By Alexis Dawes
Expert Author
There's an old saying that goes, "God takes care of babies and idiots. "
Truly this statement applies to me, because when it comes to my search engine optimization skills, I'm on the idiot side of scale. But that's okay because idiots are loved, and can easily survive in the search engine game too.
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Let me explain.
Although NONE of my 6 web sites rank in Google's top 10 (or top 20 and 30 for that matter), and I only advertise 2 of my sites using AdWords, Google still helps me make a lot of money.
That's probably because I went into this search engine optimization 'thingy' with a grain of salt. I don't keep any secret arsenals of software tools that reverse engineer web sites to figure out why their ranking high. I haven't read any of the latest must-have volumes on search engine optimization. (Although they're on my to-do list when - and IF - business ever slows down. )
And still my MVP Google does its best to make me happy. And I do my best to give its searchers relevant content. But not in the way that most SEO savvy webmasters would recognize
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"It's actually very easy to get traffic from Google if you think outside the box. "
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My strategy for getting traffic from Google is quite simple.
You see I don't go out of my way looking for link partners. My sites are basically 1-2 page sales letters, and nobody wants to link to me, unless they're getting paid.
Nor do I put a tremendous amount of effort into on-page optimization. I sprinkle my targeted keyphrase here and there, and I'm done with it. I write for my paying customers.
What I do is follow this process:
1) I find other established sites that already have good PageRank and adequate incoming links.
2) I make sure these sites add new content every day. Sites with frequently added content get visited by the Googlebot often. . . sometimes every day.
3) I then place an advertisement on these sites, promoting my actual web site. When the Googlebot pays these sites a visit, the ad itself (NOT my web page) is ranked in Google for the keyphrase I've used. On many occasions my ad's have reached the #1 position in Google for my targeted keyphrase, in as little as 48 hours.
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"Where can you readily find such sites? "
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Believe it or not, a handful (literally a handful) of classified ad sites fit the description to a tee.
Backpage.com (http://www.backpage.com/) is one of them.
Backpage.com is a free classified ad service run by New Times, a publisher of alternative news weeklies. They offer classified ad listings for 14 US cities. However even if you're not in one of their specific cities, you may still place an ad.
Certain advertisements placed through Backpage.com have reached top 10 positions in Google. The ad's that get favorably indexed in top 10 positions normally have less competitive keywords in the title. My personal synopsis is that these are keywords that receive fewer than 3, 000 searches a month, according to the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool.
An example is 'mobile pc repair. '
This is a low-traffic, but extremely targeted keyphrase.
If you do a search on Google for 'mobile pc repair' you'll notice an ad placed on Backpage.com is featured in the #5 position. Okay, so it's not the best advertisement in the world, but that's irrelevant.
The point is--
* The ad got indexed in a top 10 position in Google.
* Backpage.com allows advertisers to include web site links in the advertisement. So even though this particular advertiser didn't include his/her URL, they very well could have. This would've generated traffic to their site.
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"My point?
This is cure for getting targeted traffic while waiting for your actual web site to get ranked. "
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Early February 2005 webmaster forums around the world were abuzz with groans, gripes and periodic fits of happiness.
Why?
Because Google was doing a major update (dubbed Allegra).
Sites that had ranked in the top 10 for years were being mercilessly tossed around. Other sites that hadn't gotten any decent rank in the past were beginning to see the light. And still others didn't notice any changes.
As for me. . . well my actual sites still didn't rise much in the ranks. I'm still hovering somewhere around #50+.
But that hasn't phased me one bit.
I look at the big picture and understand that getting traffic from Google is much more than having my site reach the top 10.
If I have 50 advertisements (similar to the one's from Backpage.com) that are in top 10 positions, and they're all delivering traffic from targeted keyphrases, I haven't lost anything. All those keyphrases delivering trickles of traffic equal a flood of clicks and orders at the end of the day.
Not a bad deal for somebody who's SEO illiterate. I guess the old saying is true. . . God really does take care of babies and idiots.
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