Good Content - The Ultimate SEO Strategy
08/17/2006
The biggest
challenge an ethical website optimization company must deal with is the
expectations of clients. All too often a
client will expect the SEO to achieve top rankings on competitive terms for a
website that is nothing more than a brochure for the company. Usually this is just a misunderstanding about
SEO and how search engines work.
The primary job of
search engines is to provide quality search results. In other words, when a searcher types in a
keyword, the very first results should provide them with the most useful
information available on that topic. An
ethical SEO is not out to trick the search engines into giving top rankings for
a website that provides little more than a sales pitch. Any methods for doing so are merely a
temporary solution. Search engines are constantly working and adjusting their
algorithms to rank useful, content rich sites above the rest. Once the latest SEO trick is rendered
ineffective, you’ll be left having to pay more to try and get your rankings
back.
While it’s tempting
to go the quick and easy route to achieve better rankings, the very best way to
dominate the search results long term is simply to provide excellent tools and
information related to your industry.
You need content that other websites actually want to tell their
visitors about – and it’s not as hard as you think.
If you hang around
the major online forums in your industry for a while, you will see the same
questions and problems coming up over and over.
A good SEO can help to find the necessary information about what your
potential customers are looking for.
Once you know what their problems are, develop an online tool or custom
application to solve at least part of the problem. Here’s the kicker - then you give it
away. That’s right, free of charge.
It may seem
counter-productive to spend money to create a useful tool and then give it
away, but on the internet, free things make money. Now your website has become a much more valuable
resource for the kind of people that buy your products. Now you will be considered an authority in
the industry by the people using the application. Now your site is one of those sites that the
search engines are trying to find and raise to the top of the results, and most
importantly, your potential customers are telling others that have the same
problem by telling their friends and blogging about your site. The viral marketing effect on the internet is
capable of reaching far more potential customers than any company can afford to
pay for.
Getting quality
sites to link to a site that is nothing more than a sales pitch for a company and
it’s products is much more difficult, time consuming, and ultimately expensive
than actually providing useful content in the first place. You’ll find that when you give to your
potential customers, they will give right back in the form of purchasing your
products. So take a look at the sites
ranking in the top ten for your industry keywords and ask yourself if your site
truly deserves to rank above them. If
not, its time to make your website more valuable. Your future customers will thank you for it.