Like
it or not, search engine optimization plays an important part
for any online business, and more so for new and small businesses.
On cash-strapped budgets, we don't have the
deep pockets to buy expensive links on high-traffic websites,
and extensive PPC spending (I'm talking about over $100 a day)
is beyond us, at least at the start.
So
the rest of us are, in the end, left with getting traffic the
(free) cheap way – building links, regularly
adding content, optimizing our pages and trawling through SEO
forums for that next big breakthrough in SEO strategies that
will give us the edge over our competition.
In
other words, we are all caught up in the SEO rat race. And there
seems to be no end in sight.
At
times like these, it's a good idea to step back and look at
the situation from a more “detached” perspective.
Forget about your website, forget about your online
business, forget about making money from the Internet
while sitting at home and sleeping in on Mondays.
Instead,
I want you to have only one thought, just four words in your
mind:
| What
does Google really want? |
Why
Google, you ask? What a stupid question, you might also ask.
Well, let me explain myself. However, while I do so, keep
this question in mind and try to answer it alongside
me.
Now…when
you reduce search engine marketing to its basics, it is all
about doing what is necessary (and acceptable by the search
engines) in order to get a high ranking in search engine results
(SERPs). So our SEO strategies depend directly
on what works best in the search engines.
Now,
let's take that thought a bit further – how do you know what
works best? Well, the search engines keep their ranking algorithm
secret, and no one really understands how rankings
“really” work. Sure, we can all approximate, and some of us
have made (and will continue to make) millions by getting it
“right”. But in the absence of cold and hard facts from the
people running the search engine traffic, there's no way to
know for sure.
What
the search engines do tell us is pretty vague
– your website content must be unique, useful, and should be
fresh. Targeting your website to a particular industry helps
as well. Links? Search engines sure like them. In fact, search
engines like them quite a lot. But hey, that's not all to search
engines, is it? What about quality content?
The
truth is that in the age of super-instant gratification (ever
met a cliché you liked? ), links are
your “easy” ticket into search engine rankings. In face of the
“simplicity” of getting other websites to link to yours (made
even easier by SEO
tools), good content takes a VERY distant second place.
The
search engines can be blamed for placing too much emphasis
on links, although in the last year or so, led by Google, the
search engines have gradually moved away from giving links too
much importance and have started looking at relevance and user
feedback (read personalized search) Even then, SEO campaigns
takes a familiar shape:
- Do
some keyword research and build a master
list of keywords.
- Write
“keyword optimized” articles for the search
engines.
- Build
links to your website using keywords in the anchor
text (and choosing link partners in the same niche (to win
on the relevance factor).
Tip: Use a tool like SEO
Elite to build links quickly. See demo video by clicking
here.
- Rinse.
Lather. Repeat.
In that formula, somehow, somewhere, people started taking shortcuts.
First, there was link spamming to trick search
engines into ranking their websites higher. Then, there were
“content-generating” scripts – the poor man's
version of obscene levels of keyword stuffing carried out only
for manipulating search engines.
Maybe
it's unfair to call this tactics trickery or manipulation. After
all, there is a system, there's a way of cracking it and getting
to the top of it without much effort, so why not take the quick
and dirty shortcut and move on?
On
the surface, the debate seems to be between “ethical” and “unethical”
methods (or, as they like to say, between white hats and black
hats) of SEO. In reality, your morality, or the color of your
headgear, does not matter. At all.
What
DOES matter is the question I asked you earlier. What does Google
want?
In
fact, replace Google with the search engine of your choice.
Take Yahoo. Msn. IceRocket if fancy strikes you, but the point
remains the same.
| Whar
are the search engines really looking for? |
Search
engines, believe it or not, are looking to keep their
visitors.
Surprised?
Shoot, why not, it makes sense, doesn't it? Search is as much
a business as selling widgets or owning a roadside café,
and in a business, getting and keeping your customers (searchers)
is your top priority. No searchers = no money,
and that's the bottom line.
So
how do the search engines get, and keep, their visitors? Once
you start thinking of search engines as being businesses, everything
falls into place. Building customer loyalty is a crucial factor
for any successful business.
| Be
the best at what they do |
For
search engines, this means being the best at what they
do, and to offer the most complimentary services. Leaving
SE accessories (like Yahoo's portal or Google's various services)
aside, the only way search engines can get and bring back searchers
is by giving them what they want.
Searchers
(much like you and me) want information. They
want it to get to it fast. They want it to be right. Most importantly,
they want it be right the first time
around. That's a difficult ask for the search engines (isn't
that an understatement), and they are bound
to screw things up along the way.
Now,
it suddenly becomes clear (it will to you as well, just hang
on). It doesn't matter what “algorithm” a search engine is using,
or what particular SEO tactic seems to be working best this
month (or week). In the end, search engines will always be working
towards providing users “better” results –
where better invariably translates into useful and updated information
for the searcher. You can go through ten thousand search engine
updates, but the end goal remains the same.
This
is certainly no revelation. Search engines (and many SEO gurus)
have been saying this all this time. Quality content
is the best way to build search engine rankings – it
is the only guarantee towards an organic linking campaign, and
along with user feedback (personalized search) it has fast become
the focus of search engine “updates”.
That's
not to say that link building does not work
– in fact, link building still remains the easiest way to get
search engine rankings. However, quality content (and the $5
an article that most webmasters pay on RentACoder is not
quality , no matter what your standards) serves your
business in so many different ways that it seems almost foolish,
and certainly short-sighted, of webmasters to not invest in
it.
- Quality
content helps with conversions – people will
buy more from you if you help them in their quest for knowledge,
and they will come back for more if they like what you are
telling them.
- Quality
content does wonders in search engines –
despite the fact that search engine rankings are automated,
good writing is written for the readers and thus not over-optimised
– over-optimization is a big problem for webmasters and it's
something that search engines have been penalizing for a while
now.
- Quality
content is your surest guarantee for building links
organically, or naturally – someone comes to your
website and likes your website so much that they link to it
on their blog, resources page or anywhere else on their website
(it happens all the time).
- Quality
content is also the best bet to get one-way links
in your link building campaigns without having to
pay for them – webmasters are more likely to link to a website
that is actually useful than just for the sake of building
their links page.
Finally,
and most importantly, quality content is what searchers
are looking for. It's what search engines are trying
to provide (to their users). In short, that's what the search
engines are looking for: quality content.
Makes
sense to do what the search engines are looking for, and THEN
build your SEO strategy around that, doesn't
it?
So
the next time you're stuck in a rut, and are despairing about
your search engine rankings, stop what you are doing, take a
step back and ask yourself this simple question:
“What
DOES Google want?”
All
the best,
Brad Callen
Professional SEO
SEO Elite: SEO Software
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