Ethical search engine optimization

James Archer’s article Ethical search engine optimization is a really good read. James explains the importance of well-written content, good website organisation, and clean and structured code to help visitors better understand a site and help search engines index and interpret a site well.

I like the three categories of search engine optimisation he uses:

Search engine optimization: Ensuring that your code and content is appropriately organized and easy for search engines to interpret accurately.

Search engine exaggeration: Reinforcing your desired keywords through frequent repetition, hidden keywords, etc.

Search engine deception: Creating content, pages, etc., that aren’t intended for human consumption, but are instead designed only to pull in search engine traffic.

Make sure you stay away from search engine deception. I’ve had to talk several clients out of using the shady methods that SEO-firms implemented for them. Showing them the excellent results achieved by following advice similar to that given in this article made it pretty easy.