Keanu Reeves Teaches a Lesson In Getting in the Google Search Engine Lisitngs
In the movie The Matrix Keanu Reeves character Neo utters the line: “You can’t scare me with this ”Gestapo crap.’ I know my rights.” when Agent Smith is interrogating him. I have found a parallel between this situation in The Matrix and the SEO experts that advise us how to get well ranked in the Google search engine listings. The seem to try and scare us into things that without their products or advice we will never rank in the search engine listings.
For the longest time I thought that learning how to get ranked in the Google search engine listings was a mystery. We have been led to believe that Google does not tell us how to optimize out sites for high rankings in its search engines listings.
Now remember not to listen to me but, I believe that the wool has been pulled over our eyes.
We have been told that the ability to gain a great ranking in the Google search engine listings is difficult because Google does not tell exactly what we need to know in order to rank well. Take a moment to think about where this information comes from. Most often the people that tell you that it is a real mystery on how Google decides who ranks well are doing one of two things:
1. Trying to sell you an eBook on how to rank better in the Google search engine listings
2. Regurgitating some info that they read somewhere on a blog or forum (that was probably regurgitated from somewhere else as well).
Here is where this all came from <insert movie style dream transition>:
I was speaking with a guy from work (and as an update, I no longer am stuck in my crappy graphic design job, I now work as a web designer) who has been doing SEO work, as he said for over 15 years. So to me, this guy knows what he is talking about. It’s his job to make sure our clients sites rank well in the Google search engine listings, so I assume that he knows what he is doing. Our clients pay $1000’s of for his services.
I get to pick his brain and pass the info on to you for free.
During one of our conversation I had mentioned that it is tough to get sites to rank because Google doesn’t reveal how it determines which sites go where.
He looked at me like I was stupid…
He said that that was absolutely not true. I was a little taken back. He explained that Google has a section called Webmaster Tools that shows you how to optimize your site for the Google search engine listings. He went on to explain that Google is pretty much completely transparent when it comes to how they rank sites.
After hearing this, I became broken.
He went on to explain that the top things you can do to get ranked in a site are the following:
1. Getting backlinks to your site from authority sites of a simlair topic with the keywords you are trying to rank for as anchor text.
2. The length of time your domain is registered for. IF you has two identical sites, the only difference is that one is registered for 1 year and the other is registered for 20 years, the 20 year site will rank higher. Google assume you will be around for longer.
My recommendation to getting ranked in the Google search engine listings is to stop listing to the “gurus” that are trying to sell you a product, or have recycled information that they heard somewhere else and head straight to the Google Webmaster tools and educate yourself. I mean the first line from the sign up page is:
“Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google.”
Stop buying idiotic SEO products and begin taking steps to get your site ranked highly in the Google search engine listings.
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Comments
I totally agree with you and I love using Google webmasters tools. But for some reasons I don’t think too many people even know about that Google webmasters tools. And I found out about it some years ago through a blog that mentioned it…
Prisquas last blog post..Men & Feelings
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