2004
Andrew Nattan is first published by the BBC
The Real Secret to SEO Success
This isn’t just a secret – this is an official Government secret. Honest.
How many times have you heard bloggers, gurus and SEO rockstar ninjas claim to know the ultimate secrets of SEO success? I’ll hazard a guess at “too damn many”.
From ebooks to spinning tools, every snake oil salesman will have their own dossier of SEO secrets that are guaranteed to blow the competition out of the water and leave you perched proudly atop the search engines – straddling Google, Bing and Yahoo like a colossus.
And they’re all talking out of their back passages. Because not one of these self-proclaimed experts have stumbled across the real secret. The one thing that’s absolutely guaranteed to take you to the top.
But I know what it is. And I’m going to share it with you. Here. Today. The one undeniable secret to search engine success.
So brace yourself. Because here it comes.
Have an Amazing Product
Wow. That’s earth-shattering. The secret to search engine success isn’t something trite like “content is king“. It’s not something that a rockstar can provide you with for £300 per hour. It’s exactly the same secret to success in any other aspect of business.
This isn’t an amazing product…
Provide your clients with something brilliant, and it’ll take you places.
It doesn’t matter if your product is a must-have gadget, or a tasty sandwich filling, if it’s good enough, it’ll top the search engines.
It’s simply a matter of putting it to work.
Putting Your Product to Work
Just having an amazing product will take you to the top. In time. But if you want to see quicker results, you’re going to have to give it a push.
And that’s not as daunting as it might seem. You just need to follow a few basic, workaday online marketing techniques. These aren’t secrets, but when you combine them with your brilliant product, they’ll deliver spectacular results.
Build a Brand
The first way to turn your winning product into successful SEO campaign is to build a brand around your product. A professional web presence, copy written by an expert and an offline advertising campaign are going to make people stand up and notice. And if those people identify with your brand’s values, you’re going to find the next step far, far easier.
Get People Talking
The next step is to get people talking about your product. Something which they’ll want to do, if it’s as good as you think it is. Glowing reviews, blog posts singing your praises and social conversations will all do their part to push your website to the top of the SERPs. So get out there and give people a nudge.
Ask for Reviews: There are thousands of places for a client to place a glowing review about your product (complete with a link), so suggest them to your clients. Explain to them that their views are important, and that you’re interested in what they have to say. Pander to egos, and you’ll receive the praise your product richly deserves.
Bribe the Blogosphere: Your product’s brilliant. So brilliant that every blogger in your niche wants one. So why not offer a leading blogger or two a free sample and ask them to write a review that links back to your site? Even better, ask them to write an honest review that’ll start a debate about your product, spreading awareness and generating links. Surely the amount of search engine exposure is worth a freebie or two?
Get Social: Last, but not least, get people talking on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Set up accounts, monitor the conversations about your products and start engaging with your fans. Keep conversations flowing, keep links coming in and keep interest in your product high. Because if there’s a buzz surrounding your product, the search engines will take notice.
There Really is No Secret to SEO Success
None of this is really a secret.
If you have an amazing product, and you promote it well, the search engines are going to stand up and take notice. So instead of wasting your time listening to crackpot schemes from people who can’t see beyond the SERPs, start thinking about what your customers want.
A truly amazing product.
Once they have that, they’ll start to do the hard work for you.
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‘Have an amazing product’ – yes, that helps!
Mostly I’ve worked for clients with really amazing products. But from time to time, I’m stuck with a dead dog. Sometimes the client realizes it. Other times they’re dragging that dead dog around on a diamond studded leash like it’s the best dog in town. I find this one of the hardest parts of the job – promoting a weak product, and doing so with credibility, when the client wants to sing its praises to the moon.
When you achieve great results for a not-so-great product though, you feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment.
I think we’ve all had dead dog days.
My favourite ever was a website brief. It was a client who ran an animal shelter (no pun intended), whose USP was the fact that they’d have daily catwalks, where the poor abandoned mutts and moggies would be paraded in front of potential adopters.
Not too mental, I hear you think, but that was only half the site. The other half was her cottage business selling pottery.
Trying to balance all that was a nightmare.
There is no secret!! thanks! ahahaha
No. It’s like saying that you shouldn’t believe anyone who says they can promise eternal youth. That you know that healthy living and moderation are the key, and that you know the only reason you’re looking for secrets and miracles is because you don’t want to put the hard work in.