SEO secrets. Everyone is looking for the magic button, the one big SEO secret that is going to blast them to the top of the Google listings and keep them there forever. Guess what? Ain’t no such animal. (Acutally, there is a secret but it’s probably not what you think. I explain in this blog post.)

However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a path to the first page of Google and maybe, eventually, to the top.

Essentially, there are three things you have to do to get your website ahead of your competitors and to the top of Google’s listings:

1. Organically search engine optimize your website.
2. Regularly add new content to your website through a blog, articles, white papers, case studies, testimonials and more.
3. Build one-way links from high quality content to your website in the form of link wheels.

Let’s take each of these in order.

Organically search engine optimize your website

I won’t do a link building campaign for a client until their website is search engine optimized. Why?

Because Google places more and more inportance on the quality of your website. is your code clean? Is it W3C compliant? Do you have unique meta tags for each page of your website and do they reflect exactly what is on the page? Do you have too many keywords?

There is also the fact that you may be targeting keyword phrases that will be impossible to ever compete for. Yes, there may be 500,000 searches per month for your keyword. But if you’re going after a keyword that multi-billion dollar corporations are also going after with million dollar marketing budgets and a staff of 30 people plus marketing consultants and SEO consultants on the team, do you really think your website will ever see the light of day?

Not a chance in hell.

That’s why you need to have your website search engine optimized before you start building links. The research we do before we make any changes to your website tell us which keywords will be effective for you and which ones we have a really god shot at getting you to the top of Google for.

Regularly add new content to your website

This one represents another huge factor Google looks for in a website. The thing to remember is that Google doesn’t care about you or your business. They don’t make their money off of helping you. They make their money by steering searchers to the best, highest quality, most informative websites on the Internet.

Notice I didn’t say anything about the biggest.

Google is not going to steer people to a website that never adds any new information. The world is constantly changing. And people are constantly looking for the latest information about the subject they are interested in.

I don’t care if you make buggy whips. There is always something knew related to your industry, your products, research, history, materials, how-tos, little known facts, who uses them and why, the best way to use them, how they’re made, how they used to be made, why the new materials are better, why the old materials are better…

As I said at the top of this blog post, add new content to your website through a blog, articles, white papers, case studies and anything else you can dream up. And don’t forget about adding videos. Since Bing came on the scene, Google and Bing have been slugging it out for the top search engine for videos. And it’s way easier than you think today to create good short videos.

I know of one local Internet Marketer who created 30 one minute videos in an hour and had them all posted all over the Internet (and all over his site content) before the next day was out. I know how he did it.

Build one-way links from high quality content to your website

This is the third leg in the ongoing process of SEO. Again, notice I didn’t say anything about “the third step” or “once you’ve finished the first two steps.”

SEO isn’t something you just do and then it’s done. The organic SEO on your website needs to be regularly monitored to make sure that Google when Google changes how they rank websites, you don’t get slammed and not know it.

Believe me, that can be a rude surprise and you need a professional who knows your website and your keywords and who can tell you what needs to be done about it. Now.

Okay, so on to link building.

The current belief among SEOs is that this is now the most important part of SEO. Google tends to treat the Internet as one big popularity contest. The more links you have from high-quality websites related to your field or products, the more important your site must be.

It makes sense. Even with all their money and high-powered geniuses, Google doesn’t have the resources to have a team of people looking at every website and monitoring all the other websites and deciding which ones should be in what order. So they look at how many links a website is getting on a fairly regular basis, where they are coming from, and what the anchor text of the link is. (The words “anchor text” are the anchor text of that link to more information on, your guessed it, anchor text.)

Creating links

Right now, everyone in the Internet Marketing field is concentrating on creating link wheels (at least everyone who is successful in the Internet Marketing field is). It used to be that you could just put a bunch of content out there on the Internet and link it back to your website and that was enough. Not anymore.

Google knows that natural link building is more complex than that. So it discounts obvious, straight to your website links.

And don’t waste time swapping links with other websites. Google almost completely discounts swapped or reciprocal links. They know exactly what they are and find little or no value in them. Your time and money are much better spent on creating link wheels.

What are link wheels?

Think of a spider web. At the center of the spider web sits the spider (your website). And there are strands that lead from the outside anchors (related content) back to the spider. but very few of the links back to the spider are a straight line. Most of them are branched to other strands or interconnected in some asymmetrical way.

And that’s how a link wheel should look. Related content on other websites that eventually lead back to your website but take a random route to get there. Remember, there are no straight lines in nature and Google expects naturally created links to your website to reflect that basic tenet.

The Secret To Successful SEO

The true secret to successful SEO and getting to the top of Google comes down to one thing and one thing only:

Consistent, long-term development

First, once your website is organically search engine optimized, you make sure your SEO professional is regularly monitoring the site and sending you monthly reports.

Second, you consistently add new content to your website.

Third, you consistently add new links to your website from a wide variety of different sources such as business directories, article directories, video directories, blogs, PowerPoint listings and the other sources of high quality, high page rank links.

Either you need to have your employees doing this or you need to hire a professional to do this.

When I put together a complete Online Martketing program for my clients, they often request that I train their employees in the simpler aspects of link building and content creation so they can double up my efforts and get even more bang for their buck.

Conclusion

You can follow the link to learn more about how I do Online Marketing programs for my clients. You can also read some excellent reviews of different Website Marketing tools you can use yourself or in concert with your Online Marketer.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Emphasize Your Website Content (logicpath.com)
• Using Google Analytics for Milestone Tracking (logicpath.com)
• SEO & Social Media Track: Show Me The Links: Real Life Link Building (bruceclay.com)

Bob McClain or WordsmithBob, has been a website copywriter in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, since 2000. He has focused on developing new, more effective approaches to web writing, web content, web copywriting and Search Engine Optimization. Starting with a BA in Technical Communication and a minor in Creative Writing from Metro State University in St. Paul, McClain has worked diligently to end the use of "corp-speak" and "technospeak" online. His approach is to “humanize” the Web, using real information to guide people to buy rather than turning websites into advertisements that people can easily ignore. McClain is also the creator of Cheap SEO Website Marketing, a website devoted to helping people with the best solutions to DIY SEO at an affordable cost with tips and software reviews. More at Cheap SEO Website Marketing

WordsmithBob

View all posts by WordsmithBob
WordsmithBobs website

PHP Freelancer

Originally posted 2010-06-14 09:30:30. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

• Combining Blog Commenting with Cheap Internet SEO Tool One of my clients recently signed up for my online Internet SEO tool to make...
• Incoming Link Popularity Trumps All Other Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization have a lot of different facets to it. You should make sure...
• Link Building - Why You Should Be Building Links Every Day [/caption] Link building is more important than you know. I was chatting with the CEO of...

• Unique SEO Content You are probably already aware of how important link building...
• A Look At The Function Of The Internet Marketing E-book Electronic books or e-books are traditional books in digital form....
• Tips for Creating Quality SEO Content This is a guest post! If you want to write...