The Viable Alternative, And Most Beneficial Addition, To SEO

S, E and O are probably the three most talked about letters on the Internet. That’s because search engines were, and still are, deemed to be the most important form of advertising there is. However, this theory has its inherent problems. Even websites that are set up (intentionally or naturally) perfectly to benefit from the algorithms dreamt up by Google and other major search engines will spend some considerable time wallowing very close to the bottom of the search piles. And that’s only once they’re indexed. In the case of Google, touted as being the most populous and therefore important of all search engines, you could be waiting many weeks or even months before you receive the traffic you deserve.

The reason for the popularity of SEO is simple. When search engines first existed and first introduced the complex algorithms that they use to determine the relevance and value of a site, SEO was essential. Without good on-page optimization, a site simply didn’t rank on the top pages of search results and when a site doesn’t attain those lofty heights it doesn’t get hit. But these were the days when cramming a page with useless content containing repetitive and uninformative keyword stuffed content would gain the top spot for a search term.

The search engines soon learned of these “underhand” methods and introduced new algorithms. These algorithms penalized sites guilty of keyword spamming, and the result was a wave of blackhat SEOs trying to find other ways to dupe the search engines. Those ways soon became evident. To cut a long story short, search engines have discovered and for the most part beaten the less than desirable SEO actions of cloaking, redirecting, link building using link farms, and many more.

Finally they are left with a delicately balanced list of websites that have just the right amount of links gained over an appropriate period of time containing content that includes the appropriate percentage of keywords (not too many and not too few). Bear in mind that these formulae are supposed to encourage natural content and it is clearly ironic that search engines use so many mathematical equations to calculate which sites pass their rigorous test.

The long and short of this rant about search engine algorithms is that one of the methods they use to combat undesirable websites is to monitor the number and quality of inbound links. In the case of Google, any new site that suddenly finds itself with hundreds or even thousands of new links is believed to be up to no good.

So, the Google Sandbox is born, meaning that websites have to go through a period of purgatory before they receive their proper ranking. Some claim this period is six weeks, some claim it’s more like six months, some claim that it doesn’t exist, and others claim that it’s all a conspiracy headed by the unified Governments of the world in order to prevent freedom of speech. Regardless of the real time period, or the paranoia levels of the SEO profession, it leaves websites with a huge gaping hole where they receive no traffic despite their very best efforts.

So, to the real reason for this article – a viable alternative (or should that be addition) to SEO. The single most important alternative to SEO is good quality content posted regularly both on your site and off it. This can be done through the website itself, a blog, a forum, an external article directory, or any other method. The more content you can produce and post to your site the better. Firstly, this actually complements your SEO efforts because it will give you a greater number of keywords in your text but it will also work in other ways.

The Internet is awash with websites. In fact, that’s kind of the point of the while thing. Most of these websites are linked to one another through other websites. The more links, the more visitors a page receives. In theory, the more visitors a page receives, the more links it will get and so the circle continues.

Good quality content posted on your site provides you with a greater possibility that those search engines that have indexed you will pick up on your pages and give you rankings. However, the big advantage comes from offering your visitors genuinely useful information. This useful information is what will persuade your visitors to keep visiting and also pass on the word about your site.

On the other hand, off page content will generate the visitors in the first place. By posting high quality articles to article directories, your site will soon make it onto the map. Websites, e-zines, and newsletters scour the pages of directories looking for valuable content to use. Because your article must be taken and used in its entirety, and because you had the good foresight to include a short paragraph about and a link to your own site you will get traffic. And so the circle begins. More traffic means more links. More links means more traffic. I’m sure you get the picture.

So top quality content is where the sensible money lies. By all means optimize the pages of your site but don’t sit around idly waiting for six years (or however long) until your site gets indexed. Instead, get networking. Post articles, join forums, post on blogs, and generally do what good marketing people have been doing for years – sell yourself.

WebWiseWords offers the services of a freelance copywriter. They can create genuinely beneficial visitor orientated SEO content that appeals to search engine algorithms and human eyes. For more details visit the WebWiseWords copywriter page at http://www.webwisewords.com