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I will freely admit that I don’t know much about Search Engine Optimization, and truthfully, never really looked into it very much. That has been changing recently, and yet I find my confusion deepening. For example, I recently created a small niche blog themed, and SEO’d around “(something) topics”. Now imagine my puzzlement when Google Analytics tells me that the majority of search engine traffic for that site is coming via the keyphrase “(something) ideas“.
Note: I am deliberately obscuring the specifics of the phrases, because I don’t want to pollute the data.
So what exactly is SEO about? Essentially, it is optimizing your website or blog so that major search engines such as Google can actually find it, and list it in the search results, according to relevance. That’s the theory, anyway. In actuality, seo is the practice of optimizing your site so that you show up as close to the top of the results (called rankings) as you can make it. The Holy Grail of SEO is to have your site ranked #1 in Google for your chosen search term(s) or phrase(s).
In other words, if I had a site on model trains, I would be trying to optimize my content so that I ranked #1, or at least on the front page of Google for terms related to “model trains”. What I’m wondering is this: is the #1 spot the real goal? Or have we, as publishers, lost sight of the real goal of our writing? The big deal with top ranking in Google, or any other search engine, is to get targeted traffic, because targeted traffic is traffic that is actually interested in what you have to say. It is also traffic that (theoretically) will click an ad, or buy a product from you. Meaning that the actual goal is to make money.
Now to be fair, there is a measure of truth in this idea, because traffic equals money if you are in business on the Web. But it has not escaped my notice that amongst Internet Marketers there is an almost obsessive fixation with the afore mentioned #1 ranking. It seems to me that by spending inordinate amounts of time trying to move up from, say the #7 spot, to the #1 or #2 spot may actually be costing the marketers money.
Analyzing my search engine traffic shows me one thing rather clearly: with the exception of one accidental ranking, I have absolutely no #1 spots for any of the search results that are bringing traffic to any site that I own. In fact, I’m not even on the first page, again save that one accidental ranking. I say accidental, because I wrote the article in question with absolutely no thought to Search Engine Optimization whatsoever.
(The article is “How to Set a S.M.A.R.T. Goal“, if you’re interested)
Now standard marketing thought runs along these lines: Get the rankings up! Go back and SEO the heck out of your past articles, and SEO your new ones. Getting the Rankings should be your number one priority!
Hmmm… I’m willing to allow that I could stand to be, if not on the first page, at least a heck of a lot closer to the first page for my work. But do I really want to spend hours and days optimizing old content? Why? “To get more traffic”, the marketer replies. Ok, again, why? “To make more money, because traffic equals money”, espouses the marketer.
“To make more money”… hmmmm… If the goal is to make more money, why would I want to expend inordinate amounts of time in a battle royale for the coveted rankings on Google, or any other search engine for that matter. I agree, I do need to pay more attention to Search Engine Optimization than I have, but wouldn’t it make more sense to expend the bulk of my energies on activities that will actually make me some money? Activities like conversion? Or maybe articles that move humans more than search engine robots? Articles, content, and products designed for human beings, because it is a human being who will ultimately determine the value of my offering, in cash dollars. Not virtual rankings.
Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, make money
Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 1:16 pmand is filed under Blogging for Bucks, Business, Strategy, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
