Linking & Optimization for Better Rankings & More Traffic

Mike Grehan of MarketSmart Interactive, one of the fathers of SEM, promised to talk about linking and debunk some myths of search. If you have been reading MIke’s articles lately, perhaps you would not need quite so much debunking.

Mike went back to the beginning and asked the audience a few questions. “Why should your pages be at the top of the search engines? Who else thinks you are the best?” These are some of the key questions that you need to be able to answer or else you will not be able to rise in the search results.

You need to prepare and think like an end user. After all, describing your site is not what a user will type into the search engine. You need to be able to describe who you are, what you do, what you are known for, and what your message is. You need to understand what the end user thinks, and to do this you need to talk to people outside your organization.

So how important are all the on-page optimization techniques such as H1 tags, meta tags, Page Rank, etc.? Mike played an audio file from an interview with Matt Cutts where he asked him about this.  When asked if people obsess over all these things, Matt said, “Yes, there are over 100 factors involved.” They are important, but they are not the be all and end all. They are not the facet that matters most: content.

Linking was the last category that Mike covered. This seems to be one of the most controversial topics out there, with experts on both sides vehemently explaining how they are right and the other side is wrong. Mike makes a lot of sense when he talks about Google’s basic principals where he said “the best links are editorially chosen” and that you should avoid link schemes that are created just for the purpose of linking for SEO. You don’t know who you will be associated with you, and rapid jumps in links can raise major red flags. It is fine to buy links for traffic - as long as you use the “nofollow” tag.  When pressed further in the Q&A session, he talked about how buying links is not natural, but he did imply (although left unsad) that getting links (paid or free) from people in your community can be beneficial.

After all, content is still king.