Turn a one-night-stand with Google into a long-term relationship

Google is like a girlfriend who won"(tm)t talk. You"(tm)re dying
to woo her, but when you ask her what she likes, she bats her
eyelashes and keeps quiet.

Now of course, Google isn"(tm)t going to talk anytime soon about
what goes into (and comes out of) its notorious algorithm "" its
proprietary secret formula for calculating which pages will get
listed when someone types in a search phrase.

Ah, but we SEO specialists and experts have our ways of figuring
out what that seemingly fickle gal named Google likes and what
she could care less about.

And, ahem, things have changed since 2001.

Google seems to be a lot more subtle and isn"(tm)t charmed by
obvious overtures like:

* Keyword stuffing "" Yes, an alarming number of webmasters
still do this and think they"(tm)re getting away with something.
If you haven"(tm)t been penalized yet, it"(tm)s because
you"(tm)ve moved onto other tactics that your competitors are
also employing. But it"(tm)s only a matter of time before what
separates you from the competition will come down to keyword
stuffing"¦and guess who ain"(tm)t gonna get asked to dance
anymore? Hint: It"(tm)s spelled Y-O-U.

* Reciprocal linking campaigns "" If you"(tm)re still relying on
this, trash it right now. You"(tm)re wasting time, money and
server space. And you"(tm)re spamming. You"(tm)ve probably got
hundreds of worthless inbound links from PR0 sites. And Google
will (if it hasn"(tm)t already) recognize the "˜footprint"(tm) or
template left behind by your link exchange software. Maybe you
think you"(tm)re being creative by naming your link pages
something like "Cool Stuff I Really Like." But once the clothes
come off and Google inspects the actual page, that savvy
gal"(tm)s gonna know she"(tm)s seen this one-trick pony before.

* Article exchange programs "" Strip it down and what you"(tm)ve
got is a ramped up link exchange program, with a bunch of extra
words around the links. Keep chasing this one and you"(tm)ll end
up right back where you started when mass link exchanges started
to crumble. Yeah, Google"(tm)s been around the block before on
this one. Think you can fool Google by doing 3-way linking, 4-way
or even 5-way linking "" if you can manage it? Don"(tm)t take
this the wrong way, but Google is smarter than you. By a
landslide.

* Article and content spinning programs "" If you think software
that spins articles into "˜unique content"(tm) will fool Google,
keep dreaming. But please, keep your fantasies to yourself. The
idea of writing just one article, popping it into a software
program that will generate new phrases and shuffle around
paragraphs, then spit out 100 versions of the same article"¦well,
that"(tm)s a brilliant idea. But Google is even more brilliant.
Check out anything written on the shingle theory and you"(tm)ll
know that Google is no dumb blonde. Shoot. There"(tm)s nothing
more deadly than a desirable female with brains, is there?

So what"(tm)s left? Well, in today"(tm)s competition to seduce
Google, the web sites that radiate natural charm and staying
power will win in the end.

Natural charm means that you appeal to both visitors and spiders.
This isn"(tm)t a new idea, but it"(tm)s more important than ever.
Because while the search engines get savvier and savvier, so do
Internet users and shoppers. And there are plenty of sites out
there who deliver the best user experience while attaining high
search engine rankings.

You can "" and should "" do the same. Instead of spending 3 hours
trying to adjust your title tag just so"¦why not write one so
that people who are looking at a search engine results page will
actually click on your link. That is the first of many obvious
goals, isn"(tm)t it?

There"(tm)s also a lot to be said about staying power. After all,
you are in this for long haul, aren"(tm)t you? If you"(tm)re
looking for a short-term relationship with Google, there are
plenty of tricks to get ranked fast and then drop like
yesterday"(tm)s drawers.

But staying power"¦ahhh, that"(tm)s what Google is really into
these days. Register your domain for more than a year or two.
After all, if you"(tm)re planning to be around for a while,
you"(tm)re going to want your domain for a long time.

Of course, we now know that Google likes combing through domain
registration information. And we really think that certain
subtleties like age of domain are becoming not-so-subtle factors
anymore in the race for first-page rankings.

Finally, think about all that time you"(tm)re investing "" I
mean, wasting "" on tactics like article exchanges and linking
programs. Instead, spend that time hunting down sites that will
actually want to do one-way links to you. They do exist, but you
have to find them yourself, not with a program.

Yes, this will take a little bit of work, and you may actually
have to pick up the phone to negotiate with a real person. But a
one-way link from even a lowly PR2 site or page will carry more
weight than 5 dozen 2-way or 3-way links from PR-whatever pages.
Trust me, those pages that are involved in mass linking programs
"" I mean, schemes "" will eventually drop to PR0 if they
haven"(tm)t already.

So that"(tm)s it. Be honest, charming, hard working"¦and stick
around for a while. You"(tm)ll win the girl "" er, Google ""
every time.

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Contact author & SEO specialist Diane Metz to write free,
exclusive content for your website. Her sites include
Crown CD Duplication (http://www.crowncd.com/),
which also specializes in CD replication
(http://www.crowncd.com/cd_replication.html)
for online and offline marketers.