73. e-Branding 8: Search engines

73

E-BRANDING 8: SEARCH ENGINES

Search engine optimisation (SEO) aims to get your website to appear high up on the front page of Google and other search engine sites. Each search engine has an algorithm, a list of rules it uses to decide who gets promoted and who gets dropped. It’s better for your brand to be towards the top of the list, so it’s good to know what will help you get there.

Beware SEO specialists who try to change your brand’s writing style to “optimise” your text. You can still write in an interesting way and use their other skills to boost your search engine rankings.

The idea Search engines’ customers are their users. A search engine must keep its customers happy so they continue to use it, rather than a different one. A search engine’s brand identity is based on its ability to fi nd what you’re looking for. So the job of a search engine algorithm is to fi nd websites they think their users will want hello and put them at the top of the list.

If your website is updated regularly, then search engines make the reasonable assumption that they are more interesting than those which never change. So if you have a blog on your website and you add to it each day or every week, or you post your tweets from Twitter straight onto your website, or have customer comments pages so other people or updating your website for you, this will help you get a leg up the search engine ladder.

If other people put the links to your website around the Internet, on their own websites or social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, this encourages the search engines too. That’s because their electronic assumption is that there must be something worth linking to on your site.

Optimising your text means making sure that the title of your page and the key words you use to describe it match what you’re really writing about. You can still write well and be found by the search engines. Resist the temptation to repeat your page title and keywords over and over in the text. It’s still got to be read by humans, as well as machines.

Search engines can also tell if you’re trying to cheat them. Some less scrupulous SEO consultants have methods which they claim will get you to number one on the front page of Google, but Google is generally smarter than they are and they can get your site blacklisted for trying to deceive their users. The Google dungeon is deep and dark and they don’t listen to your plaintive cries to be set free. They have to take care of their customers by keeping their listings accurate. Follow their guidelines, update your site regularly, and fi ll it with interesting useful material then you’ll be fi ne.

In practice • You’ve got to consider search engine algorithms as customers. They have an opinion of your brand, and judge how interesting it is according to how active you are on the Internet. • Avoid any consultant who claims that they can beat the Google algorithm instantly. • Search engines are just one way to fi nd your website. Social media are equally important, especially YouTube. It’s more important to keep your brand values intact then it is to chase search engine rankings.