Want to quickly learn some powerful foundation principles of SEO and actually remember them. How? By connecting what you are learning about search engine optimization with yourself. How you like to be treated is a lot like google likes to be approached. Play nicely. Mean what you say. Don’t try to deceive. Share good stuff. Be authentic. Be specific with your words. Google’s search engine has gotten a lot smarter and its designers have continuously labored to engineer a search result that delivers as accurately as possible, "What you are searching for,” not some website that really has another agenda for your wallet, and pretending to be what you were searching for. So, google has the intent of pulling the disguise off of the wolf in sheep's clothing. But, keep in mind that google made around 59.06 billion in 2014 from paid ads, yes that is Billion with a BIG B. Therefore, google is not opposed to taking your money to put you at the top. So we have a dance going on between paid results and organic results, and the interesting thing about search engine evolution is that the overall strategies (that I will make crystal clear in this book) for long-term and short term success are starting to look surprisingly similar and easier to grasp. Put simply, google is becoming a lot more like us.
Disclaimer: The Search Engine Not The Company
I need to make a quick clarification, lest some folks think that this book is an entirely different subject. When I say, "Google is a lot like you,” I am speaking about google’s search engine, not Google as a company. This book is about long and short term strategies for the successful growth of your online presence.
Google Hates Being Manipulated As Much As You Do
I recently was making some updates on a client’s website. This site had been taken over by a guru of old, I found hidden over 6,000 words and a local address hidden on every page of the site. It just goes to show the black hats are still out there. Of course, I made very strong recommendations to the client that such be removed.
That word is able to conjure strong emotion, especially if you have endured a relationship with a control freak. Manipulation of search engines used to be quite easy, if you knew the right tricks. You could stuff a bunch of keywords like "presidential election results” on your site in a text color that matched the background color, therefore making it invisible. And then folks searching for "presidential election results” would find your site that sells the "fabulous ab-tracker workout machine.” You could get away with such things because, well a few years back, search engines just weren’t that smart. Amazingly enough, similar techniques can still be found today. I know this because I work on websites every day.
The developers at google were able to differentiate themselves from competitors by developing smarter search engines results. As a matter of fact, most of the attempts at search engine manipulation will, in fact, result in a negative consequence. Google will penalize such actions and your site won’t show up at all. Come to think of it, that’s probably exactly how you would react to such behavior. You would likely delete them out of contacts, unfriend them on Facebook, send a clear message, "don’t call me, don’t bother me, I don’t like being manipulated.”
It goes back to the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Cheers,
Joel Conner / Embroco Enthusiast