topics like “SEO tricks” or “SEO secrets” on Google.  Sure there are little nuances and small tweaks that need to be made regularly to keep companies like us on our toes, but the fundamentals still hold true and can get an un-optimized site huge gains in very little time.  So why are there so many bad SEO companies out there if these techniques haven’t changed all that much?  Let me know what you think.