Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be at the top of your Web publishing priority list. If Web surfers can’t find your site, they can’t read it, use it or share it with others.

One might think SEO is an arcane science that only a few experts have mastered. There is quite a bit to it, and there are times you might want to employ an SEO firm or expert to help you optimize your site. Often this is a costly solution that’s not feasible for individuals or small businesses.

via Getting To Done: SEO Made Easy.

The key thing to understand is that the rules of SEO aren’t magic or arbitrary. They’re based on the goals of a search engine, which is to find relevant results. Relevance implies genuineness, and genuineness implies trust. So, shockingly, you should try to make your site’s content trustworthy, genuine and relevant. All of the rules have come about due to their utility in detecting those three positive metrics. Good SEO is a by-product of not being a dick on the internet.

Consider a few examples of tried-and-tested “SEO tactics”, and why they actually came about.

via SEO for Non-dicks – Matt Legend Gemmell.

hey say that ignorance is bliss and knowledge is power but somewhere between these clichés there’s a spot reserved for individuals who possess a little too much knowledge to be blissful but still only enough knowledge to be dangerous.

SEO, as an industry, is known unfortunately for the mass of rumours, myths, mistruths and unscrupulous gurus. This in part stems from the search engines’ unwillingness to discuss their algorithms (this lack of disclosure is completely understandable). This breeds a culture of myths where newbies and veterans alike get caught out by nothing more than hearsay that gains traction.

The aim of this post is to try and dispel some of the more widely held SEO myths

via The 21 Greatest SEO Myths of the Modern World.

http://mattgemmell.com/2011/09/20/seo-for-non-dicks/

• Use descriptive URLs, ideally containing the page’s title. Those URLs are easier to remember, easier to search for locally in your browser’s history, and provide a preview of the page’s topic. They’re desirable for the same reason that a well-crafted email subject increases the chance of your message being read.
• Make sure the page title matches the first heading. Why wouldn’t you do this? I mean… what else would it be? It’s the title. It’s what the page is about. It’s about trusting that you have any concept whatsoever of what a “title” even is.
• Incoming links are good. If people are linking to your stuff, it’s because they think it’s relevant or interesting. It’s the ultimate natural, organic process on the web. Real people, reallythinking your stuff is worth showing to others. The message isn’t “create incoming links yourself”, you cretin, it’s “write something fucking interesting”.
• Use titles that are relevant to the content. The reason this happens is because you actually went to high school, and don’t have either a crippling brain-injury or a Monty Python-esque penchant for the surreal. The title should describe what you’re writing about, in a way that’s either immediately meaningful or will rapidly become so upon starting to read the piece.
• Use descriptive anchor-text for links. When you read an article online and the author references another page, you hate it when the link is simply “this” or similar. The reason that’s dickish is because you’re forced to choose right now whether to read it. You can leave it until later, but you do so entirely without the context it might have provided. If, instead, the anchor-text summarises the article, you can at least make an educated decision regarding if and when you want to follow the link. Is that difficult to understand, or unexpected? No.
• Keep writing. Relevance is a democratic process, and it also naturally declines if not actively maintained. That’s what relevance means. If you’re not willing to keep updating your site because you actually have something new to say, you don’t deserve to be thought of as relevant. Just accept it, and move on. Do something else. Be relevant elsewhere. You don’t strive forrelevance; you just are or aren’t, to whatever current degree the rest of the internet feels appropriate. Some topics retain relevance more than others, but ultimately it quite rightly declines.

As you’re typing a search term into the Google search bar, you’re met with a bunch of suggestions for what other people searched for – people who started their query the same way as you’ve done. Here’s an example of how Auto Suggest looks for a search about kayaking, and then starting to type a word beginning with W:

via How to Launch a New Blog With (Already) High Search Traffic « Skelliewag.org.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffrenchweb.fr%2Fla-premiere-reponse-une-recherche-sur-google-capte-36-4-des-clics%2F

This is a very interesting opinion article discussing the question of SEO and Social Media. Kind of a very interesting topic for us 🙂 Have look, it’s a refreshing opinion 🙂

My thesis is simple: for the majority of bloggers, the time and effort invested on social media is better spent than time spent on SEO.

via Why Social Media Is a Better Investment than SEO.

SEO, SEO, SEO … the mantra of these day on the web deserved a nice infographic. After the cheatsheet we recently posted, here is a nice and cool giant infographic about the story of Search engine. Interesting background info (as always 🙂 http://www.accessoweb.com/photo/2434320-3413581.jpg?v=1287941264

via 2434320-3413581.jpg Image JPEG, 633×4544 pixels.