In this grand old world of search engine optimization, technicians, advocates and clients alike all tend to get caught up in the terminology, the latest analysis of the Google “slap,” an interpretation of the most complex algorithms and the tactics necessary to jump ahead of your closest competitors within the search engine rankings. Many snake oil salesmen will tell you that you should just focus on following their techniques and opening their bag of tricks and you can get your latest “made for Adsense” masterpiece way up there on the rankings.
As the Internet market as a whole has become more and more mature and as search engine mechanics develop accordingly, we see that it is far less likely for an artificially enhanced webpage to achieve good rankings. So much emphasis is now placed on quality of content as opposed to pure technicality that it behooves each one of us within the Internet marketing arena to strive for top quality content.
Those of us who have been around a while sometimes get frustrated when they see sites that have little to contribute appear within higher positions on search engine results pages, but as time goes by they are becoming fewer and fewer. In short, you need to make sure that your site contains remarkable information and is designed as part of an overall marketing initiative to provide something of significant value. Once you are able to do this and to demonstrate that you go above and beyond, then results for you will naturally follow. We know that authority sites have no problem in linking to other authority sites, or to sites that provide significant value and you should really be sure that you deserve your place at the top of the search engine results before you strive to get there.
We often hear that the cream rises to the top and this is appropriate here as well. You should not spend too much time fretting about your search engine optimization unless or until you are sure that the product or service that you have to offer, or the information that you are trying to disseminate is first class and worthy of a position ahead of its peers.
As the search engine engineers hone their skills we are likely to see even more emphasis placed on quality of content and social proof. Reputations will be more important and you should spend more of your time developing and perfecting your Internet reputation as part of an overall search engine marketing approach, rather than through egocentric search engine optimization efforts!
How have you got noticed?
Matthew Toren
Featured on:
In my experience this article is spot on. Having great content is what gets you the quality links and references that create a truly successful website.
Gimmicks if they work at all are often only fleeting successes without the quality content to back it up.
Agreed!
We are no longer in the days of all you need to do is, do a few back end techniques to a page and voila! there you are in the first page.
The internet is starting to becomes its own medium, unlike newspapers, tv, radio, or anything else it has tried to do. It is becoming more and more an entity of its own, which is interaction, and ways for users to engage in your content. and only if your content is relevant and worthy of a user interacting in will it rank well.
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Thanks and Regards
Noel for Nopun.com
a graphic design studio
Thanks for a great and very honest post. Getting noticed is a combination of delivering an excellent service and being visible enough for people to know that you deliver an excellent service. As business owners, we often get caught up in just delivering the service and not thinking about being visible.
Other entrepreneurs take the opposite posture and promote a less than good service assuming that marketing will make up for poor products. I think you share with us a balanced position in this article that will be beneficial to any reader.
Shallie Bey
Smarter Small Business Blog
Great Post. Great content isn’t good enough anymore. now you need to be awesome, connect and build relationships. that will get you noticed and followed
Awesome post once again guys. I’ve been preaching this to all of my customers for some time now. To your point, once you’ve created great content, then you can worry about getting eyeballs to it. The content is most important…what does Malcolm Gladwell say in Blink? You only have a second or two to capture someone’s attention. After you have your content, promotion is the next.
Personally, I like to tweet my blog posts, post them to my company fan page, start discussions about them in my LinkedIn groups, submit them to BizSugar and other social bookmarking sites, and leave links on blogs where relevant.
Thanks again for the great post.
Best,
Ryan Taft
Managing Principal & CEO, Catalyst Marketers
http:/www.CatalystMarketers.com
It’s true that search optimization can get you far but you really need remarkable content in order for people to return to your site. Content is king.