Having spent endless hours researching the net and reading what feels like every computer geeks perspective on Google page ranking, search engine optimization and site promotion I have come to the following conclusions: 1. Dont develop your website to make Google spiders happy, develop your site to make your visitors happy. Why? Because people are what will make you successful, not Google spiders that crawl your site. Sure, its important to do what you can to improve your site rankings and promotion. But once you have applied the basics of setting up your site, fined tuned your meta and page tags and submitted your site to various search engines and directories, STOP and ask yourself what is the ROI on your time? What are you REALLY getting out of pouring your life away over another promo trick or one more article written by some geek who has little or no ability to relate to the human side of the Internet equation? What ever happened to plain old customer service? 2. There are only three (3) possible actions a person can take when they arrive at your site. They can click the back button and go back to Google or some other search engine. They can visit the site and review your offerings or they can click a link and go on to the next site. Out of these three options, the best are they visit and check out your offering and they click and go on to the next site so that the next business might have an opportunity to make a presentation of their offering. The worst thing a visitor can do is click the back button and go back to Google or some other search engine. Why? Well ask yourself, what has Google or any other search engine done for you lately? Will Google or any other search engine let you advertise for free? Well, when you have done a lot of hard work whether it is writing articles or online and offline advertising to get your visitor to your site, why in the world would you want that person to go to Google for free? I dont know about you but I would much rather have my visitor come to your site so you have a chance to make a buck in this dog eat dog market. 3. Back to people for a momentI got news for you, people are SICK of hyper advertising get rich quick crap that promises to show them how to be successful by giving up their email address and other confidential information for another false promise. People dont buy into that hype. It repels them. It repels me. If you have a viable product or service, put up the best site you can, tone down the hype, get honest and make your site a place people want to visit and bookmark (.) A place that people will visit again and again because of the content of the information on the site that benefits them. If your site has quality information on it people will bookmark it and spread the word to their friends and family. And word of mouth is the most powerful advertising tool you will ever find to promote your site. I have a comprehensive business backgroundand at 48 years old I have seen and done it all, management, marketing, direct sales, real estate and mortgage banking. I have authored and published books, been a media spokesperson, appeared on local, regional and national TV, I have signed autographs and personally filled orders and all of it revolved around customer service to people. People make you successful. And I have a new found skill set developing a website to help promote my products. But I dont hype it. Its a simple site that has a really BIG bang for the buckthe BANG is for the people who visit the site. I think its a cool place for information people need. And that brings me around to the meat of this article. THINK LINKSpeople get to your website because of links. Traffic is what you wantlots of traffic. I have had people tell me that they only wanted to exchange links with very qualified, targeted vertical markets. One case was a guy trying to sell a computer book, I offered to exchange a link with him because my website is called Smart Books and we sell real estate and business kits and books but not technology products. I thought it would be a nice link to offer my visitors. He declined. Which makes about as much sense as having a computer store in the mall and rejecting all visitors who dont read computer books. Another technical geek idiot who doesnt understand that eyeballs on product is what sells products. He lives in that stupid geek universe where offline buzzwords like target market and vertical market are more importanthe read to many articles written by other geeks. Sure, its important to have link relevancy on your site but the key is to diversifygive your visitors alternatives. So heres the deal: I am on your side in the quest to serve customers and develop a site following. The quest to drive the market to your website. But if you are on a limited budget like I am, THINK LINKS. Relevant link exchange is one of the most powerful tools you have to promote your site and improve your site page rankings. Visit our website at the link below, check it outthere is a link button on the home page that will explain the linking process with us and provide everything you need. If you think your site is relevant to ours, submit your site. We will check out your site and if your site is relevant, well link you! Its just that simple! We are all in this together and when you consider all the help you are getting from Google and given the fact that Yahoo directory wants $300-$600 to submit your site for "review" link exchange has tremendous value. Copyright 2006
James W. Hart, IV
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