July 17th, 2010 by Nick

Many articles are written on the hot topic of search engine optimisation. SEO is a great way of giving a boost to an online firm. However, while many professionals look at sites from the perspective of a user or a search engine, many site owners still perceive their site from their own viewpoint. It is important that people who are new to the discipline remember to look at their site from diverse perspectives before and during a campaign.

At Searchengineoptimization.co.uk we realise that not every SEO tip will work for each site, so we act accordingly. Our generalist advice, which is featured in our articles and blogs, can be tailored to the requirements of a specific site if it is appropriate to do so. The best way of making progress in terms of driving a site up the search engine results pages, securing more traffic and obtaining more conversions is to get the services of a specialist.

It is almost commonplace to suggest that you should look at a site as a user does. This step can help ensure you get the overall design correct. It may also help you maintain good navigation and so on. A user has to be able to go around a site and discover the data they crave with ease. The approach also has the merit of drawing your attention to things like loading time. What is not remarked on so frequently is that thinking like a user is a move towards imagining you are a search engine. This is because Google and the other major search engines compete with one another to provide the best user-focused search services.

Imagining you are a search engine can easily be taken much further. Otherwise, it would still be based on looking at the site through a user’s eyes. The search engines have years of experience of dealing with users and delivering what they want. Google has an enviable track record of satisfying the expectations of users and several other search engines do a decent job. The hard won experience has given them valuable insight into how users behave collectively.

For example, Google is so accustomed to users not entering the search terms they want into the search engine that they have devised an effective and user-friendly ‘did you mean?’ facility. Most of us have met it at one time or another. This draws attention to what has to be done during the production of a keyword list. The composition of a keyword list does not only have to include long tail searches, it must also feature common misspellings and confused orderings of words. Traffic may be missed if you do not cover all the bases.

It should be remembered that keyword research is not a ‘one off’ activity. A keyword list may have to be adjusted periodically in the course of a continuous campaign. It makes sense to imagine how a search engine is responding to search queries. You may not have the luxury of a ‘did you mean?’ facility, but you can still make adjustments that will have positive outcomes.

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