A lot of the mystery around search engine optimisation comes from the attitude that it is a science. There is a general feeling around SEO that if you could just get the equations right, everything would fall into place.

The difficulty is, although sometimes equations do work, they won’t work for long. Search engines actively strive to confuse search engine optimisers. Any time the rules seem to become clear, that is the time they are guaranteed to change. It’s what makes SEO such a challenging, vital industry and one of the many reasons to keep an expert on board.

Often, businesses become aware of the change in rules just after they occur, leaving the business scrambling to keep up. The SEO community is full of useful advice and tips. A lot of people forget that Google can read SEO blogs too, and learn in a different way from the posted techniques. Many sites get caught out because they follow the latest craze, then find that it’s been banned.

Take early techniques, for example. In the early days of SEO it was thought that keywords were the main key to success, and content was saturated with them. These days, this kind of clumsy attempt to draw search engine attention is considered keyword stuffing and is likely to result in a penalty.

Search engines, although they operate along coded lines, are built to think like their human users. Sites that present themselves in too contrived a manner are likely to draw the wrong kind of attention. Although SEO is designed to appeal to robots, anything that appeals to robots too well is likely to get you kicked down a few ranking points. This is because a search engine’s aim is to act like an automatic human. Humans don’t work to predictable formulas. Although you might have some indications of what might or might not work when dealing with a human being, it’s more a matter of intuition. The same is the case for SEO.

Every site is unique and needs individual attention when it comes to search engine optimisation. There are plenty of SEO companies out there offering secret formulas and keyword density equations . Even if they are not outright charlatans, these companies are misguided at best. There is a lot of science to SEO, but it’s science that is guided by intuition.

A good SEO expert gains experience over time which allows them to see the subtle shifts in the SEO ether before a definite change occurs. This makes SEO more of an art than an exact science. There are simply too many factors involved in optimising a web site to operate on strict rules, and this is why words like ‘organic’ are often applied to good SEO. A site will benefit more from individual attention than cookie-cutter techniques. For an individual approach to your site’s optimisation, you can talk to us at SEO Consult for more advice.

With the authority that a scientific approach naturally confers, many SEO companies advertise their service in very science-y terms. Equations and formulas get mentioned a lot. When you are approaching an SEO company about their services, however, make sure to talk with them about their experience and approach. Your website is unlikely to benefit from off-the-shelf solutions.