SEO – A battle between humans and robots.

With top ranked websites receiving upwards of 42% of all click-through traffic, it could be argued that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the most important weapon in a business’ online arsenal.

In a futuristic world of meta-tags, keywords and html coding, SEO becomes a Terminator-esque battle between humans and robots. With search engine robots creeping unseen through your website, SEO can become too focussed on making your website as robot friendly as possible, often to the detriment of the human end user.

Fear not mere mortals, for the battle is not lost. Search engines have recognised that user friendly websites deserve recognition, and do so by measuring the value of a website’s content using external links and citations as an indication of relevance.

In this way content truly is king. Writing engaging, relevant and entertaining content for your website will result in increased human traffic to your website. This will in turn see users sharing links to your website with friends and colleagues. Or maybe they will cite your content in articles, journals and blogs, all of which will go a long way to improving your ranking in search results pages, thus restoring the balance between robots and humans.

image credit: wiredforlego via Flickr