I was re-reading Google’s quality guidelines and hints for creating a Google-friendly site the other day. The basis of it is very simple:-
- Give visitors the information they're looking for
- Write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic
- Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
- Make pages for users, not for search engines.
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.
- Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or Page Rank
- Ask yourself, "Does this help my users?”
Simple, eh?
But still I see people obsessed with ‘rankings’, hungry for ‘hits’, desperate for ‘traffic’. Rankings for what? Hits from whom? What sort of traffic?
Imagine you were a farmer. It would be a great achievement to get to the top of the rankings for ‘farmers’ in a search engine. But what would it get you? The people searching for farmers might be looking for dairy farmers, arable farmers, pig farmers, link farmers, farmers insurance or even Farmers Jeans! If you were a specialist crop farmer, most of this traffic would be wasted and you’d see that through the number of disappointed people leaving your site almost immediately (see bounce rate).
Your site, your activity, your business needs to be built around your specialist area, what you’re good at and who you want to appeal to.
Remember that with the speed of broadband and the ease of the mouse, people can look further than the first site listed for what they want. Internet users are savvy enough to see beyond the first site that comes up on Google, they want quality, relevance and a site that targets them.
Forget rankings, hits & traffic per se and think focused, targeted activity and quality visitors.
Start by taking a long hard look at yourself, your business, your customers and your site. Think about what sets you apart from your competitors in your eyes, your customers’ eyes and your prospective or target customers. Then, when you’ve done all that, start to write words and content that articulate this. But that’s not the end…. Test this, see which activities, words, etc., mean something to your customers and target customers. Only then should you ‘optimise’ your site with targeted words and content.
Simple, yes. Easy, no. But the sustainable and profitable way to develop your business on the internet.
For more information about how to develop a profitable online marketing strategy and help you implement it visit: - www.innovative-internet-marketing.com/
