People are confused about SEO because they choose to be, because they want something for nothing, and because they think there are magic short cuts these mystical SEO gurus know about and others don't. Let's face it, these guys spend all their time at conferences high fiving other gurus, when was the last time they optimised a website a business actually relies on? Oh, and when they do actually work on a campaign it's usually for $10/15/20/50K a month, not thirty bob and a fried fish and '
where are my results, I paid you £25 and I'm still not all over the search rankings like a rash you rip-off merchant!!'.
This manifests itself as confusion and mayhem, but the bottom line is Google spells out in very simple language what to do to rank a page.
1. Create content for people relevant to the search queries they use - so your pages match what searchers need.
2. Use the important page elements for what they are designed for - to help the search engines understand what your page is about.
3. Make others aware of your content so (if it's any good) they link to it - to help search engines figure out your page is important.
If you want to make others aware of your content look for influencers in your field. Search in Google using something like
intitle:"resources" my services/product or if you are willing to contribute content to show the world you know your stuff, and get a cheeky wee link back to your website, try
intitle:"guest blog" my services/product. In case you are still confused
here's a real example.
That's it. There's nothing more to it and all the noise is from people suggesting they have a secret formula or there are tricks you can use to fool Google. It's not hard, but it's hard work, which is why any offer promising to short cut this hard work is utter tosh, always was, always will be.
If you can't create something people will link to, use paid search, because Google's algo is link based, it uses links to automatically figure out the importance of a page. You really need to build a bridge and get over that one or give up.
The reason people are 'confused' is they just don't get the whole idea of a merit based ranking system. They believe they have a right to rank for a specific search based on some misplaced sense of their own importance an they think the guy who charges $40 has the answer.
Now, there are easy ways to promote a website that fall outside Google's T&C's and it's this area of SEO that people find confusing. However, if you ignore this, build for the long term, and use paid search for the short term, you can ignore all of this stuff, and I mean all of it.
Finally, SEO's didn't write Google's algo. They didn't decide the academic model of citations was suitable for a free for all non peer reviewed business environment, they didn't create a beast that can be easily manipulated where those manipulations are worth $$$$$$, they didn't create a paid search mechanism where the unwary can lose their shirt, nope, Google did all that all by themselves.
Frankly I'm sick of SEO's taking the wrap for a complex and broken search engine and for clueless web designers who build sites neither people nor search spiders can make head nor tail of. And before someone jumps in and suggests it's SEO's that have created the link market and the whole search manipulation, no they didn't, affiliate marketers did because they realised traffic was worth money, not least from AdSense, another brilliant money spinning web ruining idea from Google (and now Bing/facebook etc).
If you want to dominate the search rankings be the best, stop looking for short cuts, stop believing people who tell you they'll make you a million for £49/month or will build a squillion 'quality' links to your site for $much-cheapness, in short GET REAL!
Now, a cup of tea I think....
d
