SEO: A Tool For Boosting Your Ranking, Not A Silver Bullet

There are many people who have just enough knowledge of the way the Internet and search engines work to know that search engine optimization is important, but not enough knowledge to know that it will not just solve all your problems. SEO is not something you can apply and then sit back and wait for people to visit your website. Yes, it is important and it is an extremely clever concept, but the incorrect application of SEO will no more increase your website traffic than handing out free balloons will make an ice cream shop’s profits go through the roof. Yes, it can help; no, it is not the whole deal.

It is no good setting up a website and paying lip service to the basics of SEO – throwing together some backlinks in other places, using keywords, and submitting a sitemap – and then, when the doors are not battered down by enthralled readers, complaining “but it had SEO! Clearly SEO isn’t as good as I was told it was!”. Correctly applied, SEO will certainly boost your Affiliate marketing Google ranking. Whether it will get you to the first page of results, only time will tell – but it is useful.

The major mistake people make is in treating SEO as the silver bullet that will make all the difference – if that were the case, then Google ranking would be entirely meaningless because everyone would have SEO on their site. It needs to be remembered that good SEO and good content are the most potent combination for Google rankings.

Keyword Placement – As Important As The Words Themselves!

When writing content for a website, making it SEO compliant does not simply rely on having the right keywords in large enough volumes on the page. Although a good keyword volume will certainly help you – it certainly will not hurt – there is more that you can do to send your page ranking higher. In many cases, it can be something as simple as where you put your keywords that propels you from page two of the results up to page one. Bear in mind that no-one knows search logarithms like the search engine creators, so following some advice that comes from them will always help.

For one thing, the placement of keywords in what you consider your “title” section will be relevant. If you are running a blog like this one, using your keyword in your title is not essential, and for the ease of natural reading it should probably not be something you do every time – too much repetition is jarring for the reader because after a while all they can think of is you keyword. However, regular use of keywords in titles will pay off – Google weighs what is in the title more heavily than what is in the text.

Additionally, and in a way connected to this, the placement of keywords in links will also help you. Most blogging platforms immediately turn titles into links. In addition, rather than leaving a link in its “naked” form – for example, www.thisisalink.com/link – you should seek to make it a titled hyperlink with the text including your keyword. This, too, is weighted more heavily than an isolated keyword reference.