Unrealistic Seach Engine Ranking Obsession

Aug 4, 2009 Posted by Judith in Business Tips, Marketing Tips, Musings, SEO | SEM

Men Working Above: On their Rankings! There are many a Web site owner who is obsessed and at the same time extremely frustrated with their organic/natural (free) search engine rankings. I get that. They want to rank highly for every possible word combination someone may use to find them. I get that (albeit unrealistic expectation) too.

But, what I don’t get is that when advised what is necessary to feed their obsession, they immediately question the amount of work and commitment necessary to attain the very rankings they claim to desire. That’s where the frustration comes in.

Too much work…
Too much cost…
Too much writing…
Too much testing…
Too much tracking…

“Above the fold” rankings, “Top 10″ or at least attaining top page positions on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are important. But why is it so many begin to twitch (not Tweet) when what is involved to actually attain that visibility is discussed?

Unfortunately, while it is possible to attain great rankings; it is not probable for many. The fact is that while most site owners desire those rankings they are unwilling to do even the core basics of what is necessary to attain them.

So they listen to “friends” who in reality don’t have a clue, they buy eBooks that are filled with hooey, they hire consultants with “solutions” that simply cater to what they want to hear and don’t want to deal with.

When, the bottom line is… It is what it is folks!

You need the code and structure the search engine crawlers can read. You need to be relevant to what you want to be found for — extremely relevant to get on that top page. You need inbound one way links from related and authority sites because you have content worth linking to. You need a continual flow of concentrated well written targeted content that caters to customers and crawlers alike.

Re-read that last paragraph — while not the end-all-be-all that’s it in a nutshell!

Great search engine rankings do not happen by osmosis, simply because you want them to happen, because you are good at your profession or because you believe you have a better site than those listed before you. Even having a great looking site if not planned, structured and written, marketed and grown with rankings in mind — in the first place — will not attain the positions everyone salivates over.

Most of all you need to be realistic about the competition and saturation of the market you are trying to penetrate. Ignore these facts and you are handicapped. You have to be prepared to be as aggressive as necessary and as niche as required to attain the rankings you claim to want or they simply will not happen.

It takes time and hard work to acquire killer rankings and it is a never ending process. That last sentence my friends, is what sends many running for the hills and separates the men from the boys.

You can throw money at “solutions” that negate the facts of how to get great rankings. But at the end of the day you’ll just be wasting time and throwing good money after bad.

The sooner you embrace the reality of what it takes to attain outstanding search engine rankings over the long haul, the sooner you will enjoy ROI.

At your service,
Judith