What SEO is really.

I see so many people asking what SEO stands for, and even more people asking how to master it, what it involves, what you need to do to get rankings.

How many times have you seen a success post here, and somebody has asked "Wow, excellent stuff, how did you do it?" Usually they are referring to a page 1 ranking or similar.

I know the feeling, that was one of my biggest questions when I first joined too. "How do you get the rankings?"

In truth, the answer is to forget about the rankings. "There is no spoon."

SEO = Search Engine Optimization Simple. Easy. Obsolete?

I added the question mark there because SEO is not entirely obsolete, but it is getting there. It might soon go the way of the Dodo, and the "hit counter". Remember those things?

"This site has been visited 1,005,000 times. The webmaster has broken his refresh button."

People might still argue about the finer points of SEO, but for the most part I've never needed them. Many others haven't either.

I've had sites rank quickly, I've had sites rank slowly. I've had sites pulling in 15,000 visitors a month on a siterubix domain. I've had sites slowly build up over time. The point is not to brag though (I am quite proud of the 15k a month one however), but to show what I've learned.

For all of these situations, here is what SEO was for me.

1.) Research keywords.

2.) Put those keywords into the titles and first paragraph of the post. ONE PER POST

3.) Put the keyword as the 'description' on the main image on the site.

4.) Possibly put the keyword into an H2 heading if appropriate.

5.) There is no five, that's it.

Seriously.

That is such a minimal thing. I know some people might say "Well hold on, there are meta tags and meta descriptions to be filled in."

My reply to that is "I don't know about them sorry, never used them. Can't be bothered to spend the time filling them in either, never needed them."

If Google hasn't figured out what my site is about, and how to rank it by the time it reaches the meta tags, then I need to go back and start that post again. Is it really going to give me a better ranking because of some random tag? Come on! It wants good content.

"So why is that box still there?" Well, it's only there on certain SEO plugins. Just because it was used before, doesn't mean it should be used now. I've seen at least 100 Aeroplanes with ashtrays still, but I've never seen anyone smoking on a plane.

Other people might say "But what about keyword density?" (OK..not many people ask that).

"What about backlinks?"

One of the biggest loopholes that Google used to have, and they closed it firmly. Backlinks are a waste of time. Get them naturally by producing and sharing good content.

"What about such and such?"

No idea, never needed it.

EDIT: The All In One SEO Plugin

This is pretty much outdated and I don't even use it on several of my sites. If you are going to fill it in. ONLY fill in the title to match your title. The other boxes are just ashtrays that are no longer needed.

Also, one post per keyword.

Keywords.

Keywords are not a section or list used by Google to rank your site. They do not look for a list of keywords somewhere and say "ah so this is what we should rank for". No. They read your content and determine its quality based on a whole number of factors. Then when someone searches for something that Google knows your page is about, it will put your page somewhere on the list, based on the quality they have determined.

Thinking in terms of Keyword lists is the wrong angle completely.

So What Is All The Fuss About?

The Internet moves quickly and doesn't have a curator. Information lingers on and people cling to old ideas hoping or believing that they work.

Have you noticed how there is no thorough SEO guide on WA? Wonder why?

You DON'T NEED to know SEO to succeed with your website, so why waste your time learning the finer points?

Every time you create a post or page on your site, you are telling Google "This is who I am, this is what my site is, this is what I talk about and what I know about".

The more you write, the more you EARN your rankings. The more people comment and engage on your site, the more your EARN your rankings. The same for sharing.

Tweaking descriptions, tags, meta, and all this other stuff is old and useless. If you followed these methods in the past and got good rankings, you got them IN SPITE OF not BECAUSE OF tweaking them.

You can do it if you want, but I'd rather not. Instead, focus on content and engagement.