Following feedback at various digital conferences and within their own Google Groups news lists, Google has released a Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide aimed at new webmasters and beginners. For the uninitiated, search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising your website so it can appear in the “organic” results of search engines.
As you would predict with Google, and bearing in mind the target audience for this guide, the advice given is fairly top line and will offer little to those already well versed in SEO. That said, a fresh look at the basics for those with experience can always help to jog the memory and may plug knowledge gaps.
Beginners will find the guide much more welcome. Anyone who has tried to find information on search engine optimisation on the Internet will know there is a wealth of information available, a lot of which can be misleading, out of date or just plain wrong. Having a guide provided by the major search engine player will give beginners search engine optimisation knowledge they can trust.
The guide covers the basics on the following SEO factors:
- Title tags
- Meta descriptions
- URLs
- Site navigation
- Use of internal anchor text
- Heading tags
- Image optimisation
- Robots.txt and the nofollow attribute
The guide then finishes by recommending use of Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics, as well as a page on “site promotion” - basically hinting at the need for inbound links without going into detail about how to go about getting links successfully.
Overall the guide covers the basics of SEO as well as any other similar guide has in the past (for a more in depth look you might want to check the SEOMoz beginners guide), however the fact that it comes from Google will make it more trustworthy in the eyes of inexperienced webmasters and SEO newcomers.
It will help people avoid common mistakes and unethical SEO tactics but that itself won’t automatically help a site to rank better - the reasons WHY a site outperforms another in search results, the knowledge of what is required to rank better and holistic SEO strategising are all still in the realm of the experts.
You can find the Google Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide here (PDF).
May 13th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Throughout the duration of my Journalism course at University the importance of becoming a multi-media practitioner was drilled into me.
Since, I have started a job as an SEO consultant for a web design company. Whilst I know how to write, the information surrounding SEO is something that I really need to get stuck into.
This guide i’m sure, will help me no end and like you said the fact that it is from google makes it appear much more trustworthy. I’ll have to check it out.
Thanks for the post!