Search engine optimization is misunderstood and despised by those who have had consistently failed at using it, or have been repeatedly beaten by those who were successful with it.
These failures often stem from not understanding the dynamics of the behind the scenes battles that go on for search positioning. It is also a shame to see bright new folks not understanding the field in which they work. It is one thing to be ambitious and competitive - it is quite another to be outright delusional about what you can accomplish. Success is often created by knowing where to start, and how to scale, and which battles will be lost before they are ever fought. A smart general (or SEO) never fights a battle unless they KNOW they can win. This post is intended to be a guide to understanding the fight that takes place for every single search result, and how to know which battles have acceptable odds based on the competition.
Organic search results ARE NOT "free traffic". It is paid for in a much different way, with calculated risks and rewards. You WILL NEVER rank for the single term "mortgages". In fact, I give you very poor odds for every ranking for "Ohio mortgages" unless you are quite proficient at understanding
Top rankings will always consist of 3 main points - The old stand bys ( - 2. The superiority of defense -
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"Domain names may play a big roll not only in anchor text, but also in overall domain credibility, linkability, and defensibility." -
3. The new era of competition -
"I just hired a billion linkbuilders and I am not paying them a single cent!" -
1. A good flanking move must be made into a niche that has not been discovered or exploited by the market leader.
2. Your site should not be discovered until it is a defensible position within the niche.
3. Learning from the process of high ranking is as important as achieving the top position itself.
1. Find a search result small enough to make it defensible.
2. No matter how defensible the site in your specified niche becomes, don’t act like the leader of the vertical
Example: When you become number one for "engineering jobs" don’t start emulating monster.com
3. Understand when it is time to move to the next niche, and when opportunity cost outweighs the marginal value for growth. Know
Within any search results, there are war stories. Most of these battles are never heard about, seen, or understood, but the understanding of them, and experience in them for those that do is invaluable. These stories and experience are the basis for the future direction of search marketing strategy within many companies, and are shared over IM, and at conferences between those who have built rapports of trust much stronger than any NDA. Some of the more generalized stories, or less important stories come to light after the first few beers at a search conference. Many of the most competitive webmasters have become veterans to certain industries that thrive based off of their search results, and share stories of joy and distress based on the strategic direction decisions made long before the algorithm updates that can make or break revenues for months at a time. To hear your first SEO war story just ask anyone who was around for it how their site was affected by the . Then ask them about it’s impact both before and after on their entire marketplace. Welcome to the battlegrounds - please don’t enter
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