Loading ...The foundation of SEO has always been keywords and keyword phrases and that has not changed. What has changed is how the search engines algorithms work and the factors that influence the ranking of a website. Years ago, everyone could just cram keywords into their content and that was considered optimisation.
As the search engines evolved, so must optimisation and the way website promotion is done. The search engines have progressed to where they differentiate between relevant and irrelevant web pages. The complex algorithms weed out the bad ones systematically. Latent semantic indexing is now used to determine how relevant a web page is for the keyword that was used on that page. How this works with LSI is that the spiders do not only search out the specific strategically placed keywords. The SEs now look at the web page as a whole instead.
Changing times
It is still important to place keywords in the title, Meta tags, description, heading tags, link text and body content. What has shifted is that the search engines no longer require only an exact match for the key phrase or keyword to see the page as relevant. This means that online businesses can no longer only concentrate on the keywords and key phrases.
The SEs now look at words that are semantically close, similar phrases and related words. The web page is looked at holistically. Why do search engines keep changing their algorithms and make things more complicated for everyone? Firstly, it eliminates the opportunities people use to try manipulation tactics and secondly it is aimed at enhancing the user experience.
Impact on website content
Best practices optimisation and excellent content is the best safeguard against the changing tides. If the foundation is strong it is possible to make changes as the algorithms change. Thus the foundation of keywords still hold strong, but all the importance is no longer placed on only the keyword. The combination of all the words is used throughout the content that is important. Your key phrases must be supported by the correct surrounding text. Understanding the methods and technology that the search engines use is not important at all. What is important for every website is the impact that the search engines have on each online business.
Relevancy is paramount
The search engines are determined to make websites increase quality to make the SERPs accurate and relevant. The benefits of this for all online businesses are that their websites will have more compelling and truly relevant content. This in turn generates more targeted traffic for those websites that can lead to higher conversion rates.
The better the user experience on a website is, the easier they will return, which in turn lead to repeat customer opportunities. There is method to the madness of changing algorithms. This forces website owners to re-evaluate their current Search Engine Optimisation strategies for their content and this leads to higher quality. This comes down to greater visibility in SERPs for those who put in effort and deserve to be there.
Related posts:
- Is keyword stuffing ever good policy?
- The rise and fall of keyword stuffing
- Build your keyword vocabulary
- SEO titles start at the keyword
- Considering keywords in your quest to optimise
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