The game of the moment is how to rank first in Google and other search engines, years ago it was an easy task, in fact so easy that a decade ago just manipulating the metatags you would be able to achieve highest positions on search engines; unfortunately with the Google algorithm getting more and more savvy every day, this is not the case anymore. Anyway it doesn’t mean it can stop you from appearing first in search engines, if you are creative enough, even if your website sucks you can get high rankings on Google and other search engines (or at least high traffic from search engines to your site). Some of the techniques I describe here are based on my experience working with different clients from products to services. I hope this article gives you a better understanding of how search engines work and how you can take advantage of them even if your website sucks.
The Problem Ranking First On Search Engines
The problem to rank first on search engines is that you have to have two things that are not easy to achieve without honest hard work, the first one is link popularity and the second one is relevant content. Even though Google analyzes about 200 factors to rank your site, undoubtedly these two are the most relevant.
Honest Link Popularity is difficult to achieve because it doesn’t depend on you, it depends on the criteria of the many users who arrive to your site (and think that your information is so useful and relevant that is worth to link to). These links are difficult to get especially when the source of the information is an authority. It is not the same to have an incoming link from the New York Times than having an incoming link from a farm directory in spammyland. Google qualifies authority sites from 1 to 10, the higher the ranking the more relevant the link, and the more relevant the link, the better the influence in your search engine ranking positions. You cannot go to link farms and create 1,500 links in a day and think that will help you… it is not! and Google already knows those sites are not worth a penny, they also know that you cannot go to the New York Times and ask a journalist specialized in your topic to write an article about you, including a link, search engines are savvy, more than you can even imagine.
The second problem to rank high in search engines is to create relevant content… if you create your site 10 years ago and you have keep it that way since then, you will never achieve the same positions of sites that are updated regularly with new articles and media content every day. The more content and the better quality of it, the better for your ranking in search engines. Good content is difficult to create because it requires a good knowledge of your industry, most of the time much better knowledge than your competitors; and it also requires a lot of dedication and resources, if you are going to write the articles you need to have the time, if you don’t you have to pay qualified people to do the job, which most of the time is not cheap.
So if you don’t have good link popularity and good content what are the options of your sites to appear first on search engines? NONE!… that’s the reality, but not the end of the world, there are some legal workarounds that you can use and benefit from this traffic even if your website sucks.
You can appear first on search engines even if your website sucks; in order to do that you need to take any of these two approaches: Ranking first on search engines by using “Universal Optimization” or Ranking first by just being creative and “implementing legal workarounds”.
Ranking first on search engines by using “Universal Optimization”
In May 16 2007 Google introduced “Universal Search” that basically blends results from news, video, images, local, products, books and most recently social networks and blogs. So if your site doesn’t’ rank first from your keywords of interest why don’t you implement a “Universal Optimization” strategy and pay more attention to other media content in your site (other than text) with better possibilities.
For instance… if you search for “Learn English” in Google, you will see that the 4th result is a video commercial from a small local English school in Netherlands called “Soesman Language Institute”, it is not their website, which is far away from appearing in search results by these terms. The video that has been seen more than 6’000.000 times since released in December 1998. It is a powerful marketing tool and has allowed them to get a great position on search results (for a better competitive keyword) just by focusing on different media rather than text.
You can do the same by focusing in news, images, products, blogs or social media, with “Universal Search” opportunities are open to implement a real strategy for “Universal Optimization” and get stronger on areas where your competition may still be weak.
Ranking first in search engines by implementing “creative workarounds”
If your website sucks and you are not definitely close to achieve top rankings in search engines you can be creative and work in different fronts, here are just some:
1. Vertical Sites.
One of my clients had a difficult time ranking for their keywords of interest: “Learn English In New York” the strategy was to find a vertical site (specialized just on this industry) with top rankings already and include a profile page of my client there. The result was fantastic I found a company specialized just in language courses abroad called abroadlanguages.com on this website we created a complete profile page under the category “Learn English in New York” at that moment there was more information on this profile page that in the whole entire website of my client. As a result my client got immediate rankings on Google because where people was searching for “Learn English In New York” this profile page was appearing in positions 5 to 10, but always on the main page. All student request received through this page were received from my client, in average 20 serious inquires per day. The lesson here is that you can benefit from organic rankings by using vertical sites that allow you to generate profile pages from your business.
2. Retail Stores & Shopping Engines
One of my clients produces and sells convertible strollers for babies, and they were having a really hard time ranking for their keywords of interest “bicycle baby carrier” after doing the analysis of the competition and analyzing the sites that were getting good rankings for these keywords we concluded that 5 of the 10 first results were resellers other than manufacturers. These resellers were on the following positions: Amazon:1,2; Walmart: 4; Sports Authority: 8; Models: 9; Tiptoeturtle:10; and 2 more sites were from shopping engines: Nexttag: 5 and Epinions: 6
That left MyZigo (my client) with just three positions available in an environment dominated for big players. Based on this analysis I recommended them to place their products on retail stores and shopping engines instead trying to rank on the top ten results for these keywords; the result couldn’t be better, if today you search for these keywords in Google, the stroller of MyZigo appear first, even with a thumbnail picture on the left side, the site is not theirs but they are definitely benefiting from these sales, the site at the top is a retailer store called www.jazzygearsports.com who is now carrying MyZigo products. By using this strategy myzigo was able to reach top positions and sale more products even tough their site has undertaken minor changes over the past year.
3. Marketplaces
Let’s say you are talent voice producer and you have your personal site, no matter how nice is your site most likely will take you months if not years of work to rank organic in search engines, one way you can do it faster and get exposure in search engines is using market places. Marketplaces are niche market sites specialized in just one product, for instance it will make more sense to you to register to voice123.com, or voices.com to get found that try to rank your personal site over theirs; by doing this you can benefit from organic traffic to your business and believe me, even if it cost you some it would be much less that you would have to spent if you want to rank first on Google for this category.
4. Lead Generation Sites
I have few clients in the finance and insurance business, the problem they have, specially in these challenging environment is that getting new clients and their sites at the top in search engines is very tough. Finance and Insurance are some of the most competitive industries in search engines and where I’ve seen more expensive click prices in online marketing campaigns. So if you want to benefit from organic search engine traffic sometimes is easier to partner with these kind of companies; if you enter the term “car insurance quotes” in Google, the site at the top result will be http://www.carinsurancequotes.com/. Even tough is not your site if you are on their database on the same local area where the consumer is looking to buy a car insurance you will get this lead. Off course is not free but it is cheaper that try to get to the same position for the same keywords on your own. The good thing is a that a lead is much better qualified prospect than just a click, but be careful, the business practices from some of these sites are not the greatest, some of them sell the lead to a lot of people (more than 10) or sometimes the sell the same lead but a year after. If you have the fortune to find a good lead generation site for your local area stick with it and benefit from organic traffic and great businesses opportunities.
5. Affiliate Marketing
If your site really sucks and you are not willing to pay the price to achieve top ranking positions, then join the companies that can do the dirty job for you… this is know as “Affiliate Marketing”. Let’s say you have a small hotel or local break & breakfast in your area; but you don’t have muscle power and expertise to get exposure in search engines… what you can do is to join firms that can do this part not just for you but also for other small lodgings in your area. On this way, one single company will concentrate on the ranking and promotion and you will concentrate on your business and forget your crappy website. One great sample of these kind of sites is www.letmego.com, the have a large database of affiliated places in several cities and they promote the industry as a whole, then if somebody request a stay in your area, you will get the request and bid on it. You will pay only if the user book the stay with you, and the payment is just an small commission over the final sales price. By doing this you have thousands if not millions more of possibilities that somebody can find you by using these terms on Google, than promoting the site yourself.
So even though your website sucks don’t give up, you can still have some exposure in search engines if you do it right, just be creative, use all available resources and sites out there and get results. Happy Traffic!