There’s only one website on the planet that doesn’t have to worry about SEO, and that’s Google itself. Chances are, that’s not your website (if it is, I’m incredibly flattered). The rest of us? We have to worry about SEO – Constantly. And wherever there’s worry, there’s going to be someone selling a shortcut—something quick and easy that they say will solve all our problems instantly and let us go back to playing Galaga in the background.
Spoiler alert: quick and easy doesn’t win SEO, no matter what they promise you.
You’ve probably gotten emails (I know I have) promising quick fixes for just a quick payment. Sometimes it’s a piece of code they say just needs to be included in your HTML. There’s no telling what that code will do, but it won’t suddenly shoot you to the top of Google’s page #1.
Think about it… if just a line of code could do something that amazing, why isn’t every website using it?
Or maybe you’ve gotten an offer that promises thousands upon thousands of clicks. Offers like these probably aren’t false promises, but they’re also not going to help you in the long run. Often these purchases result in a small army of users in a remote country such as India or China repeatedly accessing your site over and over again for days on end. Sure, it’ll boost your traffic, but while this sort of trick used to grab the attention of search engines (who then boost you higher in the results), companies like Google have gotten wise to it. They can now spot this type of shortcut and will punish you for it.
The Right Stuff for the Wrong Reasons
Other offers promise backlinks, which is when a more reputable site (like Buzzfeed) posts links to your site. When done correctly, Google sees this as a vote of confidence and your site earns higher exposure. But when done incorrectly, such as through operations known as “link farms”, Google knows you’re trying to cheat the system. And guess what happens then?
Yup. Google punishes you. And do you know what it’s like when you get dropped to page eight of Google search results? No one knows because no one ever makes it to the eighth page of Google search results!
Why not just play by the rules?
You’d be surprised by the number of major websites who have fallen for these traps… and wound up hurting themselves. JC Penny is one famous case, and despite being a huge retail player, even they wound up on Google’s bad side after trying to game the system.
And if JC Penny can’t get away with it… what makes you think any of us can?
But this is all good news. It means that search traffic on the major players (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc) will more than ever go to the sites that have truly earned it—the sites that have earned backlinks on other sites, who write meaningful SEO blogs instead of just filling pages with keywords, who build for the customer and thus attract legitimate customers.
Play the game by the rules, and you’ll see a difference. Cheat, and you’ll get caught. This I can promise.