It's
a common occurrence. SEOs often spend countless hours
trying to "break" a search engine's algorithm.
"If I could
just crack Google's algo, my pages would soar to the
top of the rankings!"
Let's look at some flaws in this way of thinking.
1. Picture the Google engineers and tech folks turning
the algo dial as soon as you "think" you have "cracked"
the algo. Your rankings may fall, and you would have
to figure out what's working with the engine right now.
In other words, your rankings may never be long term.
2. Instead of spending all of this time trying to impress
a search engine with a perfect page, why not impress
your true target audience . . . your customers. Has
Google, MSN, or Yahoo! Search ever bought anything from
you? They're not your target audience. Your customers
are your target audience. Write your pages and content
for them.
3. When you expend so much of your energy chasing algorithms,
you often focus on only a few elements that influence
ranking those elements that are working right
now and that you hope will give your pages the best
chance for success. It is said that Google has over
100 ranking elements that influence ranking and relevancy.
Some are more important than others. But focusing on
just one or two "main" elements and discounting the
rest can prove disastrous to a website.
A different approach . . .
Wouldn't you rather achieve top rankings and keep them
there, and have those rankings equate to sales and money
in your back pocket?
After all, isn't it ultimately the sales you're after,
as opposed to just the rankings? If those rankings don't
equate to traffic that equates to sales, you lose, any
way you look at it.
Five Basic Steps for Achieving Top Rankings without
Chasing Algorithms
1. Forget about the search engines. Yes, you heard me
correctly. The search engines aren't and never will
be your "ideal target audience." They don't buy your
goods and services. They're not who you should be trying
to please with your Web pages and site. Instead, write
your Web page content for your target audience.
2. Don't ever forget the basics. No matter what's happening
in the algorithms, continue using your main keyword
phrase prominently in your title tag, META description
and keyword tags, link text, body, heading tags, and
so forth. That way, when the algo dial is turned, you
won't have to make changes to all of your pages. You'll
always be ready.
3. Focus your keyword-containing tags and body text
on one keyword phrase only. Each page should be focused
on one keyword phrase, and each page should have its
own unique tags.
4. Write well-crafted content for your Web pages, and
add new content on a regular basis. If content is king,
context is queen. Focus on your keyword phrase, synonyms
and related words, and surrounding text. Use a program
like ThemeMaster (http://www.thememaster.com/) if you
need help determining those supporting words.
5. Remember that both on-page and off-page factors are
important. Don't sacrifice one for the other. On-page
factors are your tags, body text, prominence, relevance,
etc. Off-page factors are link popularity (quality and
number of your inbound links) and link reputation (what
those inbound links "say" about your Web page when they
link to you).
What about search engine research? Isn't it important?
It's crucial.
Let me give you an example. At the beginning of this
year, pages began falling out of Google's index. The
forums were alive with speculation and what to do about
it.
Through research, we determined this was a compliancy
issue. By having compliant code, the search engine spiders
are more easily able to spider the content.
The solution? Make sure you use a DOCTYPE tag and an
ISO Character Set Statement at the top of every Web
page.
For example:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.1 Transitional//EN">
<META HTTP-EQUIV=content-type CONTENT="text/html;
charset=ISO-
8859-1">
If you didn't know about the compliancy issues, you
could have made changes to your Web pages that didn't
need to be made, wasted countless hours trying this
or that, all to come up dry.
Research helps to make sure you remain on top of what's
happening in the search engine industry. It's what sets
you apart from other SEOs. You make your decisions based
on research and facts, versus speculation and theory.
In Conclusion . . .
"Take it from someone who has been in this business
for nine years and studies the algorithms closely -
don't chase the algorithms. You say that you have a
#2 ranking for a certain keyword phrase that alone is
bringing your site 550 visitors per day? Great. In the
time that you have spent gaining that ranking, I have
written 285 pages of unique content, obtained 821 links,
etc., and collectively I am getting over 1,300 visitors
per day," says Jerry West of WebMarketingNow (http://www.webmarketingnow.com/).
In other words, by focusing on more than just chasing
algorithms, you have the potential of having a much
more successful website.
About
the Author:
Robin Nobles conducts live SEO workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/)
in locations across North America. She also teaches
online SEO training (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com/).
Localized SEO training is now being offered through
the Search Engine Academy. (http://www.searchengineacademy.com/) |
