Do you want to be outstanding at search engine optimization? If you do, I want you to read the following statement. Please try to take it in because it might be the most important thing you ever learn about this business:
Don’t try to make a career out of making Google look stupid.
Google needs to return useful information to searchers to stay in business. The better they become at that, the more profitable they will be. Google will continue to get better and better at getting rid of the junk so if you want to continue to rank well long term, you will need to align yourself with Google. In other words, you’ll need to give searchers what they’re looking for.
Learning to make your web pages more useful will have a great effect on your search engine optimization, in a lot of different ways:
- It protects you long-term from spam complaints
- It creates natural links, in the short term and the long term
- It creates a positive branding effect
- It protects you from being penalized after visual inspections
If you’re competing against a web page that’s getting more natural links than you, it’s going to be tough to complete. You need to get it switched around so that you are getting the natural links.
Additionally, sooner or later, you will have a Google search engineer on your site, especially if you rank well. I want to help you to get ready for that day by showing you a few ways you can improve the usefulness of your web pages. I’m going to challenge you to implement at least one of them, as part of the 30 Days To Better SEO.
#1 – Provide A More Complete Resource On Your Subject
Take a look at the other sites that currently rank in the top 10 of Google for your keyword. Are they providing information that you aren’t? If so, I would highly recommend improving the quality of information you’re providing. This might be as simple as adding a few additional sentences or paragraphs to your informational article.
If you’re selling a product on your web page, you can provide user reviews, or a video of the product being used.
If you’re selling your own product, you may have to improve your product to be the most useful.
#2 – Add Links To Relevant Content Within Your Site
There are tons of cases where a user could benefit from being pushed to another page of your site. Let’s say for example purposes that a user came to my site searching for ‘search engine optimization’. It would be very useful to that user to find what I have about ‘link building’, ‘keyword research’, and many other topics. That means that I can add to the usefulness of my web page by creating links that a searcher might find helpful.
#3 – Add The Ability To Leave Comments
Many of you have blogs, some of you do not. Allowing users to comment can really add to the usefulness of a webpage. Not only will you get free content for your page, you will also get insight into what the searcher was originally looking for. This can help you to make the resource more complete (#1). You will not only get questions in your comments, you will also get answers. In some cases this aspect can be covered by adding a forum to your site.
#4 – Add Images To Your Web Page
Images can often really add to the presentation. No, you don’t need to use images on every web page you create. However, you may be able to add to the usefulness of a web page if you do. In some cases, graphs or charts may make your page more useful.
#5 – Apply Formatting
No one wants to read a huge block of text. You may have the greatest resource in the history of mankind (for your keyword), but if it looks terrible, people will think it’s terrible. Adding some bullets, headings, and some bolded text might change the feel significantly.
#6 – Add Video
I’ve found that explaning things with video or with a screen cast is about 100 times easier for me than typing it out. Videos also take less time for me to make than writing posts does. I wouldn’t recommend going solely with video on a web page but it can really add to the presentation if you include a video or screencast on your web page.
It’s All Relative Folks
Google’s job is to list the best resource first. Sometimes the best resource on a given keyword isn’t that great. Sometimes it’s amazing. Take a look at your competition and provide people with something better than is currently being provided. This might take a lot of work if your competition is solid and it might be a piece of cake if your competition is weak.
Challenge
Make your web page a little better today. Apply at least one of these techniques, or apply all of them.
Formatting is so important. I have visited many blogs that have had fantastic content,but I left because I got annoyed trying to read massive blocks of text! Breaking your content into smaller more manageable pieces makes smart writing!
Formatting is huge. Posts and articles can be made to look so much better with the proper formatting.
“Don’t make Google look stupid”
Shoemoney said the same thing a while ago, and those words have always stuck with me. It’s very true, if you aren’t providing good content, then there’s nothing to separate you from all the other spammers out there.
We are building a long term business, they are just trying to make some quick and easy cash.
A few natural links can go a long way too. Sometimes one or two links from the right sites will make all the difference in the world.
I’ve been thinking more and more about content. Sure, you can have crap content and still get a high ranking, given enough backlinks. But you won’t get those natural links — and I suspect, in competetive niches, your site might be reported as spam or take a hit from a visual inspection.
Great content is pretty key to staying on top. The only issue I have with the great content = more natural links + long term viability, is that it takes a heck of a lot of time to generate some good content. If you are going the mass creation route in the vein of grizzly/vic, you don’t have enough time to generate good content on any website other then your flagships. And if you have 400 websites but say only 20 flagships…
Hey Court, thanks for posting this. I found you by accident today but loved reading this.
If there’s one thing I can say after watching/reading and making SEO mistakes? Google *hates* scams. You’re absolutely right, they need to serve relevant information so if your website is a ‘con’ they’re going to be pretty upset when their engineers find you.
Great Post, format and video to me are very important, like you said no one wants to read a block of text, if you add a little flavor to it, trust it will turn out great!
I really enjoyed the read. I have been searching for Atlanta Search Engine Optimization services and I have been trying to learn as much as I can so I can figure out which one to hire.
You can’t automate the services of a great Atlanta Search Engine Optimization company it’s very important to find a good company to hire to the job properly.