Why SEO isn't just for Google

Your content choices affect more than rankings - they shape what real people can find, understand, and trust.

The illusion of SEO

We begin with a phrase that often shuts people down: SEO. It conjures up thoughts of algorithms, keywords, and technical trickery - a specialised task for someone else to worry about. But this framing conceals the most important truth: SEO is not about pleasing robots. It’s about making your content usable, meaningful, and discoverable by the people who need it.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation, but we can think of it more broadly as clarity optimisation. It’s the process of making information clear enough that machines can understand it - which, in turn, helps people find it. Because the machines aren’t the audience. People are.

We’re not optimising for Google. We’re optimising for how people search, how people scan, and how people trust what they find.

From algorithms to audiences

Search engines use algorithms - yes. But those algorithms are built around patterns of human behaviour. Google doesn’t decide what matters; it responds to what matters to people:

• Do users click on this page in search results?

• Do they stay on it, or bounce away?

• Does the page answer the question it seems to promise?

Behind every algorithmic weight or ranking factor is a user-centric question: Does this help someone?

When you structure your content clearly - with headings that match intent, links that describe their destination, images that are properly labelled - you’re not “doing SEO tricks.” You’re helping someone get what they came for. And you're doing this every time you make choices in the CMS, whether you realise it or not.

Search is personal and contextual

Modern search engines don't just match keywords - they consider context. Your location, language, search history, device type, and dozens of other factors influence what results appear and in what order.

This means the search results you see from your office computer aren't the same results a parent sees when searching from their phone at midnight in a different city. Just because your website appears at the top when you search for "childhood diabetes research" doesn't guarantee it will appear the same way for your actual target audience.

This complexity reinforces why keyword tricks don't work in modern search. The days of manipulating rankings through keyword stuffing or other shortcuts are long gone. Search engines now prioritise genuinely useful, well-structured content that serves real user needs consistently - regardless of who's searching or from where.

The role of structure in findability

Search engines can’t “see” your webpage the way a person does. They don’t understand visual layout or colour or size. They rely entirely on structure. Headings, paragraphs, lists, tables - these are not formatting options. They’re signals of meaning.

When you choose a “Heading 2” instead of just making the text bold, you’re telling the search engine, “This is a subtopic under the main heading.” That helps it understand your content’s outline. Which helps users find the part of the page they need.

When you include alt text for an image, you’re describing it not just for people using screen readers, but also for search engines that can’t see images.

When your link says “Download the full research paper” instead of “Click here,” you’re not just being helpful to the user - you’re giving search engines a clearer picture of what this page connects to.

Case study: Two page titles

Imagine two pages on the same website.

1. Page A title: "Research"

2. Page B title: "Autism Research Studies for Children and Families"

Both pages may look identical to a casual reader. But to a search engine (and to someone skimming search results), only one tells you what it's really about. Only one shows up clearly when someone types "children autism research" into Google. Only one is likely to be clicked by families looking for opportunities to be involved in research.

Page B ranks higher - not because of arcane SEO wizardry, but because it communicates more clearly.

That clarity helps humans and algorithms alike.

The real goal of SEO

The goal isn’t to “beat the algorithm.” It’s to align with what both machines and people are looking for: clear, structured, trustworthy information.

Good SEO:

• Makes your content easier to find

• Helps users understand what they’re looking at

• Supports accessibility by using the same structural cues as assistive technologies

• Builds trust by removing ambiguity and guesswork

Check your understanding

You'll see a short set of questions like this at the end of each section. Some questions are multiple choice, others are open-ended. To check your responses, you can copy and paste the prompt below to ChatGPT and include your answers.

Copy and paste this to ChatGPT when you're ready for feedback:

I’ve been completing some questions that have been presented to me as part of an SEO course. I'm currently answering questions for a section titled “Why SEO isn’t just for Google”. Please check my answers and let me know if I’ve understood the key ideas correctly. My responses are below.

1. Which best describes the real purpose of SEO?

• Improving keyword density to match search engine algorithms
• Helping content rank highly in search regardless of structure
• Making content clear and discoverable to both people and search engines
• Designing pages to match what Google’s crawler expects to see

2. In your own words, explain why clear, descriptive headings are better for SEO than vague ones.

3. Name one way that the choices you make in the CMS (e.g. heading levels, link text, image descriptions) affect both people and search engines.