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Life without Google feels good
July 30th, 2008I feel good right now. For seo horror, which I launched this month, I had a simple goal for the first few months: “Not give a damn about Google”. I know you’ll say it’s pretty dumb for a blog called SEO Horror, not to care about SEO, but In fact I think it’s a pretty good SEO strategy.
Let’s be honest here, I still care a little bit about Google, but only for long term benefits. When launching this blog, I did the traditional SEO tricks: link directories submissions, join social networks, on-page optimization, etc, etc. This means that not caring about Google does not mean not doing SEO. When I say I don’t care about Google, it simply means I don’t give a damn about my rankings so far.
The social strategy
My strategy with this blog is being a lot more active socially than I used to be with other websites and so far it pays off. This initial strategy was to get traffic from alternative sources and with that, the Google traffic will come. You know, it’s extremely hard to make your way into the Internet Marketing business because there are just so many websites out there and so many SEO being done. It’s hard to get good ranking for popular keywords and for that reason, I didn’t want to spend all my free time just to get decent rankings. The way I see it is: if my blog is good enough and that I’m an active blogger, traffic will come from alternative sources like other blogs and social networks. I must admit I’m getting decent traffic from these sources and I’m extremely satisfied.
The John Chow example
I used not to like John Chow and now I must admit his marketing strategy is one of the best out there. John Chow got penalized some time ago by Google for a too aggressive SEO campaign and for that reason, he’s not even ranked for his own search terms “John Chow”. If you type “John Chow” on Google you won’t get johnchow.com in the results for that reason. Then, how do you explain this guy is one of the best known blogger and has some really good traffic? The answer is quite simple: he has Internet Marketing strategies outside of Google. Yes he does use controversy a lot and viral stuff as well but he’s damn good at that.
We can’t all be John Chow
I can’t use a marketing strategy similar to John Chow’s strategy for the simple reason I’m not John Chow. I’m not good at generating controversy like he his and it’s not part of my personality anyway. I know what I’m good at and I use it in my own social strategy. What are your social skills? I know for my part I make friends easily, get a long with mostly everyone, I’m a good marketer and I’m also good at selling stuff in an honest manner. That being said, I know I can’t fake personality traits so I use what I’m good at. Write your social skills on paper and think about how you can use those skills in a social strategy to generate traffic.
Feels good
Not caring about Google feels good because you concentrate on what’s really important: building a network around you. Nobody can act alone in the web Business, you need a network around you. Google won’t give you that network, so you have to build it on your own. Then, the Google rankings will surely come anyway. I used to care too much about Google rankings and forget about what’s really important. Yes, this was giving me good ranking and traffic, but it was not as fun and didn’t have much friends in my niche.
You’re the master of your strategy
In the end, you do what you want. It would be stupid to ignore Google so YOU HAVE to do some SEO, but I don’t think it’s worth investing 100% of your time in that. You don’t want to be 100% dependent on search engines: alternative sources of traffic are equally important and you’ll get that traffic with a good social strategy. It’s your call as to what percentage of your time you invest in link building, seo, etc VS the time you invest in making friends and establishing your brand. The bottom line is that you have to do both correctly, but don’t ignore the power of a good social strategy.
24 Responses to “Life without Google feels good”
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One of the best SEO techniques is to create content for users and not search engine bots. Not giving a damn about Google works well as long as you do give a damn about your readers and the content you feed them width. Cheers!
to each his own… I do highly agree with your “social strategy” it’s good to become more social online.
I’m pretty much all social strategy here. I figure the search engine traffic will come if I produce some decent content and keep people coming around my blog.
I’ll have to wait and see how well that works, of course!
casualblogger:
Yep, so true. GI guess “give a damn about your readers” is the key!
SEO Strategies:
Thanks! I think becoming more social will be the key in the coming years. Thanks for commenting!
Ethan:
Keep me posted if the method works well for you!
I am newbie at proper blogging so it’s more like – I don’t know how to care about Google.
1. Make sure my site is indexed? Check.
2. Make sure I have propers sitemaps? Check.
3. Make sure my titles look sane? Check.
4. Filter out duplicate content on indexing pages with robots.txt? Check.
After that I considered that rest is Google’s work, not mine.
I am better writing deeper and more thorough post than desperately researching for arcane tweaks that are supposedly good for Google.
Rarst, continue this way for sometime, I feel like it’s one of the best way to establish your blog within the community. I also suggest you try to learn some SEO tips&tricks to increase your ranking in Google because it does make a difference in the end. But as you said, writing deep posts is really the key, content will always pay off in the end.
I am reading few blog-related blogs (I am reading yours obviously
)… I am just not inspired to implement everything I see that comes with “That will boost your Google position! Certainly! Well, maybe! I think it might! Or not…”
I was rather impressed when I had only few posts and only got indexed in Google – and immediately I got some hits from Google from people searching exactly what I wrote about. That wasn’t SEO that was Google connecting people with content they are looking for.
I understand it can seem like there are hundred of things you could implement to increase your rankings and everybody tells you it’s going to make you number 1.
If you go indexed and got traffic then it’s really nice because it means you target keywords very well (Even if it’s not on purpose…). What’s really important SEO wise is to create backlinks, then the rest will come. So, I guess that if you comment on blogs like you do on mine and continue to be active in the community, backlinks will come with no problems. You see, people tend to over complexify things when it comes to Internet Marketing, it’s really just a matter of putting your blog out there, write good content and being active in the community. Of course we could go on and on about more advanced techniques but for beginners it’s OK not to care about these techniques too much.
You’re on a good path. Your blog is really nice and I’m actually subscribed to it. Keep up the good work!
Yep, making good comments on other blogs is advice I like most and follow most.
>Keep up the good work!
Will do.
PS smiles in the comments here float left, looks weird
I know, smiles integration with text is bad in this theme. Will fix it someday!
Ahhh yes, great one Ben! I must say, from day one, I haven’t really been a Google fanatic. Yes, I am aware, but I don’t live and die for the green bar…..
Thing is, to me, it’s much more rewarding to get out and network, meet people, make friends and learn from others. By doing this, I feel I am much further along than I would have been, and I have met some great folks.
When you are well liked by others around the sphere, you start getting word of mouth, and link love, and all kinds of stuff. Google will come, like you said…that googlebot loves to crawl around the net, he’ll find pretty much anything that is setup with the basic SEO strategies.
Good job buddy.
Totally true and I actually like the term “link love”. I mean, when getting involved, people will talk about you on their website(like you did for me) and you’ll also link to them eventually(Yeah, I’ll write a little something about your website because it’s great when it suits what I’ writing about).
It’s all about networking.
Impressive place you’ve got here…
I have a lot to learn about the stuff you know. I’ll be back.
Thanks.
Thanks a lot Heather, I’m glad you like the blog!
“… If you type “John Chow” on Google you won’t get johnchow.com in the results for that reason. ”
I did that and I am still getting Johnchow.com in my search result on Google… or I misunderstood the whole thing?
Anyway, great reading since I have just started (actually restarted) my blog…
Cheers!
Thanks for your comment shaxx. The first result you get when typing John Chow is actually johncow.com (notice cow vs chow). johncow.com was created shortly after john chow got penalized by Google and was meant to be a parody of the real john chow. It finally turned into a full how to make money online website.
You will still get results about John Chow, but the domain johnchow.com is actually pretty far in the rankings!
I’m at one with you. The priority for improve on page rank is to have a good content on your site, but moreover, there are many engines that i don’t know how to put into practice (these, i’m here to learn).
Congratulations for the site. I’ll be back.
Ana
Thanks for your comment and glad to see you like the site. I look forward to reading more comment from you!
Bravo, I like this attitude. John Chow also got slapped so bad because he was blatantly selling links that pass page rank which is a big no-no. I totally agree with, everyone has their own style and personality and if you align your strategies that fit you then your websites will be much more natural and credible.
Thanks,
JR
I can’t imagine not worrying about Google but I bet it feels good. When doing seo the only search engine we all worry about these days is google – I think you are approaching seo the right way but not over-focusing on google.
JR: Thanks for commenting and clarifying the John Chow story!
Nextiva: I know it’s hard not to worry about Google as it’s the main search engine and it’s not suitable for every type of business. I know it’s possible with my niche because I’m doing it so far without Google, but some business that are heavily dependent on Google traffic can’t consider this strategy.
Thank you very much for the great information.
hello thank you for the post…..would you mine explain to me more further about your strategy….am not quite sure of what am understand……and how to take action in it..surely i will stick on it to effort in on my blog,since it my power source to gain traffic to my website.thanks
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