Today I’ve received yet more misleading information about SEO. The problem is, many people will be convinced by the promises of getting high search engine rankings. Let’s be clear about this. Google has some great advice to webmasters. That says, the best way to get the highest rankings is to have an up to date web site, with focused content in text format. Simple, straightforward and a surefire way. Google knows what gets to the top of its listings – fresh, busy web sites with lots of articles, text etc.

Yet, we are besieged with advice on search engine optimisation, as though getting to the top of Google were possible with some “trickery” or by having the correct code in your pages. This offer I received today was no different. All I had to do was spend my money and I’d get “secrets” that would guarantee me top positioning on the search engines. There was even a video that provided “evidence” of the system. However, what the video didn’t explain was the fact that the search term for which it claimed high rankings was actually not a term being typed in by people. A simple check with Wordtracker was all that was needed to work that out. The video also showed the owner’s site being at “Number 5” in Google. Yet, a simple ranking search on Google showed it doesn’t appear in the Top 50. Many people won’t make these checks; they will believe what they are told, pay their money, get the “secrets” and get ranked for search terms that no-one is looking for anyway.

So, for free, here’s how you get ranked by the search engines. Provide something of value to people. Write about it and include loads of information about what you provide. Have background articles and update the information regularly (via a blog is best). Make sure the title of the page reflects what is actually on the page and uses the keywords people will be typing in. Write good material, update it regularly and you will get noticed by the search engines. It may not be a “system”, it might not be exciting, but it does work. How do I know? Well, for the first time in over 10 years, this web site appeared in the top 100,000 rankings of Alexa this week. In fact, I made the top 60,000 – not bad considering the billions of web pages I’m up against. Just a few months ago, this site was below 4 million in Alexa. All I have done is add content each week by blogging. More search engine rankings, a surge in readership, an increase in Alexa ranking, a jump in Google Page Rank from 1 to 4. All done without any “SEO” but with writing material instead.