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It fascinates me how many people still do not accept the new SEO rules and are still trying to do the same steps they did a few years back.
* They spend a huge amount of time analyzing backlinks of their competition.
* They invest money on software that analyze backlinks of the competition on the first page of Google.
* They invest money on backlinking packages without knowing how to use them.
* They buy SEO courses that are based on gimmicks and tricks to fool search engines.
In 2010, the biggest HIT was .org exact match domains. Everybody talked about it and it was so simple to rank websites with it (and I did extremely well with it, too).
All you had to do was to find the domain, get some articles, put SEnuke X, xRummer or ScrapeBox in gear, and you are done. Of course, there were a few other tools and steps for doing this, but these two were the main ones.
You see, this is the old way of ranking your website on Google.
So, if you still follow this formula, stop it right now. You will lose. You need to apply the new seo rules
If you are starting an online business right now, you are LUCKY. Really!
This is the best time to start it because you will learn the new game of marketing that will lead to extraordinary results in the future.
What you are learning right now will work three to five years from now (just as long as you do not spoil yourself by learning the SEO formula from 2010).
You see, Google understands that they are going to lose the number one search engine status in the world if they will keep up with old and traditional SEO formulas for ranking websites.
Think about it.
How many different search engines do we have right now?
* Twitter
* Facebook
* YouTube
* StumbleUpon
* Digg
* and dozens of others.
Next time, when you need to find something, try to do the search on Twitter.
You will be amazed how many relevant results you can get there. Try it now!
So, by understanding the expansion of social media, Google needed to make a huge shift. And they did it by introducing the Panda update.
Now, the Google Panda update is not something that happened back in February 23, 2011. It consists of sequential parts that will lead to the following (are you ready for the next BOLD statement?):
So, How Does This Affect Your Business?
Well, Google’s social media shift has a huge impact on your business right now, and this impact will continue to grow throughout 2012 and beyond.
If you want to get traffic to your websites and get ranked on Google, you need to stop focusing on backlinks as backlinks and apply the new seo rules to your site.
You see, when backlinks were introduced as a metric to improve search engine rankings, it was meant to be as a vote for your website.
Instead, it became a perfect means for manipulating and fooling search engines.
You can use spam comments, dead forum profile links, .edu sites and other tactics to fake those votes and get your website to the top.
Today it becomes different.
In reality, the backlink that doesn’t drive real human traffic or is not relevant to your website topic will not stick.
It means that even if you get the backlink indexed on Google today, it will be gone within 30-45 days. So, if you continue to build backlinks in old school style, you will always fight against the terms of this business.
(This is the reason why most people can never achieve top rankings in Google. They just spin wheels all the time.)
In the end of the day, the ROI of your business will just not be there and the only people who will continue to make money are SEO guys and link building service providers.
(I have said this before, but let me point it out again: If SEO gurus and backlink service providers are so good in ranking websites on Google, why the hell do they need to provide services to other companies when they could just rank their own websites and make millions from affiliate commissions? It just doesn’t make sense. Think about it.)
Excellent post, I have seen these changes and have noticed that my pages are getting on Google faster these days. It’s nice to read why – I really didn’t understand it so thanks for the post.
Nancy Radlinger recently posted..Make Huge Profits With Time-Tested Affiliate Marketing Strategies
Excellent post Craig, your cleared up a few questions I had regarding SEO and how to use it more effective when done right.
Robert Butcher recently posted..Global NPN – The Best Tools For The Internet Marketer
Thanks Robert.
Glad this could help you
Hey Craig, I am one of those new to SEO so I guess I am starting at the right place and right time. Thank you so much for writing and sharing this information. You are so right about those SEO companies, if they know so much they should be on top of the Google search engines everyday. I know of some companies that train and teach because they want to give back to the industry. It sounds like you are one of those Gurus. Thanks for sharing. Gerry
Absolutely Gerry
You are starting in the right place. Just keep this in mind when starting new sites
Thanks
Craig
Hey everyone reading this post. I have know Craig a long time and thanks to him I made good money last year with SEO. Now I am not arguing with anything Craig said in the blog post because he is 99% correct. He should have said unless they are trained by him in marketing. Craig lit a fire under me and I got real interested in SEO. As an old aircraft mechanic I wanted to see how things worked under the hood and what made the motor run. Well thanks to Craig and Nancy last week my company inked a contract that will pay 40k this year and we have 3 more companies interested in what I do. Now, not everyone will have this success unless you listen to Craig. You might not become an affiliate marketer and find something that fits you, but unless you follow what Craig teaches you will not get anywhere. You can go and pay a lot of money for as Craig says Goooooruuus and you might not get the interaction and encouragement from working with Craig. If you are afraid of tough love then you probably shouldn’t waste Craig’s time because he is honest and sometimes people that want to be a groupie should go elsewhere. If you want success, then Craig is the man. BTW I have testimonials from clients that can verify my success that I owe to Craig Caron.
Man Greg. Thanks so much for the awesome comment/testimonial. I am so proud of everything you have accomplished. You are one of those 1 percenters that took action and I cant say enough about you. The only thing that sucks is sometimes after I light that fire I dont really get to hang out with those people anymore because they get so busy but no matter what dude I have learned alot from you and man your awesome.
Love Ya Brotha
-Craig
WOW Greg – this is awesome news and I always knew you would get there – you were ALWAYS one that took anything that Craig taught and ran with it – you took action and it has paid off – so proud of you.
Nancy Radlinger recently posted..Great Article Marketing Tips That Can Work For You!
Thanks Nancy for the comment. Always a pleasure to see you on the blog
Thanks Craig for sharing this. I’ve really picked something from it. I’ve been doing SEO recently and I’ve planned on doing it continuously but reading your post has made me to sit back and think how best to incorporate social media properly to what I do. I’m on your 90 days listing building training and been learning a lot. Not been able to show up on the live webinars due to the time differences.
Thanks a lot.
SEO comes naturally to me as it should to any marketer. Simply think who you are trying to reach when writing an article then word it accordingly. The newspapers have done this for years.
I proof read every article that I do so that I avoid typos that make me look unprofessional and so I can spot phrasing that could be changed to rank higher in searches.
Backlinks are still an important facet of an internet presence. They cannot, however, be built using a backlink farm that promises to put a link to your site. This will inevitably put your site into what Google considers a ‘bad neighborhood’ so *YOUR* ranking then suffers. Build backlinks based on mutual interest then they offer something that makes your site of interest in the search rankings.
SEO and backlinks have their place. High quality content is what Google and the other players are looking for so that should be your main focus
Ian Dixon recently posted..Ian Dixon wrote a new post, Is Article Marketing Worthwhile?
Hey Ian. Your correct. What you said is very similar to getting traffic. You have to think who your trying to reach just like traffic you have to take a step back and figure out where your crowd is and how this will help that crowd find the solution there looking for
Hey Craig,
Thanks for the great explanation of how SEO has evolved with the changes that Google has made over the past several months.
Jon
Your welcome Jon. Thanks for stopping by
Hi Craig
When it comes to backlinks if you create brilliant content it will just happen naturally as everyone will want to share it. The worst thing you can do is create a splog and expect for it make you rich.
If I search for something I want to find it not a crappy website full of affiliate links for related things. Thankfully google do an excellent job of being one step ahead of most marketers. If they start giving out crappy results people will search elsewhere and the advertisers who pay the bills will move away as well.
Remember google is a billion dollar company, any loophole is not going to last, and if you think that sharing it for a low one time price of $47, wait $27, wait $7 is a good deal then more fool you.
Oh, and it was thanks to the wonder of facebook I found your post.
Andrew
Andrew Stark recently posted..Do You Make These 7 Newbie Mistakes With Your Internet Marketing?
Thanks Andrew for the enlightenment. Very true indeed
Thanks for sharing so clearly a major issue, Craig.
Backlinks wil still continue to enhance the position of any solid content site and should be used judiciously.
One simple way we have found to engage this practice is to meet with and talk to other Content Creators withing the niche we are working in.
We call it “cross promotion” and has proved VERY effective
Chuck Bartok recently posted..Cross Promotion, an easy Path to Social Media Success
Thanks Chuck. Yes your right in a way. Backlinks will still be important but links that do not drive traffic or are not relevant to your website has less impact on your rankings.
But following the Google Panda formula will cut your backlinking and time in half.
The tests I been doing on several niche sites have proven that google wont rely on backlinking as much for rankings and I believe by the end of this year it will be more so towards social interaction and branding.
Thanks for your comment Chcuk
This is truly great value Craig, I would hate to take the time needed to build backlinks the traditional way only to have it removed by google after a matter of 30-45 days. Thanks for sharing bro.
It’s a relief to hear that. After all, it makes sense… your content needs to be relevant, and I guess through social bookmarking the search engines will do a better job of seeing what is relevant. Of course you could have an army of microworkers tweeting and “like”ing your links… lol