"About What" you ask? Here I am referring to the following comment found on their Webmaster's Guidelines page.
Quote: "Google's goal is to provide users with the most relevant results and a great user experience."
"That's nice" you say, "But what does this have to do with me or anything else for that matter?"
Here's the deal. There is much said about Search Engine Optimization. And, there are many, many folks out there trying to make a buck by either swindling you or serving you in the area of SEO.
Again you say, "That's nice... But what does this have to do with me or anything else for that matter?"
Well, 90% of all search engine optimization falls under the category of "Do whatever it takes to give those readers of your webpage a quality experience."
That means,
- provide good content
- make sure the page html is valid
- test your links
- keep the page fast
- organize your site well
- make sure you contribute something new
Basically be sincere about your own desire to provider users with a rich enjoyable and rewarding experience when they visit your website.
To quote further from Google: "Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit." (the bold is my subtle way of making sure you caught that part. Google is actually striving to create search engine algorithms that will reward webmasters that give good content.
The shysters and tricky loop-hole exploiters will win in the short run. But if you are building your website for the long run concentrate on content first. You will do better.
However,..... (note there is a however here) there are very specific recommended actions that go beyond anything you would normally do when creating just content.
Here's an example: "Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it." This is not something you would normally do when just writing content for your own webpage. At this point you are being recommended to stop, think about what some stranger might type into a search window when looking for your website. Then, deliberately insert those keywords into your webpages. This is an artificial, contrived action that is specifically designed to increase the chances of a stranger finding your webpage. This is not only allowed, it is specifically recommended.
So, first things first: create great content. Then second things second: take those steps necessary to make sure strangers have the best opportunity of finding your great content.
