Google, Relevancy, and SEO
My site now appears in the results, but I am nowhere near the first page of listings – how do I get there?
Google weights your site by a method it refers to as relevancy. How relevant is your site to the keywords listed? How popular is your site? How many other sites with similar keywords link to your site? How important are these sites?
For instance, if you have a link to your site from some other site that is not highly ranked or popular – it does not count as much as if you have a link to your site from a more respected site. Specifically, let’s say you have a link to your site on CNN or in Wikipedia. That link would be worth the same weight as dozens of links from personal blogs or other sites. Some links may count negatively against you if they are from “link farms”.
Relevancy also relates to timeliness. If your site hasn’t been updated in five years, then you obviously have nothing new to say on the subject and your ideas may no longer be relevant. The robot crawlers will eventually re-visit your site again and are smart enough to note if there are changes or not.
So to get your site to the top of the indexed search results, you need a site that is timely, up to date, linked to by other popular and important sites, and have your keywords used inside of the text of the site itself. This is not easily done, especially by amatuers.
So why pay for SEO? Can I do it myself? Who can I trust?
There are many companies that do this work for a living. They have years of experience, proper tools, education, and training on the subject. You wouldn’t tell your dentist that you are going to try to read a few books, practice on some volunteers, and then perform your own root canal. Some things are just best outsourced.
Again, many companies practice techniques that are not approved or ethical – and you do not want your site banned. So whether you choose eKrum for your SEO or not – please choose someone trustworthy!