My friend Ben, of the Cancer Community at KnowCancer.com, is THE expert on search engine optimization (SEO). Seriously, this guy knows more about SEO than anyone I know.
I met Ben at a conference and, in the back of the room, in hushed tones, Ben taught me more about SEO than 10-plus years of working with and for internet-related companies. The dude’s brain is that serious–and not just because he’s my friend (I have a lot of dear friends that don’t know crap about technology).
And not only does he know it, he knows how to communicate what he knows in a noncondescending way. Want proof?
Ben shot me an e-mail the other day, and it showed such genuis and was so simple, I asked him if I could share it with you.
He said, “Sure.” So here goes:
“Think of search this way. Google (and the other major engines) have two different goals:
- to index the pages on the web, and
- to deliver relevant results to searchers
In order to index the web and deliver relevant results, the engines need to be able to access all of the pages on your site and understand what they are about.
SEO experts are skilled in guiding the engines through a site in a way that enables them to discover more web pages and by providing information that helps the engines understand the content on your site.
Although simplified, the idea is that SEO experts don’t need to trick the system, [emphasis mine] rather it is more about understanding the capabilities of the engines and working with them to help determine relevance.”
Told ya. And that’s just 30 seconds of his thought power.
