Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off

CHAPTER 14

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION SIMPLIFIED

While there are several search engines that arguably could be entered into a discussion about search engine optimization, I only refer to Google because all other search engines wish they were Google, and they are doing their best to emulate it. If anyone ever does pass Google, it's quite likely these same ideas would apply.

While there is an entire industry set up to provide Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to help businesses and websites get ranked on online search engines like Google.com, there are precious few honest experts that will tell you that there is absolutely no way you can ever be assured of a good ranking online. Even if you are fortunate enough to get ranked well on Google in the short term, the odds are against you being there long term, unless you are both fortunate and focused in your efforts to maintain your rank using legitimate strategies.

I've encountered countless website owners that could have sworn they had cracked the Google code, but inevitably they've all realized a harsh reality (or soon likely will): Google is too smart to be fooled long-term. Only quality sites that meet the Google standards will be rewarded. Anyone can go from page 1 on Google to page 431 overnight. Pretending that this could never happen to you is simply inviting disaster. I've chosen not to rely on my Google rankings as a result, and neither should you in my opinion.

However, after saying all that, you should still do your ...