We’re recommending a free PDF ebook recently published by Google, The SEO Starter Guide.

It’s not exactly new information, but by putting it into one brief document, it is a victory for common sense. You can read it in under 30 minutes and, hopefully, it will help demystify a subject many people obsess over.

The guide tackles a dozen or so topics for sites that want to achieve good organic search engine rankings.

Top of the list is:

• Create great content that is easy to use, share and index.

(Craft the best possible content for the user, and make it as easy as possible for Search Engines to index. Er. That’s it.)

We’re not saying that SEO is easy: creating the best content is always going to take what we call ‘donkey’ work, and non of the smoke and mirrors of some SEO companies.

That said there will always be a place for genuine experts in SEO, as there’s plenty that Google isn’t giving away.

As a business that creates accessible, content-rich websites, we welcome anything that shifts the focus back onto the content.

Want to read more? See our article on sympathetic search engine optimisation.

See how we can help optimise your website for search engines.