SEO Advice Straight from the Horse’s Mouth

Wrestling with Google in an effort to secure a top spot in the rankings can get tedious sometimes.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the folks in Mountain View would just send you a handy PDF that told you exactly what you needed to do in order to succeed in Google?

Fat chance, right?  Those guys aren’t about to tell you how to crack the code.

Or are they?

Many people don’t realize it, but there actually is a handy-dandy guide to SEO basics that comes straight from Google.  That’s right, the Big G has actually assembled a little instruction manual that you can use as you build your site.

If you haven’t read it, you should grab a copy of Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide right away.  It makes sense to get direction straight from the horse’s mouth.  The latest version (as of this post) is dated November, 2008.

Now, don’t get too excited.  This is definitely a starter guide.  It’s basic and it isn’t going to give you a lot of insight about the details of truly effective SEO.  Obviously, it isn’t going to contain any tricks or algorithmic loopholes to exploit, either.  It’s the kind of thing that’s indispensable to a newbie and that can even help more advanced users with the basics of SEO, though.

It also sheds a lot of light on Google’s overall attitude toward SEO and where they draw the lines that separate “legitimate” activities from those upon which they frown.  Even more expert SEOs can benefit from the guide if they’re willing and able to “read between the lines”.

If you’ve been wondering how to stay on Google’s good side with your SEO efforts or you need a nice, solid basic guide to SEO, this is a great starting point.  It should certainly be on the reading list of any webmaster who isn’t an SEO expert and it should be on the skim list of those who are.