Search Engine Optimization (and how not to sell your services)

Ok, today's lesson is about how not to do things. You know the kind of selling technique that states something obvious and then asks you to fork out your hard-earned dosh on the grounds that because the obvious has been said what has been left unsaid really needs no saying, trust, reliability and top-notch quality service come as standard, right?

Wrong!

It is so wrong that, at a personal level I'm sometimes moved to start a website called: 'people whose products and services you should avoid like the plague'. Now I don't because I think, what if these guys are alright? What if their only sin on planet Earth is a child-like impression that just because they wrote a simplistic article on why you should buy something, you will go ahead and do so? The thought stays my coding arm.

But let's take it from the beginning. Articles of this kind usually start with a no-brainer like search engine optimization (SEO to the initiated). Everyone needs it like oxygen right? Wrong again (but I'll get back to that later). So, for now let's assume everyone needs it. Ok, this is an actual article that landed in my inbox by a guy called Steve which begins like this:

"Search engine optimization is all about taking your site to the top of search engine rankings. Everyone wants and has an online site about any goods or service they are offering. If you want to sell something to the public, you must have a website. Everybody is busy these days, and consequently does not have the time to actually go to stores to check out and buy any goods that they need. The internet has become the market place to sell anything. Quick and easy accessibility is what people look for in the internet. Internet is the best source for you to sell your goods and services."

You have to admire the circuitous logic: "Everyone wants and has an online site…The internet has become the market place to sell anything…Internet is the best source for you to sell your goods and services." This, of course is the online text-sell equivalent of "look deep into my eyes...", by the time you finish reading the first paragraph (that's right it's only the first salvo folks) you will be salivating with the desire to have an online site so you can sell your goods and services on the internet.

I suppose the dropping of the definitive article in the last sentence of that seminal piece of literary exertion is an indication of things to come and, since we are beginning to get a little semantic even at this early stage, the internet cannot possibly become the source of anything other than services you purchase or information you get. If you are selling (future article writers please try not to forget) then the net can be a means, a medium, a channel or – at a stretch – a conduit through which you sell your products and services.

But let's get to para two:

"Ok, so now you have a site that has all relevant information about your business, but many people do not know about your site. This is where search engine optimization is needed for your site. Search engine optimization is the different methods that can be used and implemented for popularizing your website. Yes you need to tell everyone that you have a site and tell them really well. Search engines are the key if you want to be successful in online business."

Please forgive Steve's simplistic on net matters you-are-only-a-2-year-old-child tone and concentrate instead on the content (I know, I know, he's trying my patience too). In para two things have progressed: you've gone from salivating about a site with currency signs rolling in your eyes in a convincing imitation of a Vegas one-arm-bandit, as you thought of the countless credit card waving hordes waiting for you to put your site up on the net, to actually owning a site.

Imbecile that you are you gave the site to your brother in law's six-year-old son to build and the kid knows nothing about SEO. Thankfully Steve's piece is here to e-x-p-l-a-i-n: "…many people do not know about your site."

You need to tell them somehow.

Of course, any website designer or website design studio that does this for a living offers SEO either as standard or as an optional extra but, kids…hey? What'd you expect?

So Steve says: "There are different things that can be done for Search Engine Optimization of your site. Link building is the most popular and the most effective means for popularizing your site very quickly in the web. For link building it is vital to search in the web and find out those sites that deal with similar product to yours. This means that your link will be place[d] on those sites, and visitors can actually come to your site through that link. One way inbound links are more beneficial for your site."

I'm going at this stage to abandon grammar entirely. I won't question whether "…Search engine optimization is the different methods…" in paragraph two is correct or whether things are 'on' or 'in' the net because that's how grown men end up losing their hair, so I'll just mention instead that what Steve says about links, particularly good quality inbound ones is correct. Now only if he could tell me how, instead of what I would be happy but for that, I guess, I have to wait until he realizes I haven't been two for at least forty years.

"Blogging is another great way for you to become visible in the web. The key to blogging is to write quality blogs about different elements of the product that you are selling. If your blogs are very well written chances are there that your site will become very popular. People will even start talking and discussing about your blogs in forum. Imagine how much of publicity you can gain form this. So simply go ahead and start blogging and increase the popularity of your site."

Ok Stevie! Ok! I just need to go ahead and…oh…but..where? How?

"Search engines are the kings in the web. So if you want your site to be successful, you have to get recognition from search engines. For this you need to get high rankings in search engines. Search engines give rankings to websites based on different criteria. Search engine spiders also known as bots crawl different sites to find out if they are meeting all search engine requirements or not. Based on this websites are given rankings by search engines. And it is this ranking that determines how your site is faring in the web."

Right! Right! I'll pick blogging up later, it's search engines I need to get right now plus a course on solipsist syllogism.

"This is not all: there are many other reasons for you to gain popularity in search engines. A study has shown that most of the people using the web take the help of search engines to find information about any thing in the web. So anyone who is searching for information about your product and service, your site will be listed at the top of search findings. This means visitors will automatically come to your site and buy your products."

Now you are talking ma man! All I have to do is get my site at the top of a search engine listings for visitors to beat a riotous path to my virtual door and just bury me under all that lucre they will credit card my way. I mean…if it's that easy why don't I automatically go to numero uno with some heavy duty investing in the form of sponsored Google listings?

"Before you embark on any search engine optimization process for your site, it is very important for you to know what you are exactly doing. Try to gather as much information as you can about any method that you are undertaking for the purpose of search engine optimization of your website. This is your site and you must know everything related to your site. After all your business performance depends on this."

Geez! Now he's gone and spoilt it by placing the onus of success back on my shoulders. Stevie's finale is as challenging to the neocortex as watching paint dry but that is not really his fault, because someone before him told him the one other technique for improving your website traffic is to write articles about things you know about. Knowing however does not make you eminently able to write about them in an accessible, intelligent way.

The 'content is King' slogan applies not just to black squiggles that fill the on-screen white space but to letters, words and sentences that make your brain go into a higher gear. After all you are here, investing time and effort. The very least I can do, as an article writer, is produce stuff that actually makes sense. More sense than "you need a website…get one…now I optimize…you make money…capish?"

Ok, enough fun for the moment. For all I know, the grammatically-challenged Steve may be an SEO genius. Personally, however on the basis of his article I wouldn't use a barge pole to probe his site much less his services.