A Prelude to Search Engine Optimisation – what Google wants, they eventually get

The key to successful SEO for the long term

Search Engine Optimisation is a very big subject. There are many books and, these days, it seems like there are millions of people writing blogs, selling pdfs and telling people what to do to get their web sites to the top of the search engines.

Recently Matt Cutts – Google’s SEO (Spam) policeman – told us to stop trying to figure out what Google wants you to do and start figuring out what your user wants you to do.

Why? Because all Google is trying to do is to provide the content and web sites that offer the user exactly what they want from a specific search.

Are you wasting your online marketing or SEO budget?

I have seen business owners spend thousands getting ranked for competitor names. What are the chances of someone searching for a specific brand actually wanting a competitor’s product?

Some business owners I speak to are very suspicious of SEO and people purporting to offer SEO services. Many have taken a monthly SEO option with a large company for a small fee per month and have seen no gain. Others have spent thousands and seen some gain. Few seem to have capitalised on the potential business opportunities online.

I think the reason for this is that the purpose of SEO has been lost; and with the purpose lost, we miss the whole point. Search Engine Optimisation now seems to be synonymous with Search Engine Manipulation. This is all wrong!

We need to correctly define what search engine optimisation is and in turn define what an SEO (Search Engine Optimiser) is.

Optimisation is the key term! It is all about taking something and ensuring it is in its best possible state so that it gets all that it deserves in terms of search engine ranking and search engine traffic.

The correct sequence to achieve high rankings with SEO

Initially, effective SEO requires some thought and implementation of content that the user is going to want. Do you ever find yourself trawling through pages upon pages of bland content churning out the same information in different ways? I do and I am tired of it! Google knows it too and are getting smarter and smarter search engineers to stamp it out.

If you do not have something worth being on the top of the search engines then SEO should not work. And Google’s mission statement is basically “if it should not be top of the search engines it won’t be for long and it will be replaced with what should be there”.

All of the most successful companies that are truly prevalent on the search engines are there because they offer the user 1) the content they need or want, 2) a product that they need or want, and 3) a workable system of letting them get what they need or want. As they developed these concepts more and more; their competent SEOs were able to make it more and more visible on the search engines.

Follow this model and you cannot go wrong.

The one SEO action always required for permanent high SEO rankings

Save yourself the hassle and a whole lot of money by figuring out (either by yourself or with an online marketing company) what content and features your users need or want and then, with the help of a competent SEO, get the maximum – and deserved level of search rankings and traffic for it.

A competent SEO can work out how to get you to the top with good content. A good SEO will create and manage your content strategy to get you to the top and keep you at the top on a monthly basis. A great SEO will do this and more and will create at least twenty times more business for you than they cost.

When finding the right SEO ask to see if they share the same viewpoint. If not find someone else as they probably have a short term gimmick that they can use to make money from you.