I’ve kind of summarised from these discussions that we’re all more or less of the same opinion… We all recognise the importance of SEO but the extent to which you pay attention to it depends largely on your purpose for writing in the first place and what you want to achieve… Yes??

Anne

Despite the apparent disparity in the comments, I can find some consistency, not least is the reassuring message that good content that people want to read does count for a lot, although as some have pointed out there is still a sorting process that is not done on quality.

Thanks to all for the wonderful insights – I have learned a lot more about SEO than I imagined just by writing a frivolous post. And you guys have even made it sound interesting! Ack, it’s been a long day…

I used to pay a great deal of attention to it, and now I pay virtually none.

Check my membership history on core SEO forums like Jill Whalen’s Highranking.com and you’ll see I was mixing it with the SEO gurus as far back as Sept 2003, when, with all of them, I would minutely watch specific Google datacentres (you use the ip address) to monitor the spread of a new algorithm (“dance”) and compare search results (SERPs) with the previous algo to analyse what has changed and what aspects Google was now weighting. We also used to hang on every tight-lipped syllable of every word dropped from the mouth of Matt Cutts or anybody remotely associated with Google.

In those days it was important, but as time wore on, Google got better…. much, much better, and it stopped being so critical.

[ TBH Google used to be NOT very good at all. In terms of relevancy, it was worse than its competitors. Ask (u rem? Jeeves?) was a much better search engine than Google, and Yahoo was easily as good. But it didn't matter because already by 2005 everybody had bought the hype and that nice clean homepage. Us dumb Brits made 70% of our searches on Google (the world average was 65% and even the Americans were more discerning at 55% ! ). Think back. You may recall that if, for example, you searched Google for "Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons" what you got those days in the first 2 pages (20 results) was 18 online travel agencies that sold Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons before you actually got to Raymond Blanc's site itself. ]

Around 2008 Google went through a step change in performance and it became almost impossible to ‘game’ Google. Even the SEO gurus’ core advice was: write a website with lots of frequently refreshed content that boosts your identity as a “centre of authority”. In others words, just concentrate on creating the sort of website you would like to visit. I began to pity professional SEO consultants. Their future looked bleak. It still does.

By then I’d already begun to get bored and tired trying to tweek my site every time Google sneezed or scratched, so I stopped and switched my attention to simply creating a useful, active, respected website (ok, the jury’s still out on that one!) …. and that is my advice to you.

Yes, you might want to consider headlining your article “Driving the Pacific Coast Highway from Monterey to Santa Barbara” instead of “Sunsets and Sealions” because that would help Google understand what it’s about, but beyond that simple step, forget SEO. Write for humans not computers.

PS. Oh yes. Several of you have joked about the benefit of writing a comment here. Don’t bother. Google nerfed that ages ago when it bullied everyone into using its link condom. Look at the source of this page and you’ll see that in common with virtually all comments pages the anchor tag linking to your website has a REL=”NOFOLLOW” attribute in it. This says to Google “ignore this link. I don’t know its provenance”. Sorry. No link juice for you.

The single biggest factor in SEO and the results search engines return is links. And to get good quality links bloggers certainly shouldn’t “write for Google”, they should write content that people want to link to.

In some ways it’s a choice between branding and seo. Are people coming to your site for you or are they coming for information. You’ve clearly chosen the first route Andy. You write lively, thoughtful and engaging posts that attract readers and links – and it works remarkably well.

You probably benefit from SEO far more than you think. If you were searching for British Airlines’ reservations phone number and Google turned up Zeus Travel “call us for reservations on all the major airlines…” and Mandy Martin’s blog post about spending 2 hours on the phone with British Airlines — then you’d probably be fairly pissed that B.A. hadn’t employed some good SEO so the people looking for information about them could find it easily.

Or you should be pissed