2 Proven Ways to SERP Victory

Let’s face it,for free traffic,Google has been the only real game in town for a while.

Are there other ways,sure. And you should use them but ultimately you need to play Google’s game.

How do you play?

While not earth shattering,there is still one thing that Google prizes highly,being GREAT for its customers;that is,they strongly believe if they are exceeding their customers expectations then their customers will continue to come back and they will continue to get more.

Standard business practice really but they embrace it with a vengeance and it obviously is working.

Now the question becomes,what does Google,and the other search engines but particularly Google,think help them exceed those expectation.

That,too,is one primary thing;make sure that when someone is searching they are finding what they want;that is,give the customers what they are asking for

Again,a simple strategy and one that all business should follow (if they want to be successful at least

That brings up another question:how does Google decide if something – your Web site,sales page,blog,etc. – is something they want to promote to their customers.

Promote you say?

Well,think about it,isn’t that what the search engine results are,Google “promoting” various Web sites;the higher you are in the results the more they are promoting.

And isn’t that why you want to be high in the results because you want Google to be promoting you more than your competitors.

There are 2 proven things that Google has shown and continues to show that they value highly:

Content,or rather great content,and incoming links from “valuable” Web sites. Valuable meaning ones that Google believes provides great content,particularly “authority sites”.

Again,not revolutionary information.

This is what Google has wanted for years and looks to be what they will want for years to come. Their definitions of great content and valuable incoming links may alter but the principles remain.

Great Content

What makes great content would be a complete blog post or three in itself and so I won’t focus on that here but here is a good general guideline…

Google defines great content as content that provides good value to their customers,it must be very informational – remember Google wants to make sure they are giving their customer what they want or more than what they want so the better the information the better Google likes it and the better Google likes the person who provided the content – that’s you!

Incoming Links

What Google wants for links now isn’t what they wanted in the past. For the last couple of years they have been putting a lot more weight on social media networking and content sharing sites.

These are sites like Facebook,YouTube and Squidoo.

They have dedicated computers that constantly,24/7,index those sites for new content.

The content sharing sites Google likes are exactly what you need to help you because they let you provide both things that Google loves,great content and valuable links.

Since you can publish content on these sites and their links are so valuable this provides you with more “Google Love”

Ultimately there are 2 primary ways you can get targeted traffic from these sites:

1. The most obvious way is you’ll get better position in Google’s search results
2. Your great content will entice a certain percentage of people to click on links you have put in your content to your Web sites.

Powerhouse Sites – Use These!

Out of all the possible content sharing sites I have 3 absolute favorite sites that like to use:Squidoo,Hub Pages and EzineArticles.

Sure I use some of the other ones sometimes but I’ve found those 3 to be so much better in getting the results I want that 90-95% of my great content goes to those sites.

Yet again,this isn’t an “amazing secret” being released,as lots of people like and use those sites,hopefully you already do,but it is worth emphasizing them and making sure you are using them to get the best impact on your business.

Squidoo

Squidoo was created by famous marketing genius Seth Godin – read some of his books if you haven’t – and to publish content on Squidoo you create a Lens.

While Squidoo has other tools and even a revenue sharing plan,we’re interested in the content creation here.

With Squidoo it seems like the longer the Lens the better,that is,the more content in each Lens the better Google likes it. I try to have at least 750 words for each Lens but most are much longer.

Take a twofold strategy when creating Lenses.

First, create lots of Lens over time,one a day is my goal.

Second,periodically update previous Lens’ so that they have “fresh content”,this keeps those Lens important in the eyes of Google.

Don’t put too many other modules (like eBay,Amazon,etc.) into your Lens. It distracts from your content and do you really want people to go away from your Lens to somewhere else for a few cents,unless it is your Web site.

I’ve also recently found that having graphic images on a Lens is helpful,so try to include them whenever possible;even just a simple chart or picture helps.

One thing though that isn’t a question though is the importance of tagging your Lenses with good keywords.

Make sure you tag each of your Lenses with relevant and good keywords (use the keyword research you did before writing to guide you here).

The final,and most important,thing to remember to do though is to make sure the Lens has great,informative content and it is all on the same topic. Don’t talk about your primary topic and then throw in one or two other unrelated topics;create new Lens if those other topics are so good.

Finally,(didn’t I say the last one was the final thing) make sure you have links for your Web site and a way that they can contact.

For those who want a quick introduction to creating a Lens,I found this YouTube video:

Hub Pages

Hub Pages is another content sharing site that Google loves and it has some great tools to help you create great content.

I’ve found that,like Squidoo,the more content on a Hub the better and I go for at least 1,500 words for my Hub Pages.

There also looks to be a “reward” for having graphics and video on your Hubs so be sure to include them.

Good Hub Pages are built similarly to good Squidoo Lens but Hub Pages are much stricter in what you can and cannot do so it may take you a while to resolve a flagged Hub.

Remember to create new Hub Pages and modify existing ones to help keep them fresh.

Basically,don’t do these things and you shouldn’t have many problems:

1. Have great informational content,this isn’t MySpace where you put lots of personal stuff. Have personality,but don’t create a Hub for just your personal likes and dislikes,for example
2. Do NOT have a lot of links,particularly promotional links and links to the same sites. More than 2 links to the same domain will get you immediately flagged
3. Have good tags,not only does this help you but you won’t get flagged
4. Don’t plagiarize or have duplicate content on your Hub. This will get you flagged and certainly lower your HubScore
5. Having a commercial Hub without setting your ad level to High

Follow those rules and you’ll have few problems with creating Hub Pages;I recommend doing one per day.

Ezine Articles

EzineArticles started as an article directory and,of course,it still is.

Today though,Google has bestowed upon I such authority that it has become a powerful content sharing site although it still looks and acts like an article directory.

This is where the real value to you is.

Creating an article is easy but you need to follow certain rules to make sure your article gets published:

1. It must be original content,they’ve very specific (picky!) about only having one copy of an article on their site so if you have PLR articles you’ll need to rewrite them (always a good thing anyway)
2. Like Hub Pages,they must provide good information not just be promotional
3. They must use good English,both spelling and grammar. They aren’t as strict as your old English teacher but they want it to be well written;after all,it does reflect upon them and the quality of their articles is why Google likes them so much
4. Don’t put too many links in,particularly links to your Web sites

Things you should do are:

1. Have a keyword rich title (you should do that for Squidoo and Hub Pages also)
2. Make your article about 500 words. Unlike Squidoo and Hub Pages don’t make them too long;no more than 750 or 1,000 words
3. a great resource box where you have links to your applicable Web site
4. Like all online marketing content,it should have lots of related keyword to maximize your search engine results. Of course,don’t put to many
5. Tag the article with your keywords

Create at least one per day and submit it to Ezine articles.

Conclusion

Use the 2 ways,great content and valuable back links,to achieve a higher search engine results position.

The best ways I’ve found have been to use Squidoo,Hub Pages and EzineArticles and try to create new content on each of them every day.

You should begin a consistent and systematic approach to creating great content to submitted to the content sharing sites.

As part of that content be sure and include graphics and video.

If you do that you’ll find that your SERP improves from all the incoming links to your Web properties and the great content you’ve created.

The more you do this,the faster your rankings will improve and the more targeted traffic you’ll get.

Leave a comment and tell me what you think and I’d love to hear how you are using social media to improve your rankings.

Talk soon,

David
The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer
http://www.8-8-8Sale.com
http://www.MusicForInternetMarketers.com
http://www.SecretsOfGoogleAdWords.com
http://www.MadMondaySale.com
http://www.2ForTuesdaySale.com

O.Y. If you want a good tool to help you with your SEO,I use SEO Elite and if you need to have some high quality content written for you,I use Need An Article and ArticleZ;they do a good job although they aren’t as swift as I would like – you know,I want great articles written instantly

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