SEO a Simple Definition

I thought today I would take a quick break from our series on Link Building for Leads and Profits and explain SEO in a nutshell. In that series I am going more in depth about what used to work vs what actually works now but I’ll sum it up for you here in a nutshell. SEO is both simple and complicated, so if you’re feeling frustrated because you don’t know how to do it yet, this is the post for you.

SEO (stands for “search engine optimization”) is the art of getting your website ranked highly in Google by offering more value than competing websites as confirmed by links and shares.

This means that #1 your site needs to offer a ton of value and #2 you can’t be the only one that thinks so : )

If your content (articles, audioes, videos, graphics, etc.) are good enough, someone will link to it if they see it. Our job as SEOs then is to #1 create highly valuable content and #2 to get that content in front of people and ask for the link.

If we set aside our desire to “just get ranked” or “just get links” and think about what Google is trying to do, it will help us understand that their main goal is to offer the most valuable pages to their searchers. This means that we have to ask ourselves an honest question about the pages and sites we are trying to get ranked.

The #1 SEO question you should be asking about your site is this:

“Does my page actually deserve to rank #1 for this keyword term because it is offering more or equal value to the search engine results pages?

More often than not, the answer is “no,” our sites don’t deserve to rank. Deep inside we know this which is why we look for all kinds of ways to game the system by creating hundreds of low quality links or paying someone on Fiverr to SENuke our new posts or create link wheels.

In my experience, network marketers are often the worst offenders. Many in our industry are quick to try to sell and slow to offer value. This is why nearly every blog in our industry has pop-up opt-in forms and dozens of flashing banners. It’s fine to want to make money and to want to make it fast, but more often then not, you’ll do better by offering more value – at least in search.

So in conclusion, the key to understanding SEO is not in LINKS but VALUE. Therefore, the driving questions behind good SEO is “how can I offer more value and get that value in front of people who will be likely to appreciate and share it” rather than, “how can I get more links.” The first question will lead to a sustainable internet business, the second to frustration and search failure.