Am I a Search Engine Optimisation Expert?

Anyone who has been involved with successful Internet Marketing for some time will to some degree be entitled to call him or herself a search engine optimisation expert. But like self-professed "experts" in any field it is wise to take the term with a pinch of salt.

To continue the culinary analogy, any "search engine optimisation expert" actually worth his or her salt will have kept absolutely up-to-date with the latest theories and techniques. These change on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

The importance of proper search engine optimisation for the small business web site cannot be over stressed.

Google is notorious for changing its algorithms, sometimes having disastrous effects upon the search ranking of sites which were hitherto riding high. Some of this moving of the goal posts has been very dramatic indeed. The main aim of Google and other search engines has always been to improve the quality of their search results. Therefore content is king, as they say.

The type of search engine optimization expert you want to avoid is someone who did a course in website construction and design which included a small component of SEO six years ago (or even one year ago) at their local college. This person may well design you a really pretty-looking website with bells and whistles agogo, but unless they are regular visitors to internet marketing forums and readers of up-to-date reports, their "expertise" will be way off when it comes to SEO.

It's quite atrocious when you see how much archaic, old and even "black hat" (semi-illegal and likely to get you banned by the search engines) tactics are used by these guys. A real search engine optimization expert is versed in the latest techniques, including article writing and submission, directory submission, blogs and forums, and the detailed optimization of web pages for keywords long-tail and otherwise.

A great deal of the time we can only guess at what the search engines are looking for in an optimal site on any given topic.

The main point is, the person who can make an educated guess is better than the one who is groping in the dark for an answer. It has been said (and may be true) that the only real search engine optimisation expert is a guy sitting in a locked room in the offices of Google, Yahoo or MSN!

For more about search engine optimisation and the small business web site have a look at http://smallbusinesswebsiteservices.co.uk/

Dianne Davies is a writer who has made her living from the Internet since 1999.