Search engine secrets: 101

How do I get my website at the top of the organic (non paid) search results on Google?

Google has compiled and released a best practices starter guide sheet. Mostly it aggregates information already available and provides some detail beyond previous releases of information.

The organic results question has spawned an entire industry of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals who, to varying degrees, implement practices that they claim will optimize your site for top organic results. As we've previously posted, some of these SEO specialists are selling snake oil...most are legitimately trying to set the stage for success.

Google's techniques are pretty redundant for anyone whose explored this area in detail, but the techniques are a good overview for anyone new to search/web development and include narrative on:

1. Page titles, tags and meta tags (make 'em accurate descriptions of the content)
2. URL structure (simplifying URL's and directories to reflect words and content when possible)
   
3. Navigation (employing naturally flowing hierarchies and breadcrumb navigation)
4. Content (using language relevant to the topic and informative anchor text)

Most importantly, Google's guide reminds one of the importance of promoting sites in a manner that generates relevance: Simply building a site and expecting traffic will lead to less than optimal results...from both an organic positioning and traffic volume perspective.

SEO success according to Google it seems is in doing the the things that clearly identify your site as relevant to someone seeking something it supports. In that way, the big secret--and challenge--of SEO is simply getting the thing done.