SEO 'Science?'

Most of us tend to glaze over when words like ‘algorithm’, ‘statistics’ and ‘trend variations’ start being tossed around. However, SEO isn’t a crap shoot or a gutsy gamble – it’s a science built on accumulated data and fairly predictable results.

You have to have content, which is creative, but you also have to have an idea of keyword density, rewrite rules, and other data driven numbers and percentages.

SEO is subjective at times – there will always be differences of opinion, and trial and error is a god part of certain aspects – but objectivity is certainly not absent.

The algorithms change, but they do exist, and at any given time there are definite rules which must be followed to achieve results.

Google, Yahoo and Bing’s algorithms are ever changing, which is why there is always a need for SEOs who are full on geeks, to reverse-engineer those algorithms and find the cracks to exploit. When you are able to define the algorithm enough to formulate a plan of attack, you are in essence working out your own algorithm to analyze your site and pages and turn the tables.

This means using all the data you can gather to make decisions. You have to create a benchmark against which to score your Content, Keyword Choices, PageRank, Indexation, Internal Links, Inbound Links, Hierarchical Linking Structure, HTML Templates and CSS

Examine all urls, title tags, internal anchor text, keyword prominence, H1s, and meta descriptions, Deconstruct your site and distill all the data you can from each component to figure out what your algorithm should be.

Then and only then will you be able to compete effectively.