How To Stay One Step Ahead of the Google Dance

How To Stay One Step Ahead of the Google Dance


It's taken you 6-months of hard work, constant changes,
reading every shred of information on search engine
optimization strategy not to mention thousands of dollars trying out
web optimization tools and services.

Finally, you have a page rank of 5, you are listed in the top
10 on your major keywords, and you are seeing the benefit -
some decent traffic from Google and other search engines.

Then, as quickly as your search engine optimization strategy
begines working, it suddenly, and without notice, disappears!

You frantically look for evidence of dropped links, pages
not working, it HAS to be something you've done!

Well, the truth is, it may not have been anything you did -
turns out Google updates their algorithms every few months in an
attempt to improve it's search engine optimization strategy.

In fact, Google has shown that they are not afraid to make
major changes impacting tens of thousands of sites, businesses
and corresponding sales and profits.

Even more concerning, everything points to the fact they will
continue to make changes.

So what can you do to protect your search engine
optimization strategy and the resulting traffic critical to the
success of your online marketing?

There are some things you can do.

1. BUILD CONTENT WITH REAL, RELEVANT VALUE

Do you develop content just for search engines or just for
your visitors and customers?

The answer is both.

Truth is, your customers search for information based on
keywords. Use tools like Wordtracker
(http://www.highertrustmarketing.com/part/wordtracker)
to find those keywords.

Plan your articles around answering questions associated
with each keyword. Over time, you will build highly
relevant content that will be irrisistable to the search
engines - no matter how they change them.

2. LINK FOR QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY

One single link with a Pagerank (Google's term for ranking
sites) of 5 is worth 10 or more sites with a Pagerank of 3.

In addtion, as an important part of your search engine
optimization strategy, make sure your links include a brief
description (a URL only inbound link may be ignored), includes
important keyword and appears on a relevant partner site.

Avoid FFA's and most link farms, they may actually do you
more harm than good.

3. AVOID KNOWN MISTAKES

Common mistakes people make with their search engine optimization
strategy are:

- Cross linking unrelated sites, recent discussion with master
Affiliate Marketing pro James Martell recently brought this
issue to light
- Submitting to link farms, in many cases this will eventually
get your site penalized or even banned from the SE's
- Duplicate content. Many people feel the need to duplicate their
pages and make small changes for each search engine (also called
doorway pages) - however if this is not done properly, you will
get penalized
- Trying to load your content with too many keywords. Focus on
1-3 keywords only

4. USE GOOGLE ADS

While still unproven, it certainly has been found by many
in the search engine watch community that sites who use
Google Adwords or Google Adsense tend to appear higher in
listings.


5. VARY YOUR TRAFFIC GENERATION TECHNIQUES

Too many people rely on Google traffic for 99% of their
traffic. It's true, search engine traffic is the most
economical way to advertise online, but there are many
other ways to vary your traffic generation strategy.

Add these traffic generation techniques to your search
engine optimization strategy:

- Writing articles
- Running affiliate program
- Joint Ventures
- Viral "sticky" tools
- Press Releases

Yes - you need to dance with Google. By following these
techniques, you can actually lead your traffic generation
strategy rather than follow the Google dance.