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Search Optimization 101: Pre-face
A lot of people want to get to the "top" of Google, but don't really understand what that means. The only thing they understand is that every day, more and more people are using Google to find what they're looking for, so, if they can manage to come up at the top of the search results, it'll translate into more business for their company. Armed with that understanding, many begin to make bad choices... some will fall victim to companies claiming that they can get you a #1 ranking in a matter of days, others will pay top-dollar to Google Adwords in order to be displayed in sponsored links that appear at the top of the results. With that said, allow me to explain the two largest pit-falls that people usually find themselves in by not properly researching the optimization process before they go to spend their money...
- Sites don't show up at the "top" of Google. They show up as the "top" listing for a specific word or phrase that someone searches for. Now, think for a moment about what this means for your business. Let's say you're in the business of selling cars - go ahead & do a Google search for the word "car". Now do another search for the word "cars". This simple test will show you that something as trivial as adding an "s" onto the end of a word can change the results that you see & companies looking to make a quick buck off you will use that to their advantage. You might be ranked #1 in Google in a matter of days... for the phrase "cobalt blue 3-door cars" - they'll fulfill their end of the bargain & because no one is searching for that phrase, you'll end up with just as few website visitors as when you started.
- A good percentage of the "clicks" that you receive from AdWords campaigns are fraudulent - you're getting charged for the clicks, but people aren't actually visiting your site. Now, you may be wondering... "Google is such a well-known & reputable company, why should I believe that they'd engage in doing that?" The answer is, they don't. Google makes more money by displaying advertisements though, so rather than stop at simply displaying the advertisements on their own site, Google devises several ways to get website owners to install Google advertisements on their sites as well. Sometimes it's by providing useful website features for free (such as the customized search results you'll find by doing a search in the upper right corner of this site), while other times, Google will actually PAY website owners based on the number of times their users click on Google Ads! Herein lies the problem. Programmers actually design programs that browse the web on their own just like a normal website visitor would, clicking on the AdWords links & making their owners rich in the process! When the program is designed well, Google can't tell the difference. Another scenario might also arise for particularly competitive ad-spaces...a program might be designed to click your advertisements repeatedly, thus driving up your monthly bill to get you out of the game so that another company can slip into your ad-spot when your account runs dry. Google tries to limit both of these scenarios but as long as it is in their financial interest to let these practices continue, I doubt they'll ever stop them completely.
Next: Search Optimization 101 - Doing Your Keyword Homework