This is in response to this
reply, but I felt like it deserved its own topic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ConiX
I wouldn't agree there aren't shortcuts. If you have a good phrase in less than 30.000 pages you can use blogs that are Google 'friends' (like weebly) and you'll rank in matter of hours, learned this on <referral link removed>
PLUS, you can get highly ranked using eHow articles, of course, content is VERY IMPORTANT and it's value in the first two methods I mentioned above.
If you're with a new site, you're a new kid in the block for the search engine, but if you're into the 'friendly' blog networks then you're hanging with some of the best kids in the block  |
I agree with you, but I don't.
In testing, I've been able to get links to a new Squidoo page listed in under 10 minutes for the first position of the first page on Google for a keyword phrase with just over 30,000 results. With about an hour and a half more worth of work, I was able to completely dominate the first page of results on Google. It took a couple days for everything to take effect, but then (and now, almost 6 months later), the first result is my Squidoo page and 9 of the first 10 and 13 of the top 20 results are in some way related to the Squidoo page. It was easy, but I'm sure a more competitive keyword phrase would require more work.
Does that sound like a shortcut? It might, but let me tell you why it's not. To date, despite having great ranking for that phrase and having a lot of text available for other phrases, the Squidoo lens has only had 44 visits. It hasn't made any money. Also, as I thought about some of the methods I used (which I won't go into detail about), I realized that, while they weren't blackhat, they were basically a form of Internet spam. Even though I didn't actually send anyone anything or post on anyone's blog, I also didn't create any unique value. If you're legit, taking similar "shortcuts" is going to undermine the credibility of your brand and your shortcut is going to hurt you in the long run.
There are quite obviously SEO techniques and some of them work better than others. However,
employing those techniques needs to revolve around creating value for your visitors. Nothing will replace doing things the right way. I certainly don't have anything against marketing, but I think spamming will only hurt you. Why not rather concentrate on creating value that people will talk about and link to organically? Your traffic will be higher, your ranking will be higher, and your conversions will be higher. Creating value takes time, effort, testing, and it isn't very sexy. You can automate some tasks and learn how to perform the quicker and smarter, but there just simply is no get-rich-quick-so-you-never-have-to-work-again-with-only-an-hour-of -work-shortcut-substitute for it.
In practicing SEO, your methods are as important as the results they produce. Before you do something, think about what that method says about you and your brand.
