This post is not for the SEO specialist or professional. It is for the website owner, who has not yet implemented SEO or has implemented this unsuccessfully and is therefore a little confused.<\/p>\n
SEO or search engine optimization is the one digital marketing service almost everyone has heard of. The need to rank one\u2019s own website on page 1 of Google\u2019s search results and that too rank among the topmost results on page 1 \u2013 is a deep-rooted need. SEO is the service that is believed to meet this need.<\/p>\n
Website owners have two different expectations from SEO and the high ranking it is believed to get. One set hopes that a high ranking in search results will bring in more business while for others it\u2019s just a prestige issue of sorts: they simply do not like to see their competitor sites rank above their own website.<\/p>\n
In our experience, very few website owners really understand what makes a high ranking possible or not possible. Website owners typically believe that there is a set of techniques out there, that when implemented by experts, almost always ensures a good search engine ranking.<\/p>\n
This however is not wholly true.<\/p>\n
Firstly, Google has itself never said that adopting these techniques (actually practices) will definitely lead to a better ranking in the search results. Google itself doesn\u2019t want any site to be able to \u201cgame\u201d the search results, by working according to a simple formula given by it. Rather, Google wants sites to rank based on merit, which means sites based on their perceived usefulness by their users.<\/p>\n
According to Google, implementing SEO techniques can at best aid in a better ranking but can by no means guarantee it. Here is what their official SEO starter guide<\/a> says:<\/p>\n \u201cYou should build a website to benefit your users, and any optimization should be geared toward making the user experience better. One of those users is a search engine, which helps other users discover your content. Search Engine Optimization is about helping search engines understand and present content\u201d.<\/p>\n Website owners forget that the website\u2019s merit matters more than the SEO techniques. In the first place, a website needs to be built that is useful to and worthy of being appreciated by it\u2019s users.<\/p>\n The second challenge in getting a high ranking in Google is that the practice of SEO appeals particularly to the techies. As the majority of the SEO techniques require tinkering to be done with a website\u2019s code, doing this is fairly easy to learn as well for someone who\u2019s into code. The net result is that the majority of SEO practitioners are techies rather than marketing or content people. A strategic, content-led approach gets overlooked in favour of a tech approach, though both are needed for success in ranking in search.<\/p>\n