What is All Natural SEO?

Try looking up search engine optimization on the web, and youll no doubt come across terms like organic, 100% pure, and all natural. In the search universe, these terms are often used to describe the sites listed along the left-hand side of the search results page, rather than the right-hand sponsored results. Other times, however, the term natural is used to describe the techniques used to optimize a site. In my post entitled, Hiring an SEO What Does Google Say? I discussed how Google views SEO companies and SEO in general. The bottom line is that Google not only doesnt mind SEO, they actually encourage basic optimization but only when its done in a natural way.

The Spirit of Natural SEO

So what exactly is natural SEO? How can you be sure that youre not violating Googles guidelines when performing SEO on your site? As always, I prefer to bypass the "experts" and go right to Google to find the answer. Google spells out some pretty clear rules in their Webmaster Guidelines section on their site, however, they dont cover all the specifics. Google even talks about the spirit of their guidelines, which is their way of admitting the complexities and nuances of the matter. There are a wide variety of individual search engine optimization techniques and we cant cover them all in one post, so lets take a look at a few common ones to help get a sense of this spirit of natural optimization that Google refers to.Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.This is a quote directly from the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Writing content for humans is obviously considered natural behavior. Believe it or not, fake content has become a real problem on the web, both for people and for search engines.

Software is available that can go out on the web and scrape content from other sites and regurgitate it in such a way that a search engine might think it was real. This is obviously designed to just drive traffic and usually ad revenue, but has no benefit to humans searching for high quality information.This is a very obvious example of a technique can get your site seriously penalized or banned from Google altogether. However, other optimization techniques are not so black and white, and can even be considered appropriate when done naturally.

Keyword Density Is it Natural?

Another well-known optimization technique is to simply put the keyword you want to rank for in the title and/or body of your content. The number of times a keyword or phrase is mentioned on your page, in relation to the total # of words on the page is called keyword density.Intentionally including keywords that you want to rank for in your content may, at first glance, seem to be an unnatural technique. However, Google understand that this particular optimization technique can be beneficial for both humans AND search engines when its done in a natural way. In fact, they actually advise it:The best way to ensure that your site returns for your preferred keywords is to include them on your pages.Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.

Make sure that your elements and alt attributes are descriptive and accurate.

Keyword Stuffing

While Google does allow you to include keywords in your text, they also make it clear that going too far is against their guidelines. When you put keywords into your text too many times, they consider this unnatural and a violation of their guidelines. This practice is so common and that they include an entire page about keyword stuffing in their Guidelines. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.These 2 optimization techniques alone give you a small taste of the complexities and nuance involved when it comes to natural search engine optimization. By far, however, the most complex area of optimization is the concept of link building. Given the scope of this topic, I cover it in a separate post that discusses various link building techniques and what Google thinks of them.

The Bottom Line

While you may or may not agree with everything Google says or does, they have a financial interest to make sure theyre giving their search engine users the best possible experience, so we need to assume that everything they do is done with that one goal in mind. If youre ever not sure about what Google thinks about a given optimization technique, just ask yourself this one question: does this truly benefit the search engine user? The good news is, in the long run, by doing what's best for the user, you'll also be doing what's best for the search engine algorithm which will determine how high you rank. When you focus on writing great content, the search engines will appreciate your site and theyll WANT to rank you high and put you in front of their users.

Again, lets look to Google for the answer:"One of the most important steps in improving your site's ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information""It's worthwhile to take the time to create original content that sets your site apart. This will keep your visitors coming back and will provide useful search results."

Steve Lazuka is a well-known expert in the field of natural seo content development. Mr. Lazuka is the founder and president of Interact Media, an seo content writing service that leverages the power of high quality content to improve search engine visibility for its clients. To learn more about this and other seo topics, visit Steve's blog at http://www.interactmedia.com/blog.html

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