Perfecting the basics before chasing SEO trends

James Hussey

SEO (search engine optimisation) is constantly changing, with trends coming and going at a faster pace than ever.

This makes is easy for businesses to fall into the trap of chasing what’s popular at the time. However, on Google’s Search Off The Record podcast, the speakers reminded businesses that it’s important to avoid this trap, and focus on the basics before anything else.

The podcast featured John Mueller, Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt, who discussed how a lot of websites need assistance with the basics of SEO, such as indexing, rendering and crawlability.

These are certain key factors that impact a website’s SEO ranking, and these should be prioritised before anything else.

Technical SEO is essential

Technical SEO is the process of optimising your website in an attempt to improve its visibility on search engine searches. This puts aside the content you actually see on the frontend of the site, and focuses purely on the backend.

Gary Illyes stated:

“If Googlebot cannot reach your site, or rendering fails miserably, and there are no tokens on the site or a page, then there’s not that much that Google can do for you.”

Martin Splitt emphasised this point and stated that troubleshooting should take place on your homepage, as it is viewed by search engines as having the most valuable content.

Quality or quantity?

This was another key talking point of the podcast, with the participants stating that people are often under the impression that higher traffic equals higher quality, which is obviously not the case. John Mueller warned people not to rely on analytics when considering the user’s experience.

He said:

“I sometimes feel it’s misleading to just purely focus on the traffic”.

He went on to mention how sites can target popular key words to build traffic, without providing the visitor with any useful information.

If you are looking to improve your website’s SEO and would like to become more visible on search engines, reach out to our team at Engage Web today.

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James Hussey

Digital Marketing Executive at Engage Web

Having once gone to school in the Burnage area of Manchester known for being the childhood home of Noel and Liam Gallagher, “Some Might Say” that James is a “Supersonic” presence within Engage Web, happily turning his hand to “Whatever” tasks his role throws at him.