Check the weather, but trust the birds.

May 11, 2010

I've got four dogs, and every morning I go outside to put the dogs into the yard, get them their water, etc. For the past few months (as is pretty typical this time of year in the Dallas area) it's often overcast and breezy. Sometimes the weather looks downright ominous.

For a while I would always check the weather at Weather.com to decide whether or not it was going to rain. If the probability was too high, I would keep the dogs inside. It was often the case, though, that it wouldn't rain even if Weather.com said it probably would.

At one point I made the correlation that when the birds were singing outside, chirping away and having a good ol' time in bird-like fashion, that it definitely would not rain — no matter how bad it looked outside. However, if the birds were silent and the clouds looked heavy, it almost always did rain.

I still check Weather.com when it looks ominous, but it's the birds' opinions that I really trust.

The point of my story is that just because somebody claims to be an authority on a thing doesn't mean you shouldn't trust the knowledge you've personally acquired over the years. The web is chock full of self-proclaimed "gurus" on every imaginable subject (especially Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization!), and some of those guys do know a thing or two, but many are only as accurate as Weather.com (sorry Weather guys). They've got a few of the variables right, and won't always lead you astray, but if you base all of your actions on their information alone, you're probably missing out on a lot of success.

I'm writing this now because there are lots of "courses" out there that promise to teach you a step-by-step method for making money online or ranking in the search engines. I got a barrage of emails this morning from some marketers I follow about yet another "magic button" system that does all of the work for you while you sip martinis and eat bon-bons. Sorry if that last sentence wasn't clear, my eyes were rolling around in a reflexive response as I typed it.

I'm not saying there's nothing to be learned from some of these courses. There usually are some kernels of truth in them. The point in this blog post is that you should not take such information as absolute, unchangeable fact. What works today sometimes won't work next year (if it lasts that long).

So if in your personal experience you've found something else to be true, even if it completely contradicts what I or anyone else says, if it's working stick with it. Don't question the birds you've come to trust just because Weather.com says it's going to rain.

Keep up with what successful marketers and SEOs are saying, because it can often give new insights or add an angle to your own knowledge that you hadn't thought of, but if they claim that what you're doing won't last and yet it's been working for many months or even years — who are you going to believe, them or your own eyes?

End the end, it boils down to this: check the weather, but trust the birds.

Posted by Jonathan Leger | Filed Under Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing, Blog | 64 Comments

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An open question about Search.

April 22, 2010

Well, it seems as if Facebook wants to own the web. But this blog post is not about Facebook or their plans. In reading the news item regarding their plans, however, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, made a comment that web pages linking to each other was a good model, but that more is needed.

I have often contemplated the idea of using links to rank web pages in the search results. No doubt it was a great idea, and still has a large degree of merit. But like any other great idea, once it's discovered that there's money to be made, us savvy business folks get busy making sure we swing the votes in our direction. That is, we get more links to outrank the competition.

That, of course, means that what you're seeing on page one of the search results is often (even usually) the result of businesspersons' efforts, not Google's ideal of pages that were "voted" there by other webmasters.

Maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe who's on top should be the result of who puts the most effort into making sure they're on top. After all, as I've stated in a previous post, just having a great product is not — and should not be — enough to make you successful. You have to get the word out. Right now, with Search, that means getting more links.

Of course, the idea of a democratic web is appealing. If a majority of folks believe Site A is the best, then Site A ranking number one is probably a good thing for most people. If Site B is liked by another large share of folks, then it being number two makes sense, and so on. But that's not what any of the major search engines' results look like right now for most queries.

Honestly, though, with all the time, thought and energy I've put into trying to discover a ranking "property" that cannot be so easily manipulated, I haven't been able to. Today, the ranking "property" that wins the game (especially in Google) is links. But links can be manipulated. Maybe "manipulated" is the wrong word. Maybe, as I stated earlier, it's right and good that those of us who put more effort into our rankings should be number one. So perhaps I should say that links can be "engineered"?

The problem, of course, is that it's just as easy (or hard) to rank a mediocre site as it is to rank a great one — especially in small niche markets that don't get a lot of attention from human reviewers. It's those spammy results that I believe fuel the SEO Puritans belief that any "artificially" acquired link is "black hat", or morally wrong. I, of course, completely disagree with that assertion, but I can at least see that side's point of view.

Since I've failed completely to come up with any great idea on my own, I thought I would put the question to you — my readers. Do you have a better idea about how search should work? Some understanding about what's wrong with the way it's being done now? Or is everything right in the world of Search, and should it stay that way?

After all, before Google came along, links were not a part of the search equation at all. After Google discovered that links were a great way to rank sites, now all search engines use links as a major part of their ranking equation.

So, dear reader, what do you think is the next "big thing" in Search?

Please post your thoughts in a comment below.

Posted by Jonathan Leger | Filed Under Search Engine Optimization, Blog | 139 Comments

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Google is god (and other nonsense)

February 11, 2010

I apologize in advance if you find the title of this post offensive, but I can't think of a better way to describe the way some folks seem to view Google these days. This post is to dispel the sheer nonsense of what these people are posting all over the web and to give you a more realistic view of the number one search engine in the world.

First, some background: when I launched The Best Spinner February 1st, I got a few people at the forum who were not customers posting nonsensical drivel that read (basically) like this:

"Spinning your content to make it unique won't work because Google knows everything, sees everything and has prepared for everything. They are smarter than you. You can't possible make a living online by writing and spinning articles because they are too brilliant for you to ever do that."

(Okay, so I exaggerated it a little — but not as much as you might be thinking I did!)

Now, after posting this hogwash, the posters did not offer some alternative method for succeeding in driving traffic to their own sites. They didn't post any information about their own success with any other method, and certainly gave zero evidence that anything they were saying was true or factual.

In fact, many of my Best Spinner customers and active forum members are very successful article marketers. Clearly what they are doing with spinning and article marketing works well.

I see this all the time.

Internet Marketing forums are littered with worthless drivel from failures and wannabes who for some reason are determined to try and drag everyone else down. They assume that because they have failed at some endeavor, no one else could possibly succeed, and so they go around bashing everyone who offers any information in regards to anything that's working for them.

Now for a more realistic view of Google.

1. Google is run by human beings, not divine entities.

This will come as a shock to the above-mentioned wannabes, but Google is just a piece of software written by lowly human beings. Smart and skilled lowly human beings, but human beings just the same.

That means it has flaws. The fact that it is an incredibly complex piece of software means it contains a very large number of flaws.

Is it good at what it does? Absolutely! Can it read the minds of the people who created the content which it indexes? Um, no.

2. Google boils down to simple equation: content + links = traffic

To rank well in Google, you need two things: Content for it to index and links to make Google think your content is more important than everybody else's. The more links you have to your content, the more important Google thinks your content is and the higher it will rank your content over the competition.

That's a simplistic way of putting it, but that's the basic gist of how Google works. It has always worked that way, and at least for the foreseeable future will continue to work that way.

That's because links are the only external factor that really gives a good indication of the popularity of a web page for any given set of keywords. It's not perfect, and so Google's results are not perfect, but it works generally well most of the time.

3. "If you work to get links to your site you're a fraud and a scammer." (Wrong!)

I've read this a lot. Folks who claim that the only "white hat" (pure) method for getting links is to let other people find your content and link to it on their own.

Okay, here's a question: if you never actively recruit links to your site, how is anyone else ever going to see it in order to add their own links to it? Um, they won't, and your site full of top-notch wonderful "white hat" content will never get indexed or ranked in Google.

Meanwhile, those of us who actively get links to our sites from other sites will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Is it somehow deceptive or wrong to build links in order to rank well? Think about it this way:

Let's say a businessperson creates a stellar product (we'll call it The Perfect Widget). They set up shop down a dirt road off a major highway and never do one ounce of advertising.

Let's say another businessperson creates a pretty good product (we'll call it The Good Widget). The Good Widget is not even close to being as awesome as The Perfect Widget, but the creators of The Good Widget set up shop right off the major highway and put up a massive sign to draw in customers who are traveling down the highway.

The Perfect Widget goes bankrupt and closes down, crying foul at The Good Widget and saying that The Good Widget somehow did something underhanded or wrong because it dared to take active steps to advertise its inferior product — whereas The Perfect Widget did nothing.

Would you agree with the owners of The Perfect Widget? Of course not. You'd say, "Get off your backside and do some advertising if you want to succeed!"

So to all of the nay-sayers who think that acquiring links to get traffic from the major highway that is Google, I say, "Get off your backside and do some advertising if you want to succeed!"

In Conclusion

Don't listen to the nay-sayers. Don't let losers and wannabes drag you down. Work at your business, work hard, and when you find a little bit of success, explore that method and improve on it. In time you will get where you need to be.

Good rule of thumb: if somebody bashes some method of traffic generation or business building but offers you no alternative, they're a loser or a wannabe. Ignore them.

However, if somebody speaks against one method while offering proof of their point of view and proof that an alternative method works better, pay attention.

Please post your thoughts and questions in a comment below.

Posted by Jonathan Leger | Filed Under Search Engine Optimization, Blog | 192 Comments

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